Booger McFarland is right, Miami football is never coming back

Booger McFarland said on The Paul Finebaum Show on Thursday the Miami Hurricanes are never coming back. He’s right. They’re never coming back.

Booger McFarland got right to it regarding the Miami Hurricanes on Thursday.

McFarland appeared on The Paul Finebaum Show Thursday to talk about all things SEC football. The former LSU defensive lineman spoke glowingly about the job Dan Mullen is doing with the Florida Gators. He said if Ed Orgeron wasn’t his alma mater’s head coach, he would have loved to see Mullen switch SEC West schools when he was at Mississippi State.

The point of McFarland’s argument was how Florida isn’t really facing any major competition in-state. He recognizes how Miami and the Florida State Seminoles are rebuilding in the ACC, how the UCF Knights are content with being a really good Group of 5 program and how the South Florida Bulls are a mess right now.

While McFarland does believe Mike Norvell will have things humming in Tallahassee in no time, he doesn’t believe “The U” will ever get back to what it was during its two apices as a football program. Truthfully, McFarland isn’t wrong in his take about Miami football and here is why.

Florida might have a ton of talent in-state, but the Gators and the Seminoles will have an easier time recruiting to public universities than will the Hurricanes. UCF and South Florida play in the right Group of 5 conference, as the AAC routinely gets teams to New Year’s Six bowls in the College Football Playoff era. Plus, those two schools are in major cities like Orlando and Tampa.

We also have to look at where Miami stacks up in the ACC landscape.

Though the Hurricanes play in the easier of the two divisions, Manny Diaz is the least proven head coach in the ACC Coastal by a mile. Mack Brown has won a national title. David Cutcliffe, Justin Fuente, Bronco Mendenhall and Pat Narduzzi have all won the Coastal before. Even Geoff Collins faces less pressure in rebuilding Georgia Tech in a talent-rich state at a public university.

Over in the ACC Atlantic, the Clemson Tigers are the best program in college football under Dab Swinney. Scott Satterfield has the Louisville Cardinals trending up. Dino Babers, Dave Clawson and Dave Doeren are doing great jobs with the Syracuse Orange, the Wake Forest Demon Deacons and the North Carolina State Wolfpack, respectively. Also, Norvell now calls that division home.

Ultimately, Miami is a former football power that can only be the third-best program in its own state if Florida and Florida State are humming. Having at-best bottom-half head coach in awful ACC doesn’t help Diaz’s cause. Though he may get the Hurricanes back to respectability, they are the Nebraska Cornhuskers of the southeast. They’re never coming back. Thanks for the memories.

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