ZedVlog

You may remember the play from an otherwise dreary 2015 season at Miami: The Hurricanes, down three and needing a miracle at Duke, pulled off an eight-lateral kickoff return to win the game. It was controversial and shouldn’t have counted. But it did. After the game, James Coley, Miami’s offensive coordinator, was asked what the play was called.

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Coley began to sing.

“Deeessssperado,” he sang, invoking the Eagles’ classic.

“He really seemed comfortable and happy at home in Miami, but the ’Canes’ losing and turmoil may have soured that,” recalled Matt Porter, at the time the Miami beat writer for the Miami Herald. “Much like Manny Diaz’s defense in the Mark Richt era, Coley’s offense wasn’t the problem with Al Golden’s ’Canes.”

That’s the gist of conversations with several people familiar with Coley’s previous run as a play caller: That he deserved another chance. And now he has one, after Georgia named him its new offensive coordinator and play caller on Friday.

The move is not a shock: Coley was Georgia’s co-coordinator, a title bestowed last year. He sat next to Jim Chaney in the press box this past season. The move allows for continuity with an offense that finished seventh nationally in yards per play and a team that averaged 37.9 points per game.

“James has been a critical part of our staff since we came to Georgia,” head coach Kirby Smart said in a statement Friday. “He’s done an incredible job in all aspects of his responsibilities including coaching wide receivers for two years, serving as co-offensive coordinator this past season coaching the quarterbacks, and recruiting. James has extensive coordinator experience during his entire coaching career and will transition easily into his new role.”

There will still be doubters, though, concerned about Coley’s previous experience as the play caller at Miami, which was 71st nationally in scoring offense in his final season. But people around Miami paint a more positive picture of Coley’s play calling, which produced consecutive seasons ranked No. 11 nationally in yards per play.

“I think he’s damn good. I think he called a good game for Miami,” said Joe Zagacki, the play-by-play announcer for Miami football games. “He gave Miami a fighting chance. Probably should have had a few more wins on his résumé, but didn’t get a whole lot of help from the other side of the ball.”

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Zagacki sat in on a lot of offensive meetings with Coley and the offensive staff. Golden, the head coach, also was in most meetings, but Coley was in charge, as Zagacki remembers. Coley wasn’t afraid to ask questions of assistants. His skill was using formations and matchups to keep opponents off-balance, something he learned from Jimbo Fisher when Coley was on Fisher’s staff at Florida State from 2010-12.

“He did a really good job at Miami for what he had,” Zagacki said. “He had some good weapons. Maybe incomplete weapons because they’ve always been in the process of trying to build.

“To be honest, I think he tried to make Miami’s offense a Southeastern Conference offense, with some spread stuff. But his vision for Miami was to be more of a Southeastern kind of offense, and be able to run the ball, have heavy packages with two tight ends, spread it out when you have to, have some misdirection, but you’ve got to be able to run the ball. That’s what he had to be able to do at Miami, and I’m sure that’s what he’s going to want to do at Georgia.”

The problem with trying to run that offense at Miami, as Zagacki put it, was it didn’t have the offensive line that was needed. That’s historically been an issue at Miami, where it tends to recruit better skill-position players.

Here is how Miami ranked nationally in Coley’s three years:

• 2015: 48th in yards per play, 71st in scoring, 32nd in passing yards per attempt, 112nd in rushing yards per attempt
• 2014: 11th in ypp, 62nd in scoring, 48th in passing yards per attempt, 22nd in rushing yards per attempt
• 2013: 11th in ypp, 33rd in scoring, 10th in passing yards per attempt, 36th in rushing yards per play

“I remember some really productive Miami offenses,” Porter said. “He had great running backs (two years of Duke Johnson), strong-armed QBs (Stephen Morris and Brad Kaaya, the latter of whom loves him) and loads of receivers (Allen Hurns, Phillip Dorsett) and TEs (Clive Walford, Chris Herndon, David Njoku). Miami had NFL weapons everywhere and he mostly used them effectively. It was, to be fair, a plum assignment.”

The undoing in Coley’s final year, beyond the defense, was the running game. But he also had a young quarterback, Kaaya, who started as a freshman in 2014 and improved as a sophomore in his second year with Coley.

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Then Golden was fired midway through the 2015 season. Mark Richt eventually was hired and wanted to call plays and coach quarterbacks. So it wasn’t going to be a fit for Coley to stay. He went to Richt’s former school, where he was hired as receivers coach.

For the next two years, Coley recruited very well, proving valuable enough that Smart, to keep Coley from rejoining Fisher at Texas A&M, gave him the co-coordinator title, a substantial raise ($450,000 to $850,000) and allowed him to switch to quarterbacks coach.

The perception remained that Coley’s strength was recruiting, and that was his main value to the staff. Now he gets a second shot at play calling and a chance to end that perception.

But the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

“What a quandary for a coach, right? Because they all want to get away from that (reputation as a recruiter), I suppose. But it all comes down to having better players,” Zagacki said. “So I don’t think he’s going to want to get too far away from the reputation of selecting good players. Good players equal good offense.”

(Photo by Blane Marable)

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