Earlier Sunday night we had been told Miami was seriously considering Manny Diaz as its new head coach, and now sources say the deal is done.
Insert> The U has now announced the hire! Done deal.
After an 18-day stint as Temple's head coach, Diaz will return to his home town as Miami's head coach.
The AP's Tim Reynolds was the first to report the Diaz hiring was done.
As we wrote earlier tonight, the appeal here was obvious to both sides. Diaz spent the past three seasons as the 'Canes defensive coordinator and 2018 was perhaps his finest work, fielding a defense that ranked among the top five nationally in multiple categories despite the season being a major disappointment. Miami began the year as the AP's No. 8 team and finished at 7-6, prompting Mark Richt's surprise retirement mere hours ago.
The Richt retirement came at an obviously inconvenient time for Miami and its new head coach, given Diaz had taken another job and promptly signed 17 future Temple Owls who are now without a head coach. As a parting gift, Miami will pay Temple a $4 million buyout to pry Diaz out of his the-ink-is-still-drying contract.
Those ethical hurdles aside, the Miami job is Diaz's dream gig, & dream jobs don't come open every day.
With Diaz now gone, Temple has now lost five head coaches to Power 5 jobs this decade -- two of them to Miami. Al Golden left Philadelphia for South Beach after the 2010 season. Golden's 2015 firing set the wheels in motion for Miami to hire Richt, who brought Diaz aboard as his defensive coordinator.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.