Miami Hurricanes Fanzine

Former Army coach Todd Berry was hired by Miami as quarterbacks coach Friday, the first hiring by the Hurricanes since four longtime assistants were fired earlier this month.

Berry spent the past two seasons as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Louisiana-Monroe. He was fired by Army in October 2003 after going 5-35 in parts of four seasons.

"Without question he will help our offense move forward," Miami coach Larry Coker said. "Todd has turned down opportunities to coach in the NFL, so we’re pleased to have him as part of our offensive staff."

The Hurricanes were 9-3 this past season, which ended with a 40-3 loss to LSU in the Peach Bowl. Three days after that defeat — Miami’s worst bowl loss ever — Coker fired offensive line coach Art Kehoe, offensive coordinator Dan Werner and running backs coach Don Soldinger, plus linebackers coach Vernon Hargreaves.

Coker said he hasn’t decided who will serve as offensive coordinator or if there will be any major schematic changes.

Berry’s team at Louisiana-Monroe this past season featured quarterback Steven Jyles, who was the Sun Belt Conference’s player of the year. Berry’s offense yielded only nine sacks while throwing the ball 405 times during the 2005 season.

Berry also was head coach at Illinois State from 1996-99 and the offensive coordinator at East Carolina from 1992-95. Berry played under Coker when he was an assistant at Tulsa in the early 1980s.

Miami has gone 53-9 in five seasons under Coker, but six of those losses have come in the past two seasons — and the Hurricanes haven’t won the Atlantic Coast Conference title in either of their first two years as a member of that league.

 Rich Olson, who worked for three years on the Miami Hurricanes‘ coaching staff with great success in the early 1990s, has returned to the program as its new offensive coordinator.

"I think the University of Miami, our coaching staff and our players are fortunate to have Rich Olson as part of the football program," Miami coach Larry Coker said in a statement Friday. "He’s going to be a great addition because of his knowledge of football, but more important because of his ability to unite our offensive staff and get our offense going into the direction we want it to go."

A 29-veteran coach in college football and the NFL, Olson has coached some of the top names in college football and the NFL. He was Miami’s wide receivers coach in 1992 and was an integral part of Gino Torretta’s success when the quarterback won the Heisman Trophy that year.

Olson spent the last 11 years in the NFL with Seattle, Washington, Arizona, San Francisco and Minnesota, coaching quarterbacks Daunte Culpepper, Jake Plummer and Warren Moon, in addition to then-college players Trent Dilfer, and running backs Craig James and Eric Dickerson, the latter a Hall of Famer.

"I am so excited to be coming back to the University of Miami," Olson said. "I enjoyed my time here and now I get an opportunity to come back and compete for a national championship. That’s what college football is about.

"To win consistently, you have to be able to run the football. We have a really good quarterback, a tight end and receivers. But we have to be able to run the ball. We can’t throw it every down. If defenses have to defend the run and the pass, then we have a better chance to win."

He replaces Dan Werner, one of four assistants fired by coach Larry Coker after the Hurricanes went 9-3 last season.

 Art Kehoe spent nearly three decades helping build the Miami Hurricanes’ image as the swaggering bad boys of college football. His new mission: Bring that attitude to Mississippi.

"It’s all about being in shape, tough as hell, on time and busting your (hump) every day of your life," Kehoe said. "You can’t stop delivering the message. They’re going to get that message as hard as they can get it."

This spring is crucial for Kehoe and offensive coordinator Dan Werner, who are spreading that message in a new place. Forced out at Miami after a lopsided bowl loss, Werner and Kehoe joined Ole Miss coach Ed Orgeron, another ex-Hurricanes assistant, to help turn the Rebels’ recent stagger into a swagger.

"It’s not `We can win.’ We WILL win. That’s the attitude we want to have, and it starts from (each player) individually," Werner said. "If you’re blocking the best defensive lineman in the country, you have to have the attitude that `I’m going to kick his butt."

That was Miami’s reputation during the 1980s, and that’s the approach Ole Miss is taking to reverse Orgeron’s miserable first season in which the Rebels finished 3-8 with one of the worst offenses in the nation.

He tried to run the freewheeling system perfected at his previous stop, Southern California, by his mentor Pete Carroll. That plan backfired - at least partly because of philosophical differences with then-offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone.

Orgeron fired Mazzone after the Rebels ranked 111th in Division I-A with 281.7 yards per game and were last in the SEC with averages of 13.5 points and 73 yards rushing, and then searched for a coordinator capable of overhauling the offense.

He found a pair of assistants cast aside by his former employer. Miami fired Kehoe, Werner and two other coaches in the aftermath of an embarrassing 40-3 loss to LSU in the Peach Bowl.

Orgeron quickly snatched them up, making Kehoe his offensive line coach and putting Werner in charge of the offense.

"I told (Werner) I needed a coordinator that could come in and be confident in running his own scheme," Orgeron said. "Dan has complete control of the offense."

Werner plans to spend most of the spring teaching his players the basics of the Hurricanes’ pro-style offense, which is predicated on confusing defenses by running seemingly basic plays from multiple sets.

"I want our guys to run certain plays out of literally a hundred different formations," Werner said. "The philosophy is, keep it simple for our players, make it hard on the defense."

And, more importantly, prevent a culture of losing from forming at Ole Miss, the only SEC West school never to appear in the league championship game.

"You start winning games, you start getting cocky," Kehoe said.

Miami never had a problem believing it could win, and during two seasons in the late 1980s, this trio helped shape that attitude.

Orgeron and Werner were graduate assistants while Kehoe coached the offensive line in 1988, when Miami finished 11-1 and won the Orange Bowl in coach Jimmy Johnson’s final season.

Dennis Erickson took over in 1989, moved Orgeron to defensive line coach, made Werner a volunteer assistant and kept Kehoe in charge of the offensive line during the Hurricanes’ march to a third national championship.

They broke up the following year, with Werner moving to UNLV and eventually to several other schools before returning in 2001. Orgeron left Miami after the 1992 season and latched on at I-AA Nicholls State in ‘94.

Kehoe remained with the Hurricanes until he was fired after his 27th season as a player or coach in Coral Gables.

Now they’re together again, hoping to recreate Miami’s mystique in Mississippi.

"The first thing is to learn the schemes so (players) know what to do," Werner said. "Then, you’ve got to be a good enough player to back up what you’re talking about. And once you’ve got that confidence that you’re winning on the field and you know what you’re doing, it sort of builds itself."