Alonzo Highsmith says Miami’s location provides advantage over Alabama, others

The Miami Hurricanes hired the legendary Alonzo Highsmith as the team’s general manager of football operations last season. For Highsmith, the appeal of Miami has always been obvious.

As Highsmith explained, people want to live and play in Miami more than they do other places, like Alabama.

“One of the greatest things that Miami has is its location,” Alonzo Highsmith said. “People like coming to Miami. So, for our players to come back to Miami, most of them, a lot of them, live here in the community. A lot of them still live in the state of Florida.”

Famed head coach Howard Schnellenberger brought Miami to prominence by recruiting local talent in Miami and getting great local players to become Hurricanes. From there, he was able to build a program that players wanted to play for and it became an attractive destination to players from all over.

“To have them, you know, we’re not at Syracuse, we’re not at BYU, we’re not in Alabama. We’re right, there’s a direct flight to Miami and when you say, hey, let’s go to Miami, there’s not a wife in America that doesn’t say, ‘I wanna go to Miami,’ or something like that. ‘You go play football, I’ll sit by the pool.’ So, that’s the attraction to Miami.”

Miami’s campus is in Coral Gables, a community just outside of Miami. That’s about a half-hour drive from South Beach and reasonably easy to get to for students.

According to the On3 Industry Rankings, Miami has the 23rd-ranked recruiting class in the incomplete 2024 cycle. That’s after putting together the sixth-ranked class in the 2023 cycle. Still, more goes into recruiting than location. A program’s facilities, the coaching staff’s ability to develop players for the NFL, and NIL are all huge factors in recruiting.

Alonzo Highsmith is a Florida native who played at Miami in the 1980s. He originally was recruited by Schnellenberger but played primarily for Jimmy Johnson, winning a national championship in 1983. He went on to play in the NFL and became an NFL personnel executive in 2012.

Why Miami could climb the ACC standings in 2023

2022 was the first season at Miami for head coach Mario Cristobal and the team immediately under-performed. Despite this, On3’s JD PicKell believes that the Hurricanes could climb the ACC standings in 2023.

“Miami is my riser in the ACC. Now, listen, they had five wins a season ago. I think it’s starting to come together. You bring in a new OC in Shannon Dawson. A little more of an air-raid approach offensively, some more power concepts running the football,” PicKell said.

“It’s just a matter of time, for me at least, when it comes to Mario Cristobal and his identity and his persona which is tough, no nonsense, culture, discipline, detail-oriented. All of those things that Miami, I think, was still getting acclimated to in 2022. You pair that with the No. 15 portal class? I think the jump in record could be paralleled with the progress I think they’re gonna make from an identity standpoint under Mario Cristobal.”