It’s one thing for a football coach to move on from a program that has fallen off with little sign of turning around.

It’s another thing to learn the extent of how much of a failing program it really is.

Butch Davis told Brett McMurphy of The Action Network that he will be out as FIU coach once his contract expires on Dec. 15. He also went scorched earth on just how little support the school gave the program throughout his tenure, even to the point of “sabotage.”

The shoulder pads and uniforms were a decade old. The coaching staff was not allowed to go on the road recruiting the past two years because of financial reasons and the COVID-19 pandemic. The school even posted the coaching job opening online five games into the season.

“This year has been a nightmare,” Davis told The Action Network. “You can imagine the players’ reaction when a head coach’s job was posted online. The administration has been sabotaging the program. Their decision to post the job has resulted in a major negative impact on the football program and our ability to recruit and retain players.”

Davis is as good as it gets for FIU, a school forever in the shadow of the University of Miami. When he arrived in 2017 to replace Ron Turner, the Panthers immediately started winning. FIU went to three straight bowl games for the first time in school history and even defeated the Hurricanes at the site of the old Orange Bowl in 2019.

The only other coach to succeed in FIU’s 20-year history is Mario Cristobal, who oversaw the Panthers’ only conference championship in 2010. With Davis instantly bringing success to the program but leaving after a disastrous season that saw 21 of 85 scholarship players either suffer season-ending injuries or leave the team for various reasons, is there a reason for the program to keep going any further?

This is nothing like Sports Illustrated suggesting the Miami Hurricanes shut down football for moral reasons or other nonsense of that nature. Questioning whether or not FIU football should close up shop is about a lack of resources, a lack of progress and quite possibly a lack of conference.

“The issues that we have, there’s no fix for,” Davis said during his postgame press conference following the Old Dominion loss in Nov. 6, “we’re playing 15-18 kids who shouldn’t even be suiting up.”

No quite similar to the Idaho situation

The Idaho Vandals joined the FBS in 1996 and then left after the 2017 season. Throughout their 20-year tenure in the highest level of college football, the best the Vandals could do was three bowl games, one for each decade, all of which were played in Boise. The Vandals were at least victorious in each bowl game in high scoring fashion.

The Vandals returned to the FCS to join the rest of their sports in the Big Sky Conference for lower costs and, quite frankly, similar reachable rewards. Idaho would never reach the College Football Playoff, but the FCS Playoffs are attainable with a good team.

Unlike Idaho, FIU doesn’t have a FCS conference to run back to. The Panthers started as an independent in the FCS ranks but only with the intention of transitioning to the FBS.

The Vandals play both their football and basketball games at the uniquely quirky Kibbie Dome, which seats 16,000.

FIU plays in a stadium that currently holds over 20,000 and has only seen two games in which attendance numbers reached that high, both during the 2011 season. The most recent game of high attendance came in 2016, where 18,524 came to see UCF beat FIU 53-14. The only home game Davis coached with a sellout crowd was in 2019 against Miami in LoanDepot Park, and it was mostly Miami fans.

Conference issues

When Idaho was in the FBS, two of three conferences the Vandals once called home dropped football. The Big West Conference discontinued football following the 2000 season and the WAC doing so in 2012 once everyone but Idaho and New Mexico State left the conference.

Conference-USA, FIU’s current conference, is in danger of a similar fate. In the recent realignment period, the C-USA went from 14 members to just five at one point. Nine schools, including FIU’s arch rival Florida Atlantic, have left for either the American Athletic Conference or the Sun Belt Conference.

The C-USA added independents New Mexico State and Liberty, as well as FCS powerhouses Jacksonville State and Sam Houston State to go with FIU, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee, UTEP and Western Kentucky and be over the required number (8) for a conference to remain linked to College Football Playoff money distribution. Even that number isn’t completely stable, as Middle Tennessee and Western Kentucky once flirted with the chance at joining the MAC.

That alignment leaves FIU exclusively traveling west to different time zones to play conference opponents in the midwest and southwest. If the coaching staff had to save money by not recruiting on the road, how much of an expenditure will it be for regularly long travel?

Losing the South Florida arms race

When FIU embarked on its football journey, the Panthers weren’t going at it alone. Howard Schnellenberger started FAU’s program from the ground up in 2001 and coached the Owls until 2011. By that time, the Owls went from playing at a park in Ft. Lauderdale to their own 30k-seat stadium, which opened in Schnellenberger’s final season.

Both FAU and FIU were rivals in the same conference but with the Owls moving up to the AAC and establishing a history of hiring multiple high-profile head coaches and playing in a bigger, bowl worthy stadium for a decade, the rivalry seems played out.

The Owls haven’t lost to the Panthers since 2016, when Bachelorette runner-up Tyler Cameron lined up at tight end. It is becoming abundantly clear that the two programs are no longer equals and FIU lost the arms race.

Is the juice worth the squeeze?

FIU beating Miami in 2019 is as good as it gets for the program, which has played in five bowl games only won twice, both against Toledo. The Panthers caught lightning in a bottle but with a new coach coming in with the task of starting from below ground zero, reaching that high again seems unlikely.

It seemed logical to start a football program at the turn of the 21st century in a region filled to the brim with talent. 20 years in, with hand-me-down equipment, mass departures, a new-look conference that resembles an island of misfits and not at all geographically ideal, and lack of support from both attendance and the administration, it may make more sense to cut the program and reward the soccer program with the stadium.

The Miami Dolphins are officially lower than they’ve ever been during the Brian Flores era. In 2019, it was excusable because the entire point of that season was to strip the roster down and start over from scratch. Miami went 5-11, and somehow should have been worse than that. However, the young players on the team overachieved behind Flores’s coaching, and there was hope for the future.

In 2020, the Dolphins signed a lot of expensive free agents, including veteran linebacker Kyle Van Noy, guard Ereck Flowers, and cornerback Byron Jones. Miami’s defense was a force to be reckoned with that season, and they went 10-6 with nowhere to go but up.

Or so everyone thought.

Now here they are in 2021. The expectations were through the roof. The Dolphins were supposed to compete for the playoffs this season. Right now, they are essentially the worst team in the NFL, losing to the formerly winless Jacksonville Jaguars in London.

True, the Detroit Lions are still winless as of the time of this story, but based on the overall performance and decision making, there’s no question. Miami is the worst, and no one inside the organization has any answers for why.

“It starts with me.” Coach Flores said after the game. “I’m not doing a good enough job getting these guys ready to play. Not playing consistently enough, we’re not coaching well enough. We’re not playing well enough, we’re just not playing consistently enough. I mean, it’s in spurts. We had a couple – some positive plays, consistent ball in the first half, even a little bit in the second half. But we’re just not putting it together, and that starts with me.”

That’s the sentiment Flores has given for the past few weeks. It starts with him. Execution is bad. They’ll watch the tape and evaluate. And yet, every week, they promise to do better and they don’t. One has to wonder why that is. Why are the Miami Dolphins incapable of putting it all together when it counts? What has changed from last season to this one?

One easy answer? Veteran leadership.

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Experience Matters

Examining the Dolphins roster reveals a very telling reality. Miami only has three players in their 30s. Those players are 34-year old DB Jason McCourty – a free agent signing from New England, 32-year old DT John Jenkins – who is in his second stint with the Dolphins, and 30-year old OL Jesse Davis.

If you count DE Jabaal Sheard on the practice squad, then you can make the count to four.

Veteran leadership, that’s what Miami is missing. Aside from McCourty, it’s hard to pinpoint players on this team that can be considered true mentor types. Which means that the Dolphins are relying entirely on the coaching staff to get these young and inexperienced players ready week in and week out. That is not a wise move. In fact, one could argue it speaks to a certain arrogance and hubris that the coaches believe they don’t need veteran players to be successful. They traded mental acuity and experience for raw talent and athleticism.

That strategy only works if the coaching staff is elite at developing players. So far, there’s no indication of that being the case. The amount of turnover among the assistant coaches also doesn’t help matters. That’s where having a veteran presence on the active roster helps drastically. Having players who have been around the block more than once and know what to expect on Sunday is a factor that is regularly overlooked.

These past two seasons, the de facto veteran of the team was quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick. No one dared question his intelligence, and the team often followed his lead. He wasn’t a superstar by any stretch, but everyone wanted him to tutor Tua Tagovailoa, share his knowledge and experience with the Alabama standout. But why? If Fitzpatrick isn’t an elite player, why would anyone care if he taught Tagovailoa or not?

Because experience does matter. Fitzpatrick is good, not great. But the fact he’s lasted this long and is still in the conversation to be a starting quarterback is proof positive that experience is valuable. Either as a player, or a coach.

Miami’s philosophy demands execution above all else. All 11 players need to perform for plays to turn out the way they should. If not, then things tend to fall apart. But that level of execution comes with NFL experience. With the likes of Van Noy, Flowers and others gone, the Dolphins are relying on talented – but young – players to pick up the slack. Unfortunately, they just aren’t there yet. They’re making mental mistakes, like Brandon Jones rushing in to down the wide receiver, letting Jacksonville call timeout with one second left to kick the game-winning field goal. Veteran players would know to leave him alone until the clock ticks down to force overtime.

Jones, and many others, are very talented players. But Miami can’t afford to wait for them to stop making those small, mental errors.

Around the League

Looking at other teams around the league, many of the top teams feature vast amounts of experience either in the coaching staff, the roster, or both. The most obvious example is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who are currently 5-1. Head coach Bruce Arians is now the oldest coach in NFL history to win a Super Bowl at age 68. His resume is impressive, and his ability as a coach is unquestioned.

As for the roster itself? The Buccaneers have 20 players (including practice squad and injured reserve) over the age of 30. QB Tom Brady (44 years old) is the headliner, but other notable veterans include DT Ndamukong Suh (34), CB Richard Sherman (33), WR Antonio Brown (33), OLB Jason Pierre-Paul (32), ILB Lavonte David (31), OL Ryan Jensen (30), and more. Essentially, a bunch of old guys got together and decided to show the young players of the NFL how it’s done. And they did.

The 5-1 Baltimore Ravens have had John Harbaugh coaching them since 2008, and he always seems to hire experienced assistants to handle both the offense and the defense. Also, Baltimore features 16 players over 30 on their active roster. Notable ones include DE Calais Campbell (35), OT Alejandro Villanueva (33), and RB Latavius Murray (31).

.@LataviusM into the end zone! #RavensFlock

📺: #LACvsBAL on CBS
📱: NFL app pic.twitter.com/dzGIW1Bqpc

— NFL (@NFL) October 17, 2021

The Dallas Cowboys are on a roll this season under Mike McCarthy, who is in his 15th year as a head coach in the NFL. He brought in Dan Quinn, who is well known for his intelligence as a defensive coach and has some head coaching experience of his own, to be the defensive coordinator. The roster features eight players over 30, including offensive linemen Tyron Smith (30) and Zack Martin (30).

The currently undefeated Arizona Cardinals have 18 players over the age of 30. LB Chandler Jones is 31 years old, OT Kelvin Beachum is 32, DE J.J. Watt is 32, WR A.J. Green is 33, and so on.

The Buffalo Bills have nine players over 30. How about the Los Angeles Chargers who have 10? The Green Bay Packers have eight.

While many of these players aren’t as good as they used to be in their prime (Watt and Green stand out), they do have valuable experience they can impart to the young up and comers. Experience like that can’t come from a coach. It’s different coming from a teammate. Most good NFL franchises know how important having that veteran presence is for young players. There’s a reason Bill Belichick keeps bringing back his old players even when they don’t play well in their new homes. That experience in the system is invaluable, which Kyle Van Noy proves.

Brian Flores and the Miami Dolphins have chosen to disregard this.

The Dolphins Solution

The question now is simply this: If Miami had more older players, would they be better off? Maybe yes, and maybe no. Again, having older players doesn’t guarantee success. However, having experienced, proven players does. Ask the LA Rams how they view first round draft picks. They’re just ammunition to trade for players like CB Jalen Ramsey.

If the Dolphins had prioritized keeping veteran players along the offensive line instead of trusting in the young, inexperienced talent, the Dolphins may not have lost Tua Tagovailoa for three weeks. Miami basically paid OL Ereck Flowers to leave, and now he’s a solid guard for the Washington Football Team. Almost immediately after the Dolphins released Kyle Van Noy, he was re-signed back in New England and is back doing what he did to get paid in the first place. LB Benardrick McKinney was acquired and released in the same offseason, in spite of how well he played as a run-stopping linebacker. Miami now has one of the worst run defenses in the NFL.

Strangely enough, there’s still hope for the Dolphins. The Detroit Lions have Taylor Decker, a solid left tackle. And the Lions need wide receiver help. Miami could send DeVante Parker and a pick to Detroit and instantly shore up that side of the line if Decker stays healthy. Veteran right tackle Mitchell Schwartz is still available and is a stabilizing presence on the other side of the offensive line. He too is an injury risk, but is very good when healthy.

Having those veterans helps the likes of Liam Eichenberg and Austin Jackson immensely. Let them learn the game, instead of forcing them to start before they’re ready. Next season, there are some veteran offensive linemen who will be free agents. The Dolphins should prioritize signing a few to protect Tagovailoa, regardless of who the coach is. Find assistant coaches who know what they’re doing, and veteran players who are proven producers. It isn’t as hard as it looks.

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Maybe Brian Flores, if he stays, can convince Dante Scarnecchia to come out of retirement again. That would be a huge boon for the offensive line. Maybe he can bring back Jim Caldwell to be the offensive coordinator if he’s healthy again, or someone like Mike Mularkey or Mike Shula. All of these coaches have experience and a proven track record. That’s what Flores needs more than anything.

If Flores gets fired, then whoever the next choice is, they will hopefully understand the importance of veteran leadership. Youth is fine, but only when tempered by experience.

Luis Sung has covered the Miami Dolphins for numerous outlets such as Dolphins Wire for seven years. Follow him on Twitter: @LuisDSung

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As let down as Miami Dolphins followers feel about this 1-4 train wreck of a start to the season, imagine the gut punch for the 81-year-old team owner.

Steve Ross went all in on the Brian Flores/Chris Grier regime leading a rebuilding effort to finally get the Dolphins off the NFL island of lost causes. Instead we are reminded that one 10-win season with a young coach is no basis to declare him a success, as Flores follows the trajectory of predecessor Adam Gase that may lead him to oblivion.

The surprise is that the failings of Flores’ strength as a defensive technician may become his downfall.

Granted, Sunday’s trip to Tampa Bay to face the defending champion Buccaneers wasn’t a likely win. But the 45-17 debacle was an absolute indictment of Flores’ defense, which was supposed to be the cornerstone for improving on a 10-6 season.

There may be no opposing coach with the basis for defending against Tom Brady that Flores has, from all the years they spent on the same sideline in New England. And there was the Dolphins win in the regular-season finale of 2019 – Flores’ first season in Miami – that prematurely ended Brady’s Patriots career.

But Brady at 44 had his way with Flores’ defenders all day Sunday, making it look ridiculously easy while throwing for 411 yards, five touchdowns and a 144.4 passer rating.

The Bucs scored touchdowns on six of nine drives (not counting the final possession when they ran out the clock). They made a field goal, missed one and punted only once.

Dolphins disaster on third down

Perhaps most notable, Tampa Bay converted eight of 11 third-down chances.

But that is simply a continuation of what we have seen all season. Flores’ defense has gone from the best in the NFL on third down in 2020 (31.2 conversion rate) to second worst (54.2 percent) in the first four weeks. That was before the Bucs, missing Rob Gronkowski, converted 72.7 percent on third down.

This Dolphins defense has been a sieve on every down so far this season.

They were sixth in scoring defense last season, allowing 21.1 points a game.

They have given up an average 30.8 through five games this season, which would have all been losses if Xavien Howard hadn’t wrestled a fumble away from the Patriots in the final minutes of the opener.

But Howard was beaten by Antonio Brown for two touchdowns Sunday, including a 62-yard scorcher. Brady fended off the Dolphins’ highly paid cornerback duo of Howard and Byron Jones like a couple of common houseflies.

Meanwhile, Tampa Bay averaged 4.8 yards a carry rushing, which made Brady’s task easier.

More from Five Reasons Sports: Brian Flores needs to fix this fast

Dolphins’ offense lacks luster

The offense showed some promise early. It helped to have Preston Williams (three catches for 60 yards) back at wide receiver and Myles Gaskin (99 all-purpose yards, two touchdowns) back in the game plan.

They’re still not getting what was expected of rookie receiver Jaylen Waddle, who has his moments but too many drops.

The bottom line is these Dolphins look like a team in need of a rebuild rather than one in the third year of a complete makeover that was supposed to lead to the playoffs this season.

Granted the schedule looks more favorable the rest of the way (the 0-5 Jaguars next week in London). But the flaws of this team are plentiful and glaring.
Clearly they’ve miscalculated in player evaluation because they are getting pushed around up front and beaten at the skilled positions.

Most damning is the lack of impact so far from the nine draft picks taken in the first two rounds in the past two drafts.

Waddle may yet turn into a star, and fellow 2021 first-rounder Jaelan Phillips is looking better each week (first full sack Sunday). The jury is still out on quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, who may return next week.

Finally his first full sack. Jaelan Phillips. #Dolphins @ourturffb pic.twitter.com/QZ0EPEpkAG

— Lisa Johnson (@LJ1303) October 10, 2021

What will owner Ross do as Dolphins sink?

But how patient will octogenarian owner Ross be as he watches another coach/front office combo foundering?

That may be more interesting to watch than anything that transpires on upcoming Sundays. Specifically, will Ross go into damn-the-torpedoes mode and order full-fledged pursuit of Deshaun Watson despite the legal issues hanging over the troubled Houston quarterback?

After all, it’s tough to justify refusing to part with a stockpile of high draft picks if you keep firing blanks year after year and remain mired in the same muck of mediocrity.

Craig Davis has covered South Florida sports and teams, including the Dolphins, for four decades. Follow him on Twitter @CraigDavisRuns

So this is what passing a kidney stone feels like.

Ball at the Colts 3 yard line.

First down.

Down 20-3.

After accumulating fewer than 80 yards in the first three quarters, there are signs of life for the Miami Dolphins, after remembering Devante Parker and Mike Gesicki exist…. and enough time (12 minutes) to make the end reasonably interesting.

It’s a situation that calls for creativity, especially if you’re aware of your offense’s undeniable inadequacies.

Malcolm Brown over right guard. Two yards.

Jacoby Brissett keeper over the center. Nothing.

Brown over left guard. Nothing.

Finally, on fourth down, a circus catch from Gesicki on another errant Brissett throw, for the team’s first touchdown.

It turned out to be too little, too late, but absolutely appropriate for the afternoon. For the Dolphins on offense, everything is excruciating, to the point of being embarrassing. And even those of us who have been faithful supporters of the Brian Flores regime are starting to wonder. The fans already seem to be ahead of us.

Simply, it shouldn’t be this hard.

Not in the third season of a regime. Not against a winless team at home. Not when you’ve had so many draft picks and free agent dollars to expand the offensive talent base. Not even when you’re starting a backup quarterback, since that quarterback (Brissett) was decent enough to start plenty of the games for the team on the other side.

Brian Flores needs to fix this. Soon. Or his tenure is going to take a troubling turn. One his predecessors have experienced, in which every decision is questioned rather than trusted. In which an impatient octogenarian owner (Steve Ross) starts getting antsy. In which even the media start wondering if he’s experienced and able enough to make the necessary adjustments.

“I think we need to take a look at everything,” Flores said after the 27-17 loss dropped Miami to 1-3 with the defending champion Buccaneers next. “But it’s really across the board, offense, defense, special teams. It starts with me coaching…. We are out there making mistakes in all three phases.”

Accountability is appreciated, but so is accuracy. It’s not really all three phases. No, the other two, special teams and defense, haven’t been exceptional, but it’s the offense that’s been offensive. The Dolphins had Hall of Famers, and near Hall of Famers, on their defense in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and even those defenses finally broke after the offense kept bending their patience, by putting them in adverse positions. This one can’t hold up if the offense is off the field in three or four or five plays, over and over.

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Through three quarters, the Dolphins had the same number of points (three) as they appear to have offensive coordinators, now that we’ve learned that Charlie Frye is actually sending in many of the plays. And those plays? Oof.

The Dolphins are coaching scared, and it starts from the top.

“We tried to be methodical early,” Flores admitted.

He said there were some big play possibilities that turned into safer checkdowns.

Perhaps. The tape will tell. But there were also big picture decisions that were overly conservative, indicating a lack of trust in the team that Flores and Chris Grier put together.

If you’re paying your kicker (Jason Sanders) big money and believe in your defense, why are you punting rather than trying a 55-yard field goal when you had momentum early?

“We wanted to play field position there,” Flores said, sounding like Dave Wannstedt from scared Dolphins teams gone by.

And they did down a punt at the one.

But is that better than a 60 percent shot at three points?

When even a missed kick would have kept the Colts on their side of the field. Isn’t your defense good enough to still stop them?

Those points could have come in handy later, when the Colts got going.

That’s the thing. Every team eventually does. Even the Dolphins do. It just comes so late, when other options are off the table, and they have no alternative but to press the action.

What’s become obvious through four games is that Flores and his offensive staffers, whom he handpicked, don’t believe in the talent they and the front office have assembled and elevated. What’s become obvious is Miami misfired by not acquiring at least a couple of experienced offensive linemen to assist the raw projects. What’s become obvious is that a team that starts Malcolm Brown at running back — because Myles Gaskin can’t protect? — is not a team that takes taking pressure off its quarterbacks seriously. What’s become obvious is that this rebuild, seemingly ahead of schedule, is still many miles away from fruition.

What’s become obvious is that, after a prolonged and warranted honeymoon, the tide is turning on Brian Flores.

“It’s a lack of focus, a lack of concentration, all of those things,” Flores said. “And that starts with me.”

He needs to put a stop to it — not just the mistakes, but also the mismanagement, of personnel, of approach, of attitude.

So his group starts scoring points.

Ethan Skolnick can be reached at @5ReasonsSports and @EthanJSkolnick. His columns are sponsored by www.EverythingTradeShows.com