Jim Larranaga Steps Down as Miami Head Coach Amid Changes

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00:00Jim Laranega stepping down as Miami's head coach.

00:06This one surfacing yesterday and we're lucky enough to get a little soundbite from Jim's

00:11presser to find out why he won't be going forth in his 14th season at the Helms.

00:16Let's take a listen.

00:17I'm exhausted.

00:18I've tried every which way to keep this going.

00:23And I know I'm going to be asked a lot of questions, but I want to answer them before

00:28I'm even asked.

00:30What shocked me beyond belief was after we made it to the Final Four just 18 months ago,

00:40the very first time I met with the players, eight of them decided they were going to put

00:45their name in the portal and leave.

00:48I said, don't you like it?

00:50No, I love it.

00:51I love Miami.

00:52It's great.

00:53But the opportunity to make money someplace else created a situation that you have to

01:05begin to ask yourself as a coach, what is this all about?

01:10Wow.

01:11There it is, Joe.

01:13It's certainly taken a big change over the last couple of years, couple of seasons in

01:19college sports and just a sign of the times.

01:21Jim Larronega didn't want to sort of make that progression.

01:24And his job got a lot harder the more that these dollars came into effect.

01:30And he's right.

01:31And he did try to hold on when many of his, you know, many of his fellow coaches saw the

01:39writing on the wall and left.

01:42We just saw it happen a week before the season, Tony Bennett in Virginia.

01:47He knew that this, he didn't want to be a part of that kind of situation anymore.

01:52He knew he couldn't compete in the marketplace now because as Larronega said it, he said,

01:57what is this all about?

01:58His answer was college basketball has become professional basketball in essence where it's

02:04pay for play.

02:06And he said he didn't feel that he could successfully navigate this new world here.

02:10He was having conversations with agents who were telling him, well, if you can come up

02:14with a million, 1.1 million, 1.2 million, you know, you can, you'll be, you'll have

02:20your hat in the game.

02:21And Larronega at 75 is like, what, what am I doing?

02:25Like what is, I'm here to teach the game of basketball and teach these guys to grow up

02:29to be men.

02:30And this is where the sport has gone now in college, in college wise, whether it be football

02:36or basketball, it's a business now, it's no longer about all the other things.

02:42And coach case or Jay ride of Villanova, sorry, Tony Bennett.

02:46So you saw all these big time coaches over the last couple of years, they're like, yeah,

02:50no, we're good.

02:51We start saving at Alabama.

02:54These guys didn't walk away from the game because they didn't love basketball anymore.

02:57And walking away from the game because they, what they're seeing, they want no part of,

03:01and I don't blame them because I think this is a total detriment to college athletics

03:06moving forward.

03:07They let the genie out of the bottle dubs and they have no idea how to get it back in.

03:12And Joe, to that point, you know, the players now solely playing for the name on the back

03:17of the Jersey, not the one on the front, but how's it going to look in two, three, five,

03:22six years from now with the way things are playing out?

03:25And you look at the, you know, the curve of this thing, it's a sharp ascent with the more

03:30money millions and billions of dollars coming into this thing.

03:33How's the college sports landscape going to look in five years from now?

03:38Well, you just, we just saw the article and the story about the quarterback, a former

03:44quarterback from Tulane that just signed for $4 million to be the quarterback at Duke.

03:51And that's a Tulane quarterback going to do.

03:54What do you think the going rate is going to be moving forward for an actual quarterback

03:59that can play?

04:01You know, not that he couldn't, but it's, you know, if you're getting $4 million to

04:06play at Duke, what are you going to get to play at USC?

04:09What are you going to get to play at LSU?

04:10What is, what's Texas's, what are they willing to pay?

04:14There's just no guardrails here, which means it's going to be the wild, wild west.

04:18And ultimately there's going to be a handful of teams that can afford to put together championship

04:23teams and then everybody else is going to be playing for scraps.

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