The Cincinnati Bearcats have hired the Miami Dolphins’ interim offensive coordinator Zac Taylor to replace Eddie Gran and Darin Hinshaw as UC’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
JUST IN: Miami Dolphins offensive coordinator Zac Taylor will be new OC/QB coach at #UC, #Bearcats sources confirm.
— Tom Groeschen (@TomGroeschen) January 10, 2016
It appears like a two-for-one deal here, in that Taylor will fulfill the roles that Gran and Hinshaw vacated when they left for Kentucky. I’d be interested to see what kind of salary is heading his way. Gran made $350,000 while at Cincinnati and Hinshaw $250,000. My college math skills tell me they left a $600,000 gap in Tommy Tuberville’s budget. Will all of that go to Taylor? Probably not but I’ll be on the lookout to see if he makes in the Eddie Gran range or somewhere closer to $300,000 and the other cash being redistributed to other coaches.
But to the actual hire, it’s a bit of an interesting one.
Taylor spent most of his career in the NFL with the Miami Dolphins. He started off as a graduate assistant at Texas A&M after an excellent career with the Nebraska Cornhuskers. But after his three years with the Aggies, he was up and hired as an assistant quarterbacks coach with the Dolphins.
So with limited time at the collegiate level, Taylor likely doesn’t bring a lot of recruiting experience to the table, which is curious considering Tuberville’s emphasis on this. Heck, UC coaches have been fired before for not making an impact on the recruiting trail and here’s someone who’s only spent three years in the game. But maybe Cincinnati’s head coach is going a different direction here, putting more value in a coach’s contribution to winning actual games rather than building the program, leaving that to the likes of Robert Prunty.
If so, it raises another question; is Taylor experienced enough to successfully bear the weight of the offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach role? Eddie Gran spent years at Tennessee and Florida State honing his craft before being given the opportunity with Cincinnati three years ago. Even though Taylor served as Miami’s quarterbacks coach since 2013, he spent all of five games as their offensive coordinator, replacing Bill Lazor, who was fired after a 38-20 loss to the New York Jets.
So it’s unclear how capable Taylor is as an offensive coordinator. On the season the Dolphins ranked 26th out of 32 teams in total offense, 27th in scoring offense, 19th in passing offense, and 23rd in rushing offense. You can see why Miami let Bill Lazor go. It’s unclear if the Dolphins really improved when Taylor took over.
In the last five weeks of the season quarterback Ryan Tannehill posted his worst passing day of the 2015 season, throwing for just 86 yards against the Baltimore Ravens. But he also posted some of his best, including a 329-yard day against Indianapolis and 350-yard day against New England.
So it’s anyone’s guess just how he’ll do with the Bearcats.
Regardless, Zac Taylor’s the man running the show now for Cincinnati. Will he continue the Bearcats’ high-flying ways or will they revert to UConn-levels of offensive ineptitude? Only time will tell.