Cowboys’ best defensive coordinator candidate will be on sideline at CFP title game

Once upon a time — it was a Saturday night 37 years ago, believe it or not — Jerry Jones had the courage to strut into the press room at Valley Ranch and announce that he was bringing in a coach with no NFL experience from the University of Miami who was going to deliver championships for the Dallas Cowboys.

It’s time for that cocky version of Jones to do it again. I’m not so sure about the championships but let’s start with getting back to the playoffs. And the answer is working at the University of Miami once again, with one championship game left to play.

If you have seen the Hurricanes play lately — against Texas A&M at Kyle Field, against the powerful Ohio State Buckeyes, who spent most of the season ranked No. 1, right here at AT&T Stadium or last week against the University of Mississippi in the Fiesta Bowl — then you have seen defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman, bearded, gesturing wildly, sometimes almost elevating himself to the same manic state that Michael Irvin inhabits on the Miami sideline.

The Aggies managed all of three points. The Buckeyes did not get on the scoreboard until after halftime. Ole Miss gave it a go and hit a couple of big plays — the Rebels had the only run of 40 or more yards in 15 games this season against Miami — but it still wasn’t enough.

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“Our defense did a great job of collapsing the pocket, staying in our rush lanes, getting the quarterback on the ground,” head coach Mario Cristobal said after the semifinal win over Ole Miss. “We were really good in coverage, there’s a big cat-and-mouse game, a game of chess between the coordinators and Corey Hetherman called a great game.”

You want someone who can stop the run? The Aggies had 35 carries for 89 yards. The Buckeyes had 24 carries for 45 yards.

Now, I should warn you that Miami is going to give up some yards and some points — probably a lot of both — when they play Indiana next Monday night because the Hoosiers have reached some beyond-this-world level in their fairytale season that almost surely is going to end with a championship for Curt Cignetti’s magical team. If you want to know who Cignetti’s defensive coordinator was for three years at James Madison before he got the Indiana job, it was Hetherman.

I don’t know why the Cowboys can’t get back into the game of going young, of thinking big, of pushing the boundaries in their hiring of coaches.

Hetherman’s is a great story. This was his first season as coordinator at Miami, and he (along with some transfer portal additions) transformed the unit. His is a 20-year coaching journey through places like Fitchburg State and Northeastern (good hockey school in Boston, but doesn’t even play football anymore), Western New England, Old Dominion, Maine. If nothing else, he should be able to handle cold weather games in the NFC East.

I don’t have any bones to pick with the candidates the Cowboys have assembled quickly in the wake of Matt Eberflus’ dismissal. Denver’s Jim Leonhard, the Broncos’ defensive backs coach, has been mentioned as a potential NFL coordinator before now. Daronte Jones, who serves under Brian Flores, who undressed Brian Schottenheimer’s offense here in December, seems like a deserving gentleman.

But these candidates don‘t have any more NFL coordinating experience than Hetherman, and Jones as much as stated that the Cowboys’ approach in recent years has been a failure. With the exception of success under Dan Quinn — success that did not translate to his final game here against Green Bay in the playoffs — the search for former head coaches that brought Mike Nolan, Mike Zimmer and Eberflus to town was a big misfire.

So the Cowboys are searching. Again. What if the University of Miami is the right place to look more than 35 years after Jones bought the team from Bum Bright, flew to Austin to fire Tom Landry and then hired Jimmy Johnson away from the Hurricanes to refill the Cowboys’ trophy case?

There was a time the college and pro games were so markedly different that people scoffed at the idea of coaches floating from one game to another. That was the case when Johnson brought half his Hurricanes’ staff to Dallas. While the critics howled during that 1-15 season in 1989, Johnson and even his assistants maintained their cockiness and mocked the criticism.

Said offensive line coach Tony Wise, “Oh yeah, the drive block is so different up here.”

Hetherman seems to have come from the same mold, not necessarily as cocky, but certainly a believer in his and his players’ abilities. If I’m with the Cowboys, I’m placing a call to Miami. And if Hetherman brings defensive end Rueben Bain Jr. with him (as a first-round pick), so much the better.

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