Aristide appreciates his ‘home-field advantage’

As Texas A&M snagged Miami Gulliver defensive end Donell Harris out of South Florida in the 2020 recruiting class and then a pair of Miami Central offensive playmakers in Yulkeith Brown and Amari Daniels in the 2021 class that signed just months ago, Miami Hurricanes coach Manny Diaz started snooping around to find out who the Aggies had on staff that was so effectively recruiting his area.

It led him to find a defensive analyst named Ishmael Aristide, and when recent linebackers coach hire Travis Williams from Auburn bolted for an opportunity as defensive coordinator at UCF, Aristide became a target Diaz wanted for the vacancy on his coaching staff.

“You don’t sign a player out of Miami and take him all the way to Texas without somebody asking questions,” Aristide said Thursday afternoon in a web conference with reporters, “especially not one of Donell Harris’ status. He was a top-50 player in the country and one of the top players in the state.

“I think Manny’s always been aware. Manny’s extremely smart. He’s very well-researched.

He’s going to look very, very detailed into what’s going on in his city.

“If I’m him, I’m thinking, ‘This is my city. Nobody comes into my city.’ He has that mentality and that attitude, which is why I’m happy to work with him.”

For Aristide, it’s an upgrade from a support staff role to now being on a coaching staff. It’s also a homecoming for the Orlando Evans and Purdue grad who spent much of his childhood in Liberty City.

Growing up in Miami, Aristide said, “Everybody was a fan of the Hurricanes. … How they played, the style that they played with, the swagger and confidence they played with. So yeah, I’ve always been a Miami Hurricanes fan.

“I think I came out of the womb with a Miami bib on. I bet the doctor who gave me birth was probably a Miami grad.”

In all his support-staff roles, whether with Texas A&M the past two seasons, Ole Miss in 2017 and 2018 or Auburn in 2016, Aristide always assisted with recruiting South Florida.

Now those connections will come in handy for him as he will only ramp up his recruitment of the area, something he realized quickly when he took his first glance at Miami’s recruiting board.

“I’m like, ‘Hey, guys, I know like 85% of these kids… 85, 90%,’ ” Aristide said. “When Manny hired me, it’s pretty much a shoo-in because you’re going to recruit Miami every year and you’re going to just fit right in.

“Whoever our top guys are on that board, I know 85% of them. It’s not going to be a lot different for me.”

With the Aggies, he and tight ends coach James Coley, who was previously offensive coordinator for Miami under coach Al Golden, would recruit South Florida together.

“Now I’m here and I’m with a bunch of [coaches] that are South Florida guys,” Aristide said. “It’s home-field advantage now. Before I didn’t have that and there were things I had to overcome.

“Now I’m playing with homefield advantage. I’m excited about that.”

Aristide, with the title of outside linebackers coach, said his focus will be on coaching strikers, which are the safety-linebacker hybrids in Diaz’s defense. Jonathan Patke, who previously led strikers along with his duties as special teams coordinator, will now oversee middle and weakside linebackers.

It helps that he has an experienced group with Gilbert Frierson and Keontra Smith, who both played last year, along with incoming freshman Chase Smith. It will also benefit Aristide that he assisted with coaching the nickel corners at A&M, so it won’t be far off from leading Miami’s strikers.

His coaching philosophy? It will begin with fundamentals — a word he repeated five times to emphasize the importance.

“I want you doing everything from a technical perspective as efficient as possible within the framework of what we’re trying to get done,” Aristide said. “I’ll start them off Day 1 drills, and everything will be scheme-specific in how I ask their bodies to move or how I ask them to think.

Aristide said the staff is still ironing out the plan on how South Florida recruiting will be split up among so many coaches with ties in the area, but he also will be able to get into Orlando recruiting.

“You kind of get best of both worlds,” he said.

Aristide