Miami has hit rock bottom.

It didn’t take the twin-engine buzzards with Fire Al Golden tail feathers circling above Sun Life to see that.

The question is, when?

When did Miami football die, exactly — the result of which seemingly created an overnight one-lane expressway for recruits heading north for the SEC?

Was it the 6-win bowl season last year? The 9-win bowl season in 2013? How about the 6- or 7-win seasons when they self-imposed a bowl ban, which followed another 9-win season and bowl trip in 2009.

Those Canes, they sure are an unsolvable mess.

A funny thing happened on the way to Miami’s football funeral.

The guest of honor showed up with a heartbeat.

The national perspective, certainly involving recruiting, is that Miami has fallen so far, lost all hope, that it can’t keep its local stars from bolting to other Power 5 conferences, in particular to the SEC.

The truth is, as bad as the Nevin Shapiro scandal was, as rock-bottom as the past five years were, the Canes still won more games in that span than Texas, Texas Tech, Ole Miss, Tennessee, etc.

They still have been bowl eligible for seven consecutive seasons, including the two they self-imposed bans. That streak is equal to Nebraska and Notre Dame, and longer than Florida, Penn State, Stanford, Texas, UCLA, etc.

They still have 38 former players in the NFL, which equals Florida and Southern Cal, is more than Auburn, Georgia and Ohio State, and is just two fewer that almighty Alabama.

Miami football, dead?

No wonder recruiting guru Larry Blustein can’t stop laughing.

The great myth exposed

Blustein has covered youth and high school football in South Florida for 40-plus years. Nobody has seen more, heard more, kept secrets safe more than he has.

Just like you, he’s heard the national perspective: The Canes can’t win because every great player is leaving Dade and Broward County for the SEC and other Power 5s.

You see them every Saturday and Sunday. Teddy Bridgewater and Amari Cooper were high school teammates in Miami. Neither played for the Hurricanes.

Patrick Peterson, one of the NFL’s best corners, took his talents to Baton Rouge.

Calvin Ridley and Sony Michel are SEC stars with South Florida ties.

Dalvin Cook looks like a Heisman contender … while wearing FSU’s garnet and gold.

The list goes on and on.

Here’s what Blustein wants you to know: So too does the list of 4- and 5-stars from the area that Miami did sign.

Cook, he said, picked FSU in part because he grew up with Duke Johnson, knew how good Johnson was and didn’t want to wait his turn at Miami.

Duke Johnson, by the way, is in the NFL.

“He didn’t want to split carries,” Blustein said. “He knew he’d be in the driver’s seat at FSU.”

Cooper could have helped the Canes, or anybody else, but Miami still threw passes to Phillip Dorsett, also a 2015 first-round pick.

It’s a story Blustein repeats, over and over, just exchanging names, positions and years.

The point being: Recruiting isn’t and never will be Miami’s problem. It has access to the most fertile 100-square mile recruiting ground in the country. It can’t keep everybody, and it never has.

Even during the Canes’ heyday, when Jimmy Johnson and Michael Irvin ran roughshod over the NCAA, they didn’t get everybody.

They didn’t get future Hall of Famer Derrick Thomas, for instance. He grew up near the Orange Bowl, yet left to play for Alabama.

All those 1984-1987 Canes did was go 34-2 with a national championship. It was their most dominant stretch of a decade of dominance, one in which they won four national championships in nine seasons.

Marvin Jones graduated from Miami Northwestern in 1990. He chose Florida State and became the No. 4 pick in the 1993 NFL draft.

The Hurricanes still managed to win the 1991 national title without him.

“Every year there are 135 kids from Palm Beach County to Key West who sign Division I scholarships,” Blustein said. “When they don’t get the marquee guy, they get the kid who is next in line behind the marquee guy.

“They’re not whiffing as much as the national people think they are. There are 50, 60 guys in the NFL just from Dade County.”

Right coach is SEC’s worst nightmare

All of which leads to the Canes’ biggest problem — and what should be the SEC’s primary concern: coaching.

They ran Golden out of town because nobody was doing less with more.

Miami needs someone who can develop, scheme and coach the talent that pours in every year, circumstances be damned.

And with the ACC cutting schools an annual check for $20 million, found money not available when UM hired Randy Shannon or Golden, this won’t be a budget hire. Miami doesn’t need to take a chance, in other words.

It’s time to hit a home run.

Florida did it. Two Novembers ago, the Gators were finishing a 4-8 season. Now they’re preparing for the SEC Championship Game. Clemson did it. Florida State did it.

Miami, with an even richer history and far more local talent, can turn it around just as quickly.

“Miami has had successive coaches who don’t coach, don’t lead, don’t delegate,” Blustein said. “The next head coach has to be hired mainly because of coaching.

“Recruiting (in South Florida) is overrated. There are so many players here, it’s never going to dry up. Just look at the draft. No way a team that’s been through what they’ve been through would send 10 kids to the NFL.

“Even I’m amazed at the kids they get. But the ultimate recruiting tool is repping the U. Warren Sapp, Michael Irvin, they love their program. Jon Beason, when he comes back, he’s treated like a king.

“There are kids down here who are destined to be UM kids.”

There’s a reason Butch Davis has campaigned to return, why Mario Cristobal likely is in the mix. Both have strong ties to the program. They understand the inherent advantages of having access to that many elite players, the street credibility tied to NFL players hanging out on the sidelines during spring drills.

They understand the culture and the potential.

Miami will always lose recruits. There are far too many to keep.

But with the right coach the Canes can see them again — in the national playoff.

That’s the biggest threat to the SEC’s stranglehold on college football. And that’s something few other schools in the nation can promise.

If that union materializes, those twin-engine buzzards might soon return to Sun Life, carrying championship banners.