2020 Rewatch; 10 Areas to Improve on

Good write up. Accurate and well written. Mine will be more concise.

Catch the ball
Catch the punts
More creative run plays
Play the run better
Tackle better
Catch the ball
Catch the ball catch

You’ll notice I put catch the ball on there a few times. By that I mean don’t put Wiggins or Pope on the field
basically better fundamentals
 
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We need a designated KR/PR. We kept just throwing guys back to return punts last year and they were all terrible. Like they couldn't even cleanly field a punt, let alone return one. There needs to be a designated guy who can be relied on to field punts cleanly. Getting big returns is an added bonus.

Most of my gripes on offense were issues that should be shored up now that the offense isn't new to everyone and they've had an actual spring to work. I do think King is always going to be limited as a passer so expecting Aaron Rogers accuracy is unrealistic but there's certain throws he can be more consistent on. He did get better as a passer as the season progressed last year so hopefully that trend continues. I think the upgrades at receiver can only help too. Lashlee wants to run the ball and it's evident by the changes they made on the offensive line. Inside zone and outside zone are going to be staples of the offense and everything will work off them so that's not changing. King being more comfortable with the zone read should help. A lot of the tackles for loss we surrendered last year were due to not making the right read. A lot of the personnel shortcomings on offense last year (poor interior blocking and WRs that couldn't beat press coverage) have been shored up. Baring atrocious injuries, this should be the best offense Miami has had since 2002.
 
during the day, i am a corporate and entertainment lawyer (hence the Celia avatar). At night, I am a football fool. However, my eyes work well, still.

As I do every year, a week or two before fall practice commences I re-watch the prior year’s games in preparation for the upcoming season. It refreshes my memory of last year’s improvements and failures and allows me to watch the game without the passion and often anger that skews my initial viewing. Something like re-reading the Prologue to Romeo and Juliet. Yes the play has a prologue ("Two households both alike in dignity, in fair Verona where we lay our scene . . ." )(If you listen to Giorgio Moroder, you know), the only one of Shakespeare's 37 plays that has a prologue (actually has two).

So here are 10 areas to improve upon after re-viewing last year's games (not in any order of importance)(I won’t mention some obvious things like poor WR play/drops):

1. Special Teams. Manny fixed the punting and kicking problem, but we are still terrible at punt returns and kickoff returns. And whenever Harley did break a decent run, just about every time we got called for holding or blocking in the back. On one particular block in the back where Harley picked up 30-40 years, Knighton pushed a defender in the back literally in front of the ref although Harley was way upfield of defender . This is an area that needs drastic improvement.

2. From Very Good to Elite. King left a ton of throws on the field. A TON. Easy crossing routes in front of the line of scrimmage, come backs and obviously deep ball throws, although he improved on deep balls as the season progressed. He was very good so if he hits on the throws that he should, he can be elite.

3. Dud to Start. We start virtually every game with 2-3 penalties. Every F@cking Game. Every one. This usually leads to negating good plays or it provides the opposing offense with a first down conversion. This is one of the reasons we start slow each game. This needs to get fixed. Fix this and we should start better each game.

4. Tackling. Our tackling remains poor, ****-poor. Lots of missed tackles every single game by everyone and sometimes lazy effort. I’ve seen better tackling at the annual lourdes-carrolton touch football game. Not sure how to fix this problem at this stage.

5. Rushing D Exposed. Our poor defensive formations and the concept of being hyper aggressive are used against us very well by opponents, leading to teams running the ball well, culminating in the UNC annihilation. Our rush D was ranked around 75 last year. Unacceptable. I’m hooping Simpson and Shoop are able to fix this.

6. No Simple Execution. Our execution of simple plays at critical times is poor. The first that comes to mind is the bowl game when we were down 37-34 on our final offensive drive. Perry hits Pope in the stomach, in the stomach, on a bomb at the 10 yard line and Pope drops it. Like that play, we had 3-4 each game, resulting in missed first down conversions and points.

7. Picks. We should have had 1-2 more interceptions per game. None of our defensive players know how to intercept the ball. They don’t know how to make a play on the ball and can’t catch worse a ****. I’m hoping TRob and DVD can teach the DBs how to make plays on D and the take the ball away.

8. Navaughn. He played very little, but when he did we ran the ball a lot behind him and for a reason. He is hard to handle and just his presence will improve the OL a good amount.

9. Lashlee’s Run Calls. Lashlee improved our offense dramatically, the numbers and the eye don’t lie. However, some of his run calls, especially on third down, were atrocious. 10-15 run plays were Enos style bullsh!t. Don’t know what he was thinking.

10. Reminded me of 2017. After watching us barely beat Pitt, Virginia. Virginia Tech and NC St., last year it reminded me a lot of 2017 when all the winning created an illusion that we were good, until Pitt happened. We were a better team in 2020 than in 2017 but we certainly didn’t play that way many times, especially in those four games. We need to play better in easier games and handily beat the teams that are inferior to us.

[bonus point after further reflection]

11. after further thought, we made noodle arm quarterbacks looks like heisman trophy candidates. the UVA quarterback couldnt start at the lourdes carrollton touch football game, but he looked like Dak against us. Same with the NCST QB. reminded me of the Wisconsin bowl games where those quarterbacks looked like All Americans. part of the reason why is that we play such a soft man to man or soft zone coverage (i think coach macho called it spot dropbacks or dropping back into a spot disirregardless (shout out to west kendall) of where the receiver is in your zone)) that they pick us apart. i hope this changes with T Rob and DVD.

Let’s enjoy the season. I think we’ll do better than last year.

("from ancient grudge beak to new mutiny . . . ")
Solid points!
 
Maybe recruit a LB or two. I just don't understand how we are so anemic at recruiting LB's. We should offer every LB in the top 50 of the country. I was just noticing that Georgia has 3 LB's committed of the top 15 in the country (2 of those are in the top 5). We have one LB committed and that is Medlock. Nick Saban is not a dumb man. He is going to run, run and then run some more against the weakness of the middle of our defense. He won't let the frosh get beat by passing all day because that plays into our hands. Expect to see tons of running from our first game opponent. I just don't get why Manny doesn't emphasize recruiting LB's.
 
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We need a designated KR/PR. We kept just throwing guys back to return punts last year and they were all terrible. Like they couldn't even cleanly field a punt, let alone return one. There needs to be a designated guy who can be relied on to field punts cleanly. Getting big returns is an added bonus.

Most of my gripes on offense were issues that should be shored up now that the offense isn't new to everyone and they've had an actual spring to work. I do think King is always going to be limited as a passer so expecting Aaron Rogers accuracy is unrealistic but there's certain throws he can be more consistent on. He did get better as a passer as the season progressed last year so hopefully that trend continues. I think the upgrades at receiver can only help too. Lashlee wants to run the ball and it's evident by the changes they made on the offensive line. Inside zone and outside zone are going to be staples of the offense and everything will work off them so that's not changing. King being more comfortable with the zone read should help. A lot of the tackles for loss we surrendered last year were due to not making the right read. A lot of the personnel shortcomings on offense last year (poor interior blocking and WRs that couldn't beat press coverage) have been shored up. Baring atrocious injuries, this should be the best offense Miami has had since 2002.
I expect King to be more consistent on his throws to start this year. Let’s remember going into last year that he had sat out the previous year and had no spring with a limited fall camp due to Covid. I know he’s coming off injury but it appears that he has been throwing a lot this offseason.
 
Good write up, just to add on point number 11, we’ve made noodle arm QBs look like heisman candidates since Manny got here. At a certain point, it’s time to call insanity when you see it, you know, running the same defensive scheme over and over and expecting different results. You could say the exact same thing about insanity when it comes to our rush defense as you stated in point number 5. As it’s also been crap since Manny arrived. Hopefully the insanity ends this year.
i agree entirely.
 
Give me Donaldson and Rivers at guard (and while I'm not thrilled with Gayner at C) I think we finally have some people moves upfront and that can improve what we do in the run game. Which dovetails right into all those empty 1st down runs inside that resulted in too many 2nd and 9's. To me, that's the biggest thing on that side of the ball.

Defensively - the loss of our DEnds is huge. But beyond that, can we get just serviceable linebacker play?
And those improvements in the run game will open up the PA pass game even more. Lashlee was stubborn at times with his run calls but they were almost always called to set up a pass play later in the game.
 
I SEE A FEW PEOPLE PUT IN COACHING. MY NUMBER 1 PRIORITY TO IMPROVE DAY GAME HEAD COACHING BECAUSE MANNY GETS OUTCOACHED ALL THE TIME.
 
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Passing efficiency defense took a nose dive under Baker.

Rankings under Manny: 30th, 21st, and 1st.
Rankings under Baker: 30th, 59th.

So while pass efficiency defense improved every year while Manny called the defense, it regressed every year that Blake called the defense.
 
Lets Go Tennis GIF by US Open
 
In my original post, I mentioned that Manny had fixed the kicking and the punting problems, but that the kick return and punt return teams are poor. This is an area that we need to improve in, DRAMATICALLY and NOW.

reading Manny Navarro's column reviewing the entire team, he writes: "I saw Robinson is coaching Miami’s punt return team and know Stevenson, Restrepo and Harley are going to be sharing the responsibility until one of them is finally designated the winner coming out of camp. Miami isn’t looking for a game-breaker. Patke wants somebody who won’t turn it over."

i hate the thinking and mindset.
 
#5 is beyond infuriating. It seemed that offenses knew exactly what we were going to do on defense and would have something ready to manipulate us effortlessly. Then on the other side we would hear too offense how the opposition ran a style of defense that we had never seen before. Self scouting and quality control must improve. I expect it will. It better.
 
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