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All Eyes On Mario

Udynasty said:
I wrote an article for LifeWallet Sports about how this is the most critical year of Mario's tenure:





Ultimately I think he will turn it around this year but If he has another 5/6 win season that plan might be in peril. Thoughts?
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interesting article. the ideas are good, but respectfully, it was poorly written, sloppy and all over the place. no cohesion and order. reads like a message board post. the editor should be fired.
 
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Astcloud11 said:
Bro...Wake Forest is another example. 45-7 last year. 3 point lost this year. I'm not convinced that Diaz would've beat this year's Duke team. DUKE was the one that gave up last year, giving out blow out wins all over the place.
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I'm not discounting Duke's improvement, it's just more about the teams that beat them 2021 being much worse in 2022. Miami, UVA and Wake went a combined 24-14 in 2021 they went 16-19 in 2022.

The Duke score went from 47-10 Miami in 2021 to 45-21 Duke in 2022. That's literally a 58 point swing.
 
DTP said:
The 2021 team beat Duke 47-10. Their new coach isn’t worth 38 points. They also likely score more than 9 friggin points against A&M.

Regardless, it’s not a matter of what Diaz would have done, it’s that UM spent a TON of money on a coach that should have been way better than Manny Diaz right off the bat and he was a total flop.

Nobody believes that the team he inherited was championship caliber. There were a lot of holes to patch. But the 2021 team went 7-5 and was competitive in every game besides Alabama. That includes playing most of the season with their backup quarterback. It’s inexcusable that Mario took that team and not only had a worse record but wasn’t even competitive in half their games. We talked about locker room “cancers” that Manny kept on the team but that team never quit on their season like last year’s team did. That team started 2-4 and lost their quarterback and team leader in week 3. They didn’t throw in the towel on the season at that point. They won 3 straight to get back over .500. Then they lost a heartbreaker to a rival and could have easily shut it down but they went out and won their last two games against VT and Duke. The 2022 team lost to A&M and proceeded to give up on the season and I put that strictly on the coaches.
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There are qualifiers for A&M:

Manny had Cheney for the first few games of 2021, and had Cam Harris and Jaylon Knighton.

Mario lost Trevonte before the season. Cheney was not available. He had Knighton, but Parrish is a step below a healthy Cheney or Harris.

Manny had Rambo in 2021, who proved to be a huge lift for the offense. No one was comparable in 2022.

At Duke, you had a team with a shattered offensive line and an injured quarterback trying to play. Same issues as with A&M in regards to running back and the lack of a Rambo replacement. But the TVD status and the OL injuries largely make that irrelevant. Gattis being a square peg on a round hole was the cherry on top of the fecal sundae.
 
GojiraCane said:
There are qualifiers for A&M:

Manny had Cheney for the first few games of 2021, and had Cam Harris and Jaylon Knighton.

Mario lost Trevonte before the season. Cheney was not available. He had Knighton, but Parrish is a step below a healthy Cheney or Harris.

Manny had Rambo in 2021, who proved to be a huge lift for the offense. No one was comparable in 2022.

At Duke, you had a team with a shattered offensive line and an injured quarterback trying to play. Same issues as with A&M in regards to running back and the lack of a Rambo replacement. But the TVD status and the OL injuries largely make that irrelevant. Gattis being a square peg on a round hole was the cherry on top of the fecal sundae.
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Gattis is the easy scapegoat…he was terrible, but not the total problem…
 
Doing it the traditional way it takes at least 3 years to turn around a program, the ol
Wario Cristobum said:
Eggs-actly. Diaz got 7-5 out of a less experienced, less talented version of the team the year prior.
[BGCOLOR=initial] [/BGCOLOR]
[BGCOLOR=initial]Cristobal screwed up his OC hire big time. If he had hired a competent OC, UM should have won at least 8 games. So with the portal and recruiting, a 2 game improvement from that is not unreasonable. He should win 10 games next year. Crapping the bed in the first season shouldnt change the original expectations for year 2.[/BGCOLOR]
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These were my exact thoughts, yeah we had a bad season last year, now he has more of his players, a slight upgrade in talent and depth on both sides, there should be no excuses this year for anything less than 8 wins
 
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Hurricane23 said:
Doing it the traditional way it takes at least 3 years to turn around a program, the ol

These were my exact thoughts, yeah we had a bad season last year, now he has more of his players, a slight upgrade in talent and depth on both sides, there should be no excuses this year for anything less than 8 wins
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9 wins or we move on. Traditionally 3 years is the long wait for a program to turn around. At least for any school that's going to win a championship with that coach.
 
Angry Ibis said:
Gattis is the easy scapegoat…he was terrible, but not the total problem…
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There were multiple problems:

1. Gattis as OC
2. Poor offensive line recruiting going back to 2018
3. Poor linebacker recruiting for six years
4. Very poor cornerback recruiting for 3 years
5. Injuries to a thin offensive line
6. Holdover players on defense having to relearn to arm tackle and not shoulder tackle (as taught by Manny’s staff)
7. Dissension on the team as to who should start - Garcia or TVD
8. No replacement for Rambo, although I’m not certain how much that would have mattered with the OL state and Gattis
 
Angry Ibis said:
I’m going to be much less forgiving about an injury to QB1 because we have no QB2 and the commentary about QB1 since last year annoys the **** out of me, so to be left in this scenario is unacceptable
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I really hope our QB2 is game ready. I like JB a lot, but he's a long term project imho. Which TVD do we get? 🤷🏾‍♂️. I'm cautiously optimistic.
 
GojiraCane said:
There were multiple problems:

1. Gattis as OC
2. Poor offensive line recruiting going back to 2018
3. Poor linebacker recruiting for six years
4. Very poor cornerback recruiting for 3 years
5. Injuries to a thin offensive line
6. Holdover players on defense having to relearn to arm tackle and not shoulder tackle (as taught by Manny’s staff)
7. Dissension on the team as to who should start - Garcia or TVD
8. No replacement for Rambo, although I’m not certain how much that would have mattered with the OL state and Gattis
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Elements of 2-6 and 8 could have been addressed through better portal utilization. #8 in general was a known and easily identifiable problem.

#1 was a hiring mistake compounded by poor management of the situation which create no buy in between the OC and QBC, no buy in by QB1, and a disaster of the QB room as a whole.

#7 has become more concerning over time starting with the anointing of TVD as QB1 the minute a Mario got here and TVDs “antics” since…
 
One thing Mario has going for him is he’s not going anywhere no matter what happens this year and probably next.
Unlike a program like UiF Slingblade Billy is on a VERY warm seat and when he goes 3-9/4-8 this year it may get even hotter seeing as his recruiting has sucked and this amazing class he’s got now will scatter like roaches when the lights go on when he has this ****** year no matter how much money they owe him.

Mario can sell the fact he will be able to continue with his rebuild and will be given time to finish it so the kids that by in will know they will have the same guy in charge for their careers…

Having Zo here and him doing evals gives me confidence most every kid that they take will be able to contribute no matter how man stars he brings with him…This was a 3-4 year minimum rebuild ( 3 to win the ACC 4 to get us CFP ready)to get us CFP ready and I have zero reason yet to doubt that this will happen.
 
Udynasty said:
Yeah. The transfer portal has sped up that process. If we want to get out of the ACC we also need to improve on the field and give the SEC/ BIG Ten a reason to bring us in. With an 8-9 win season you pretty much secure that as well.
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Trust me. We are already slated for the B1G. Miami and ND were given AAU status this year. That is huge!!!

The B1G wants sports and academics. Nebraska is the only school in the B1G that isn't an AAU school. They were when they joined the conference, but were kicked out.

The federal government spends $17 billion each year on academic research. That money is more than college football and basketball combined. AAU schools get the lion's share of that research money.

Make no mistake. UM is B1G bound. It's just a matter of when they can get out of the ACC.
 
Number1CanesFan said:
Trust me. We are already slated for the B1G. Miami and ND were given AAU status this year. That is huge!!!

The B1G wants sports and academics. Nebraska is the only school in the B1G that isn't an AAU school. They were when they joined the conference, but were kicked out.

The federal government spends $17 billion each year on academic research. That money is more than college football and basketball combined. AAU schools get the lion's share of that research money.

Make no mistake. UM is B1G bound. It's just a matter of when they can get out of the ACC.
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Isn't there already a mega-thread on this topic with that exact information peppered monotonously hundreds of pages and thousands of replies deep?
 
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Angry Ibis said:
Elements of 2-6 and 8 could have been addressed through better portal utilization. #8 in general was a known and easily identifiable problem.

#1 was a hiring mistake compounded by poor management of the situation which create no buy in between the OC and QBC, no buy in by QB1, and a disaster of the QB room as a whole.

#7 has become more concerning over time starting with the anointing of TVD as QB1 the minute a Mario got here and TVDs “antics” since…
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I think portal utility in 2022 was a bit of a learning experience for all schools. USC mastered it early, with (likely) aggressive, preemptive tampering that secured them Addison. That said, given the state of the o line and TVD’s injury I’m not certain how much difference Addison would have made.
 
GojiraCane said:
There were multiple problems:

1. Gattis as OC biggest problem
2. Poor offensive line recruiting going back to 2018 the line was poor in 2020 and 2021 too but they worked around it
3. Poor linebacker recruiting for six years The portal guys they brought in were even worse than what we had already.
4. Very poor cornerback recruiting for 3 years I'm still not sure if this is a recruiting or coaching issue. We just had two corners get drafted and guys who play well early never seem to improve.
5. Injuries to a thin offensive line Tuff and Fizical
6. Holdover players on defense having to relearn to arm tackle and not shoulder tackle (as taught by Manny’s staff) The poor tackling continued under Steele too but the defense was statistically a bit better than 2021.
7. Dissension on the team as to who should start - Garcia or TVD This question should have already been answered in 2021 if not 2022 showed the coaches were right on who to start.
8. No replacement for Rambo, although I’m not certain how much that would have mattered with the OL state and Gattis We could have had Randy Moss and Gattis would have had him running defenders off to open up a dump-off pass to a running back.
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this schedule gives UM an opportunity to go 4-1, if not 5-0 off the bat. But Im not going to count any victories after last year

but if Mario can put together an 8-9 win season, without getting blown out in any games in embarrassing fashion (which happened a few times last season) and also play an entertaining brand of football offensively(which didn't happen at any time last season), we're good to go.

Dont quote me, but Im actually optimistic about this upcoming season
 
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