Ben Davis - Alabama LB transfer

[Rellyrell]

I know this is going to hurt some of the “development” crowd’s feelings but at a lot positions are reliant on traits you can’t develop no matter how much you practice or watch film. You have the instincts to play linebacker or you don’t. It’s why Shaq and Pinckney were able to contribute consistently and McCloud has flopped. They all got the exact same coaching from the exact same coaches. Quarterbacks and linemen need to be developed. Linebackers and running backs either have it or they don’t.

I wholeheartedly disagree w/ this, respectfully.

There’s always guys who have god-given talent where u just give them a ball & field, & they are going to ball no matter what school or who the coach is. But “development” is an all encompassing word. A guy can have all the instincts in the world, but has he gotten stronger to capitalize on those instincts? Does he know how to shed blocks vs. bull rushing or just using speed techniques that he got away with at the high school level? Is he now a “tick” faster than before?
Regarding DBs, do they know when to turn their head around? Are they able to recognize formation & slow down reaction time b/c of seeing a motion, a shift, a cadence, etc? Is he stronger, faster?

I mean, it’s called a program & a program is so vast in what it means to develop. I feel once an established program is in place, development becomes on autopilot b/c it’s literally iron sharpens iron. Again, we’ve seen it first hand. Discipline, work ethic, pushing to be not only the best u, but pushing ur teammates to be the best them in the weight room, film study, practice, etc.

It’s not as simple as film study to get better.

 

[puertorricane]

So which is it, theyre no better than us at development, or we’re not good at development?

I keep reading that we haven’t developed well enough. Is the claim not that Alabama is just as ****** as we are st it? If so, why does anyone waste any time even talking about it? Because if you can win 6 titles by not developing, then let’s focus on other areas to improve.

Recruiting, Recruiting and more Recruiting

 

[DTP]

I wholeheartedly disagree w/ this, respectfully.

There’s always guys who have god-given talent where u just give them a ball & field, & they are going to ball no matter what school or who the coach is. But “development” is an all encompassing word. A guy can have all the instincts in the world, but has he gotten stronger to capitalize on those instincts? Does he know how to shed blocks vs. bull rushing or just using speed techniques that he got away with at the high school level? Is he now a “tick” faster than before?
Regarding DBs, do they know when to turn their head around? Are they able to recognize formation & slow down reaction time b/c of seeing a motion, a shift, a cadence, etc? Is he stronger, faster?

I mean, it’s called a program & a program is so vast in what it means to develop. I feel once an established program is in place, development becomes on autopilot b/c it’s literally iron sharpens iron. Again, we’ve seen it first hand. Discipline, work ethic, pushing to be not only the best u, but pushing ur teammates to be the best them in the weight room, film study, practice, etc.

It’s not as simple as film study to get better.

Except if you put 10 players through the same exact strength and training program, you’ll likely get 10 different results. Yes, there are fundamentals and technique training. You need coaches. What I’m saying is that at certain positions, you either have the ability or you don’t. All the coaching in the world is not going to make Zach McCloud a good linebacker. People will say “well, he wasn’t developed properly”. To that I ask why the other two linebackers who enrolled with him were good players despite having the exact same coaching and training.

It’s not even a matter of being more naturally athletic. It’s instinct. Mc Cloud is a better athlete than Shaq. Lorenzo Lingard is a better athlete than Cam Harris. The other guys are better players because of natural instinct to see a play and be in position.

 

[pacusmc]

Imo, this is a chicken or egg situation. Is Saban getting the top recruits b/c he’s a good coach & developer or is Saban a good coach b/c of the top recruits he get? Imo, it’s the 1st & not the latter. I’m in no way discounting getting top recruits; of course u need the ingredients. But what good is a chef if he doesn’t know what to do w/ said ingredients?

We’ve witnessed first hand, here in Miami, that having top recruits don’t mean chit if u can’t develop them, and I’m not talking about the Shannon - Diaz yrs, I’m talking about us being thee premier program in America & literally having chit to show for it besides an “almost” National Championship in 2003. We also saw as time went on, our recruiting classes became worst & worst.

So I’m of the thought that the best wanna play with the best & a winning program. However, in order to get to this point, results gotta be shown. So when it comes to Saban, even at his days at MSU, results showed by producing high draft picks & having the best coaching record there in over 15 yrs.

You have to produce period I agree.
Kirby is running out of excuses at uga and covid gave home a pass. He literally on paper has equal talent from top to bottom compared to Bama and osu. And he can’t use not having a qb as an excuse anymore.

But I’m gonna try to be as simple as possible cause I feel like this comes up over and over again and nobody seems to get the point.

Bama has over 70 blue chip players on their roster and a great majority of them will not make the league. If we had 10 of those players on our squad and they didn’t make the league it would seem like we suck at developing. But we’re talking about a huge number of elite recruits not making the league at these schools and that sht goes unnoticed because of the yearly first round draft picks they get.

People still talk about Tracey Howard and chick.
You know why? Because we have very few elite players to talk about. Think about that. They’ve had their pick of the litter of elite recruits and nobody talks about the amount of elite talent on the bench or talent that went undrafted.

Right now nesta does not look like a draft pick to me and that’s another player that we’re gonna end up talking about. Bama gets 3-4 players rated higher than nesta every year and most of them don’t make the league. But we’re gonna talk sht about our dline coaches cause nesta didn’t become a day one pick?

it’s a freaking numbers game my dude. All these teams that recruit multiple elite players on a yearly basis have way more not get drafted than ones that do.

Why give Corey Raymond credit for the 4 and 5 stars he put in the league and not give him heat for the equally rated recruits that he didn’t put in the league?

These “elite developers” aren’t turning chicken sht into prime rib.
But they are getting Prime beef to work with and they still end up having it taste like sht on most occasions and the numbers prove it.
Look at UNC and Grimes. Dude was basically a high school player last year.
Please tell me how much “development” did the db coach at unc have to do to make him play like that last year.

 

[Rellyrell]

Except if you put 10 players through the same exact strength and training program, you’ll likely get 10 different results. Yes, there are fundamentals and technique training. You need coaches. What I’m saying is that at certain positions, you either have the ability or you don’t. All the coaching in the world is not going to make Zach McCloud a good linebacker. People will say “well, he wasn’t developed properly”. To that I ask why the other two linebackers who enrolled with him were good players despite having the exact same coaching and training.

It’s not even a matter of being more naturally athletic. It’s instinct. Mc Cloud is a better athlete than Shaq. Lorenzo Lingard is a better athlete than Cam Harris. The other guys are better players because of natural instinct to see a play and be in position.

Was McCloud a better LB before or after Manny tweaked the defense? Wasn’t he apart of the “New Bermuda Triangle?” And it can be argued Shaq nor Pinckney became difference makers or made an improvement from Freshman through Senior years.

 

[Rellyrell]

You have to produce period I agree.
Kirby is running out of excuses at uga and covid gave home a pass. He literally on paper has equal talent from top to bottom compared to Bama and osu. And he can’t use not having a qb as an excuse anymore.

But I’m gonna try to be as simple as possible cause I feel like this comes up over and over again and nobody seems to get the point.

Bama has over 70 blue chip players on their roster and a great majority of them will not make the league. If we had 10 of those players on our squad and they didn’t make the league it would seem like we suck at developing. But we’re talking about a huge number of elite recruits not making the league at these schools and that sht goes unnoticed because of the yearly first round draft picks they get.

People still talk about Tracey Howard and chick.
You know why? Because we have very few elite players to talk about. Think about that. They’ve had their pick of the litter of elite recruits and nobody talks about the amount of elite talent on the bench or talent that went undrafted.

Right now nesta does not look like a draft pick to me and that’s another player that we’re gonna end up talking about. Bama gets 3-4 players rated higher than nesta every year and most of them don’t make the league. But we’re gonna talk sht about our dline coaches cause nesta didn’t become a day one pick?

it’s a freaking numbers game my dude. All these teams that recruit multiple elite players on a yearly basis have way more not get drafted than ones that do.

Why give Corey Raymond credit for the 4 and 5 stars he put in the league and not give him heat for the equally rated recruits that he didn’t put in the league?

These “elite developers” aren’t turning chicken sht into prime rib.
But they are getting Prime beef to work with and they still end up having it taste like sht on most occasions and the numbers prove it.
Look at UNC and Grimes. Dude was basically a high school player last year.
Please tell me how much “development” did the db coach at unc have to do to make him play like that last year.

OK, so basically ur saying the reason y Bama has so many draft picks is not necessarily due to “development” v. the shear amount of blue chips coming through, correct? Yet, no one mentions the blue chip flops which will give credence to a theory that maybe they are not developing that well?

Did I get that correct?

 

[DTP]

Was McCloud a better LB before or after Manny tweaked the defense? Wasn’t he apart of the “New Bermuda Triangle?” And it can be argued Shaq nor Pinckney became difference makers or made an improvement from Freshman through Senior years.

Mc Cloud was always the weakest of the group. They literally went from being decent with a terrible 3rd down defense in 2017 to being one of the nation’s best defenses with the top 3rd down rate in 2018 just by swapping out McCloud for a striker.

Let’s forget all about Miami and focus on the player at hand. Alabama has certainly had some really great linebackers. If it was due to “development” why would this kid be a bust? He’s getting the same exact coaching and training as the other guys who passed him up. Some guys have it, some guys don’t. Everyone is occasionally going to sign kids who don’t have it. Even Alabama. So you have to make sure you’ve stockpiled enough talent to when a kid flops, nobody cares because you’ve got a line of 5 star guys to take his spot.

 

[DTP]

In regards to Bama, you could point out their blue chip flops and say they aren’t developing guys or they aren’t evaluating guys well. But that’s not really the case. They have flops just like everyone does. They just have so much blue chip talent, half their roster could bust and they’d still be incredible. They recruit at a macro level while most of college football is recruiting at a micro level.

 

[Rellyrell]

Mc Cloud was always the weakest of the group. They literally went from being decent with a terrible 3rd down defense in 2017 to being one of the nation’s best defenses with the top 3rd down rate in 2018 just by swapping out McCloud for a striker.

Let’s forget all about Miami and focus on the player at hand. Alabama has certainly had some really great linebackers. If it was due to “development” why would this kid be a bust? He’s getting the same exact coaching and training as the other guys who passed him up. Some guys have it, some guys don’t. Everyone is occasionally going to sign kids who don’t have it. Even Alabama. So you have to make sure you’ve stockpiled enough talent to when a kid flops, nobody cares because you’ve got a line of 5 star guys to take his spot.

In the case of any recruits, it’s no different than a NFL draft pick, some guys just don’t pan out. Some kids are blue chips b/c they really are blue chips, while some are blue chips b/c of their “potential” or they are just so much better than their level of competition. However, come college, that chit get sorted out. Lingard was a guy, while I loved his potential, clearly ran too high/stiff...competition looked real suspect & the offense was simple. Yet, in his Hudl, all we saw was him running away from ppl. His size, potential, plus being the best player by far on the field led him to being considered a top 3 back in the nation. College sorted that out.

But let me be very clear since we’re forgetting days of Miami:

We’ve gone through a period of time where Golden was plumping up our guys via Pizza diets, my guy.

We’ve gone through a period where Richt came in & the 1st ? he asked was, “where’s the big guys at?”

We’ve gone through a period where our S&C coach was fat af, and couldn’t even to get to set on time

We’ve gone through a period where our S&C coach wasn’t even certified & had to mentor while looking through a glass window

We didn’t even have a training table til like 2010, bro

Now, we got guys all running 20 mph, allegedly, via a GPS system


Bro, we’re not seeing this chit at Bama, OK.! Lol!!! We’re talking about real development, where we see guys come looking like kids & leave looking like grown men at OSU, Bama, Clemson, UGA, etc. We’re talking about 3 star guys like Jacob, Jackson, Warmack, Coffee, Jackson, Cody, Sunseri, Arenas, etc come in, and leave looking like freggin 5 star guys at Bama.

5 stars flop everywhere. 4 stars flop everywhere. At Bama, u can easily get passed up, b/c not only is there another blue chip breathing down ur neck, the guys coming in as 3 stars are breathing down ur neck too. Again, it’s called a program. It’s much more than recruit & play. Bama is literally on auto pilot right now. Once upon a time, so were we.

So back to the player in discussion; it could very well be his star ranking was too high from the jump; it could very well be that the guys that was before him & after him were simply better. My point in not wanting him is if he couldn’t beat at the guy before him, and the guys after him are passing him up, I’m good on him. Knowing that a spot is not granted, it’s earned at Bama & he couldn’t garnish any significant playing time is all I need to know.

 

[pacusmc]

OK, so basically ur saying the reason y Bama has so many draft picks is not necessarily due to “development” v. the shear amount of blue chips coming through, correct? Yet, no one mentions the blue chip flops which will give credence to a theory that maybe they are not developing that well?

Did I get that correct?

Yes.
For every Minkah, ps2, and HaHa Dix you have several players that didn’t pan out despite them going to the same school and having the same coaches.
I’m not saying they suck at developing. And I’m not saying Miami is exceptional. But having a lot of very good players in your squad and then getting credit for the truly elite ones is unfair.

Just like blaming Miami for not getting a few elite players drafted is also unfair. However, Miami’s problem really hasn’t been getting players drafted. It’s been that we haven’t gotten them drafted at the day most people wanted them to or thought they should’ve been drafted in because of their performance in high school. We even argue that it’s Miami’s fault some didn’t pan out in the nfl. I’ve heard people argue about Artie Burns not playing because we didn’t develop him.
And he was a first round pick.
We’re still arguing about Willie Williams for example.

How many times have we said in here “he was gonna go to the league regardless of where he played” and some of the players that go to these schools end up making that statement true as do many of the ones that never made it.
So is it development or just the result recruiting a bunch of very high level players and some of them got drafted.

 

[Rellyrell]

Yes.
For every Minkah, ps2, and HaHa Dix you have several players that didn’t pan out despite them going to the same school and having the same coaches.
I’m not saying they suck at developing. And I’m not saying Miami is exceptional. But having a lot of very good players in your squad and then getting credit for the truly elite ones is unfair.

Just like blaming Miami for not getting a few elite players drafted is also unfair. However, Miami’s problem really hasn’t been getting players drafted. It’s been that we haven’t gotten them drafted at the day most people wanted them to or thought they should’ve been drafted in because of their performance in high school. We even argue that it’s Miami’s fault some didn’t pan out in the nfl. I’ve heard people argue about Artie Burns not playing because we didn’t develop him.
And he was a first round pick.
We’re still arguing about Willie Williams for example.

How many times have we said in here “he was gonna go to the league regardless of where he played” and some of the players that go to these schools end up making that statement true as do many of the ones that never made it.
So is it development or just the result recruiting a bunch of very high level players and some of them got drafted.

My response to DTP is right above this post.

 

[Ethnicsands]

Recruiting, Recruiting and more Recruiting

Evaluations evaluations and more evaluations. You have to know WHO to prioritize in recruiting. This program crashed when Coker started recruiting off lists.

 

[puertorricane]

Evaluations evaluations and more evaluations. You have to know WHO to prioritize in recruiting. This program crashed when Coker started recruiting off lists.

Recruiting, evaluations, bottom line an influx of talent makes any coach look good.
Coker won a national title and was denied by a late pass interference flag call from winning a second.
Was he elite at coaching or developing talent?

 

[Ethnicsands]

Recruiting, evaluations, bottom line an influx of talent makes any coach look good.
Coker won a national title and was denied by a late pass interference flag call from winning a second.
Was he elite at coaching or developing talent?

Coker was a Godawful scarecrow. He won’t with the GOAT roster ever assembled in CFB (assembled by Butch), and with a team led by Ed Reed and Ken Dorsey that coached itself.

Please don’t ever mention Coker as an example of anything other than fail at Miami. The man broke the program.

 

[puertorricane]

Coker was a Godawful scarecrow. He won’t with the GOAT roster ever assembled in CFB (assembled by Butch), and with a team led by Ed Reed and Ken Dorsey that coached itself.

Please don’t ever mention Coker as an example of anything other than fail at Miami. The man broke the program.

You just made my point.

 

[pacusmc]

Evaluations evaluations and more evaluations. You have to know WHO to prioritize in recruiting. This program crashed when Coker started recruiting off lists.

This is also very true.
I talk a lot of sht about Bama and stock piling of talent and the cream rises to the top when they get there. But they are also very selective on who they take and have the clout to make those kids wait until final evaluations and senior year performance.
But take Ahmon Richards for example. A player that came here and put one foot on green tree and said “thank you all for showing up it’s my room now”.
If you go to 247 and look at his time line Bama recruited him to the very end with like 4 visits in the last few months of his recruitment. I think they did like 2 home visits. Something they didn’t do at all with Pope.

AR was the 27th ranked receiver while Bruce was 11th. Bruce didn’t even get a visit from anyone on bamas staff. And everyone here was stressing on how he might pick Ohio state.

 

[Dr.Doom]

How many 3 stars is saban putting in the league? Even if his lower end 4 stars?

 

[SWFLHurricane]

Was McCloud a better LB before or after Manny tweaked the defense? Wasn’t he apart of the “New Bermuda Triangle?” And it can be argued Shaq nor Pinckney became difference makers or made an improvement from Freshman through Senior years.

Lol at the supposed "New Bermuda Triangle"..... I cringe when I hear Shaq...McCloud & Pinkney referred to as anything Bermuda Triangle related...

 

[SWFLHurricane]

Recruiting, evaluations, bottom line an influx of talent makes any coach look good.
Coker won a national title and was denied by a late pass interference flag call from winning a second.
Was he elite at coaching or developing talent?

Neither.....The true coaches on the 01 team were players who were evaluated...recruited and developed by Butch and his staff....

 

[puertorricane]

Neither.....The true coaches on the 01 team were players who were evaluated...recruited and developed by Butch and his staff....

Coker was part of Butch's staff.
My point is that talent is more important than coaching. Coker is proof of that.