forums

Bill Connelly's SP+ bullish on the Canes

Advertisement
OrangeBowlMagic said:
The offense was pretty good last year.....at times very good, and at times not nearly good enough, but overall you have to say it was a pretty good offense.

Every single coach is back for Year 2, and Year 1 (breaking in a new staff) was severely abbreviated due to Covid. So Year 1 was really like Year 0.25, or something like that. Every single member of the offensive staff back for what should be close to a normal year should be a big boost.

Every single kid who took a meaningful snap not named Brevin Jordan is back. Every one. The entire 2-deep, minus Brevin.

The supremely talented freshmen backs are no longer freshmen.

Rambo will be a big addition to the WR room, which desperately needs a shot in the arm.

Donaldson is back healthy to add to the line. At worst, it's a slight improvement to a line that was not good enough in 2020, but markedly better than it was in 2019. Continue to improve.

Of course everything is predicated on D'Eriq King's right knee. We all know that. This is mostly moot if he's not himself. But assuming he's 100% as a passer and 90% as a runner, the arrow should be pointing way up on an offense that was already pretty good. 26th in PPG, and I don't remember any special teams or defensive TDs to pad that number, literally zero big returns for short fields, and not a ton of turnovers cashed into easy points as well. Food for thought on that:

Miami was 15th worst in the country in average starting field position. Only 14 teams in America had a worse average field position than we did last year. Those teams are basically a who's who of terribleness. South Carolina, Michigan State, Kansas, UMass, Arizona, Cal, Vanderbilt. Brutal. Hawaii is the only team worse than Miami who had a winning record, and they were 5-4. So the offense finished 26th in PPG despite having some of the least help of any team.

And while looking at this, another one jumped out to me. There is a "Net Field position" metric, which is the difference between your avg starting position on offense (which we just said was terrible) and your opponent's average starting field position. Obviously, it's a huge help if this number is positive...it means you're dealing with short fields and your opponents are not. Well, Miami finished 83rd in the country in this number. Of the 44 teams worse, only TWO had winning records. Wow. Tulsa and Georgia Southern. Every single other team worse had a losing record. Think that's a pretty good indicator of success?

So all that to say, with virtually zero help from the return game or defense setting up short fields, Top 30 in PPG is pretty impressive. Whole staff back. Whole squad back. Rambo here. Donaldson here. LFG.
Click to expand...
Considering we have a professional punter, that second to last paragraph is scary.
 
ThomasM said:
Considering we have a professional punter, that second to last paragraph is scary.
Click to expand...

EXACTLY!!

I looked at it a little more, and it's definitely insane. There is a punt efficiency metric, which is basically averages of where you punt from vs where the opposition gets the ball. As you can imagine, we excelled in that area. #3 in the country, because of the pro punter we have as you mentioned, and the coverage was really good too on the rare occasion he did have one returned. So even with the #3 most efficient punt game, we were still 15th worst in overall field position differential. How? Glad you asked:

Punt return efficiency was terrible. 104th in the country. That's what happens when you can't find a singular human being who can even field a punt, not to mention return it.

Kickoff return efficiency was terrible. 115th in the country.

And kickoff efficiency was OK, not great. 40th in the country.

So even when you have Lou freaking Hedley, when you can't return punts, can't return kicks, and don't force turnovers that result in short fields....you wind up with the 15th worst net field position in the country.

And you STILL have a Top 30 offense.
 
Advertisement
OrangeBowlMagic said:
None taken, and none directed towards you as well, and I say this in the least ****est way possible, but if this is how you feel, don't read it. And I don't blame you. Nobody hoists an SP+ trophy at the end of the year. But it's February 9th. We won't hit a field for anything to be proven on for 6 months.

And with that, let me continue my sobbing as I now have to spend time with my family on weekends.
Click to expand...
👍😂
 
OrangeBowlMagic said:
EXACTLY!!

I looked at it a little more, and it's definitely insane. There is a punt efficiency metric, which is basically averages of where you punt from vs where the opposition gets the ball. As you can imagine, we excelled in that area. #3 in the country, because of the pro punter we have as you mentioned, and the coverage was really good too on the rare occasion he did have one returned. So even with the #3 most efficient punt game, we were still 15th worst in overall field position differential. How? Glad you asked:

Punt return efficiency was terrible. 104th in the country. That's what happens when you can't find a singular human being who can even field a punt, not to mention return it.

Kickoff return efficiency was terrible. 115th in the country.

And kickoff efficiency was OK, not great. 40th in the country.

So even when you have Lou freaking Hedley, when you can't return punts, can't return kicks, and don't force turnovers that result in short fields....you wind up with the 15th worst net field position in the country.

And you STILL have a Top 30 offense.
Click to expand...
The O has more field to cover, and stats to rack up, the teams w better field position avg.
 
1mg of Epi said:
The O has more field to cover, and stats to rack up, the teams w better field position avg.
Click to expand...

But it's harder to score points from worse starting field position, which is what the discussion is centered around. The only stats an offense would be racking up if they have more field to cover is total yards, and nobody looks at yards per game on offense as an indicative stat.

If you have **** poor average starting position and you score a lot of points, you have a good offense. No way around that one, really.
 
OrangeBowlMagic said:
But it's harder to score points from worse starting field position, which is what the discussion is centered around. The only stats an offense would be racking up if they have more field to cover is total yards, and nobody looks at yards per game on offense as an indicative stat.

If you have **** poor average starting position and you score a lot of points, you have a good offense. No way around that one, really.
Click to expand...
I know. I was just being a douche .
 
Advertisement
Lol their just doing this so when we get beat by 30 they can say I told you Miami still sucks. We should be preseason around 15-20 if King is back...
 
I didn't even know Billy Connolly was a football fan. Mr. Moore has the Canes ranked 35th.

Screenshot_20210209-184904_Chrome.jpg
 
rok said:
Fully expect he and Pope to play a lot against Alabama along with other veterans like King, Harris, Rambo, Harley, Mallory, Scaife, Donaldson, Gaynor, J. Williams. There's value in having 4th and 5th year guys in an opener against the biggest/strongest team in the country. If they produce against Bama then they can keep playing, but if they falter then I'd expect the young thundercats to begin eating into their snaps early and often. Kids like Van Dyke, Garcia, Chaney, Knighton, Brinson, Redding, K. Smith, B. Smith, Arroyo, Rivers, Walker.
Click to expand...
I hope u are correct
Going off of past experiences I’m worried pope and Wiggins gonna play no matter how many passes they drop
 
Advertisement
AllAboutTheU said:
Yea, his numbers are typically higher on Miami than elsewhere, so I get the trepidation. Expecting the offense to take a big jump in year 2 under Lashlee and better defensive play with better coaching across the board isn't crazy though.
Click to expand...

Offense taking a big jump should be fueled by Chaney/Rooster making a big jump. We all know we need the WR's to step up but I'm expecting a big leap from the two freshman RB's.
 
OrangeBowlMagic said:
Punt return efficiency was terrible. 104th in the country. That's what happens when you can't find a singular human being who can even field a punt, not to mention return it.

Kickoff return efficiency was terrible. 115th in the country.

And kickoff efficiency was OK, not great. 40th in the country.
Click to expand...

And somehow people think Patke is doing OK because we have a guy who can punt and had a guy who can kick.
 
No one does off-season and stats like Manly Manure. I wonder how many guys we’ll have running 20 mph.
 
Advertisement
Liberty City El said:
11-1/10-2 no excuses.
Click to expand...

Without trying to be like "well here's an excuse," what do you think if King is unable to return? How should that impact our expectations? All the pieces are there but a very inexperienced QB is probably not winning 10 games with this team.

Otherwise I totally agree with you. 10-2 needs to be the absolute floor and we need to win a **** bowl game already.
 
CashMoneyCane said:
Without trying to be like "well here's an excuse," what do you think if King is unable to return? How should that impact our expectations? All the pieces are there but a very inexperienced QB is probably not winning 10 games with this team.

Otherwise I totally agree with you. 10-2 needs to be the absolute floor and we need to win a **** bowl game already.
Click to expand...
Still not an excuse.

In today’s era of college football you don’t have to have a Redshirt Junior QB in order to win, TF & Red F’s have had great success early on & lead their teams to winning season since guys like Jalen Hurts & Trevor Lawrence both lead their team to National championship games as TF’s.

Oklahoma went 9-2 last year with Spencer rattler as a Red Frosh with no experience & a first year starter.

If King is not healthy, yes it wouldn’t be great for the offense & team overall, but either TVD or Garcia would still have enough talent around them to lead us to a winning season, unless they’re simply not good enough & if they’re not then those are two bad evals that will set us back a few years.

I understand the propensity for fans to wanna temper expectations at all costs I get it, but at some point people have to take the training wheels off for Manny & not constantly come up with a reason to let him off the hook. Just based on the talent on the team (Blue-chip ratio), improvements on the coaching staff & the schedule overall, even if Jake Garcia had to start as a TF there’s no excuse to lose more than 2 games this season.

Otherwise, if there’s always a clutch to let Manny slip away for another season without feeling heat for disappointment & not winning the Coastal, then when does he get held accountable? After a while it will turn into the dead end of the Folden years all over again, every season there was always some disengaging excuse for the inevitable let down & even then you had people goin, “Just give him one more year, we still haven’t recovered from (insert excuse here)!”

If TVD ain’t ready to go, then that’s a failure by the staff, we get a full Spring/Summer/Fall this year & we know King won’t be ready for Spring & probably won’t participate much in Summer workouts, so TVD has plenty of time to get ready this offseason. Miami can’t be the only program in America that can never win unless we have an experienced QB at the helm, lots of teams play brand new guys at QB every year & they keep rolling without missing a beat.

It’s now or never for Manny, no excuses. Injuries/recovery be damned.
 
Advertisement
Back
Top