Jaelan Phillips, Greg Rousseau, Quincy Roche, Jon Garvin, Joe Jackson, Chad Thomas, Trent Harris and Demetrius Jackson all had success here. Defensive end was one of the most productive positions here the last 5 years before 2021. All those guys could play despite terrible coaches in a terrible scheme. Like most positions on Manny’s defense, the production fell off a cliff when the talent levels dropped.
Now Stroud and Jess are terrible coaches? Come on man. Let's be real here.
Also, if one thing Manny's defense *DOES* do, it's allow edge players to be successful. Your last piece is true, though. The talent level was not nearly as good in 2021 than it was in years past. There's probably a pretty good chance that dudes like C. Williams and Deandre Johnson simply aren't as good as the players you named. Especially considering every single one of those guys except DJ were or are cashing NFL checks.
Manny's problem, and the reason we're in the situation we're in, comes back once again to recruiting much more than coaching. The talent levels dropped, as you mentioned, due to poor evals and poor recruiting.
In 2018, we signed Greg and Patrick Joyner as the edge players. Both very unheralded players, one obvious hit and one massive miss. So we yielded one edge player in that class.
In 2019, we signed Harvey and Cam Williams. One decent player, a 4-star, and a complete bust. He knew he needed help, so he went to the portal and got Hill and Phillips. Phillips couldn't play until 2020, but Hill had to come in and contribute right away. Manny is treading water, at best, at this point, and likely drowning.
In 2020, he gets Chantz, who was very highly ranked but the jury is still out on, hence this thread. Elijah Roberts is a bit of a tweener but is best served inside. Quentin Williams signs, but leaves very quickly. So we have to dip into the portal again, and gets an NFL kid in Roche. See the pattern here? Not nearly enough quality talent being taken out of HS in these classes at a very important positon.
So we're screwed again for 2021, he knows he needs more help and it can't be from true freshmen, so he gets Deandre Johnson, who turns out to be an average player. In the HS class, he signs Jabari Ishmael, a decent prospect but one who needs a few years of development. Same with Thomas Davis.
This just simply isn't good enough from a recruiting perspective. He took 4 edge players from the portal in 3 classes. You're doing a poor job evaluating and signing high school kids if this is the case. In FOUR high school classes, he yielded Rousseau, Harvey, Chantz Williams, Jabari Ishmael and Thomas Davis. That is god awful.
