DB Omar Thornton commits to Miami

[Gocanes1990]

For reference, Jakobe had a 19% missed tackle rate and Keionte had a 20%

Not excusing it. Just some context.

Good point. Part of this was setting th edge forcing runners back to teeth of defense. Part of it was truly bad / missed tackling.

 

[JHallCanes]

I don’t think we can rely on him in the nickel even if he wanted to. He can’t stay healthy. Scott was in the box, holding edges, taking on blocks. Not sure brown can take that based on his track record.

Scott was also a FANTASTIC blitzer

I mean physically someone like Cam Pruitt has some of those traits. He’s got better coverage skills than I thought a LB would have but he’s not really an idea Nickel

Definitely our biggest question mark is who replaces 0

 

[TriStarCane]

Scott was also a FANTASTIC blitzer

I mean physically someone like Cam Pruitt has some of those traits. He’s got better coverage skills than I thought a LB would have but he’s not really an idea Nickel

Definitely our biggest question mark is who replaces 0

Not sure anyone does tbh. Hetherman will probably have it look a little different. We had 4 and 0 in over fronts holding down the edges 4 on 2. Just not sure they exist anywhere lol

 

[Golsen82]

wtf was that motion guy doing, blocking air as Omar ran by him.

Baumans relative for sure

 

[DLINKDAGR8]

We don't really ask our Nickel to do anything that requires THAT much speed. We're a mainly Cover-3 team. We seldom play any man. Scott ran to the flats most of the time. (doesn't require much speed)

What the Nickel position requires mostly is twitch, willingness to tackle, willingness to fit the run, ability to blitz, and violence.

Sound like a perfect role for Cortez Redding

 

[DMoney]

For reference, Jakobe had a 19% missed tackle rate and Keionte had a 20%

Not excusing it. Just some context.

Miami "ranked" #115 in tackling as a team. Active players and active defenses that run to the ball might grade as "missing" a lot of tackles because they are always in the picture.

PFF is good for certain specific things, and is very deceptive for others.

 

[88]

Miami "ranked" #115 in tackling as a team. Active players and active defenses that run to the ball might grade as "missing" a lot of tackles because they are always in the picture.

PFF is good for certain specific things, and is very deceptive for others.

Exactly. We saw a lot of bad tackling teams and this wasn’t one of them. They leveraged the ball, gang tackled and tackles in space.

 

[JHallCanes]

Miami "ranked" #115 in tackling as a team. Active players and active defenses that run to the ball might grade as "missing" a lot of tackles because they are always in the picture.

PFF is good for certain specific things, and is very deceptive for others.

Saban talked about that at length during one of our segments

He was saying how Alabama was the same way because he taught them to never hesitate when tackling. He’d rather them miss aggressively because someone would be there to clean it up if they did miss because the ball carrier has to slow down

Said his Bama teams always had bad rankings but he didn’t care

I noticed this a lot against Ole Miss. Their guys were constantly flat footed (Malis TD for example)

Paraphrasing a bit but it was a good discussion

 

[TwentySix]

Saban talked about that at length during one of our segments

He was saying how Alabama was the same way because he taught them to never hesitate when tackling. He’d rather them miss aggressively because someone would be there to clean it up if they did miss because the ball carrier has to slow down

Said his Bama teams always had bad rankings but he didn’t care

I noticed this a lot against Ole Miss. Their guys were constantly flat footed (Malis TD for example)

Paraphrasing a bit but it was a good discussion

I may be mixing this up with someone else, but I feel like I remember Hetherman discussing that in a press conference, where essentially his philosophy is be aggressive on the tackle and that’s part of why he so heavily emphasizes swarming/rallying to the ball.

 

[JHallCanes]

I may be mixing this up with someone else, but I feel like I remember Hetherman discussing that in a press conference, where essentially his philosophy is be aggressive on the tackle and that’s part of why he so heavily emphasizes swarming/rallying to the ball.

Yessir 100%. I think that’s part of why Saban was so horny for our defense

 

[Warrior808]

I may be mixing this up with someone else, but I feel like I remember Hetherman discussing that in a press conference, where essentially his philosophy is be aggressive on the tackle and that’s part of why he so heavily emphasizes swarming/rallying to the ball.

Yes, they trigger downhill aggressively and attack the outside shoulder of the ballcarrier at full speed. Obviously you try to make the tackle but if you miss it in that context its better than playing it passive. The ballcarriers momentum is stopped and he he turned back to the inside where you have help coming to clean up.

 

[Orpheus]

Yessir 100%. I think that’s part of why Saban was so horny for our defense

You noticed that throughout the year. We looked and felt more physical than I remember us being since 2017. The hits and physicality had Indiana fans talking about the refs didn't call anything on us. We beat teams up and made every top player outside of JJ look pedestrian.

 

[skyman]

The tackling is one thing but how about the coverage grade? Dude allow like 75% completion % and 6 tds, or we all the way orange and green glasses with no room for pros and cons?

 

[DMoney]

The tackling is one thing but how about the coverage grade? Dude allow like 75% completion % and 6 tds, or we all the way orange and green glasses with no room for pros and cons?

This is the part I'm more worried about. But we needed a violent guy to set tone. We didn't really have that in '24 and Jakobe Thomas brought it in '25.

 

[skyman]

This is the part I'm more worried about. But we needed a violent guy to set tone. We didn't really have that in '24 and Jakobe Thomas brought it in '25.

I didnt even think they bought him in to fill Jakobe role, Jakobe I think when he measures and test out has plus size and closing speed.. Guess we will see where he ends up in spring before anything, this kid seems more limited.

 

[skeeter]

The tackling is one thing but how about the coverage grade? Dude allow like 75% completion % and 6 tds, or we all the way orange and green glasses with no room for pros and cons?

Oh I definitely think there are concerns about his coverage ability, but again that can be magnified playing on an awful defense and PFF grades things as"his" allowed TD. But I would agree with you his play against the run appears to be the strength of his game

And also remember there were MAJOR concerns about Thomas in coverage, he was known as a headhunter with coverage concerns.

 

[Hstokes1447]

In my opinion Thornton is best suited to play nickel and compete with Pruitt to replace Scott. I see Conrad Hussey being the deep safety enforcer replacement for Thomas, not saying he will be the starter but he can play that enforcer role.

 

[JayCane20]

The tackling is one thing but how about the coverage grade? Dude allow like 75% completion % and 6 tds, or we all the way orange and green glasses with no room for pros and cons?

Curious what Thomas numbers were at Tennessee in terms of completion %, TD, and passer rating against

 

[rccollins]

Miami "ranked" #115 in tackling as a team. Active players and active defenses that run to the ball might grade as "missing" a lot of tackles because they are always in the picture.

PFF is good for certain specific things, and is very deceptive for others.

It’s like the stat of a close family friend- Steve Hertz who just recently passed away. Steve was a big time baseball prospect coming out of the city of Miami in high school. He was drafted by the Houston Colt 45s and wound up in the bigs for just a bit before his career was derailed by an injury. His overall stats in the bigs was 0-4 from the plate. But the stat was misleading because one of those at bats was ruled as an error even though he reached first base. He hit a line drive to centerfield that would have been a single if anyone else in the big leagues was playing centerfield. But friggin Lou Brock was fast as **** and was able to get close enough to the ball where it was ruled an error.

Steve was a great hurricane football fan- I used to have some great conversations about the canes with him. He went on to become a hall of fame junior college coach at Miami Dade. Little known fact- He almost become the hurricanes coach after Frazier. Also, was close friends with Don Sollinger (Don was at the funeral). They coached at Southridge at the same time. The world lost a great one when Steve passed.

So to sum it up- and bring it back to what D Money was saying- Sometimes superior athleticism and motor can lead to negative stats when in realty those were actually good plays.

 

[E1k]

The tackling is one thing but how about the coverage grade? Dude allow like 75% completion % and 6 tds, or we all the way orange and green glasses with no room for pros and cons?

Does pff have a snap count of where he lined up at?