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2026 Derrek Cooper 5* RB/ATH from Chaminade Commits to Texas

9oh4Cane said:
I do agree having an elite WR1 is important. I think that’s where we’ve missed. Trader/Moore can be very good but don’t think they’ll be in the elite category.
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I look to the Clemson model. It is something we could replicate, whereas we will never be Texas or UGA. Through the Golden, Richt, and Diaz era UM had almost twice the number of OL as Clemson get drafted. They never really prioritized OL. Instead it is QB, DL, WR. That still makes them competitive for the national title. I think it’s because an elite WR1 is such a mismatch that it pretty much guarantees a 10 win season. Lot easier when the base is 10 wins and then only have a handful of really tough games compared to having a dogfight every week against less talented teams.
 
E1k said:
You said it’s a culture problem in sfla and they have no loyalty and other areas don’t have this problem , and said they transfer in high school as a reason to show that…No team gets all of their local talent, literally no one and especially not the schools in the top talented areas because everyone will be after the players

So when its an elite kid down here, we are recruiting against tier1 programs when we are a tier3 program. Take the names and hometown shades off and this is just regular college football stuff for everyone but our fans are still stuck on 1980s-2000s thinking lol
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So why then are we paying a terrible game day coach $8 million a year? If his one huge advantage is now gone?
 
Squid Bumciorek said:
I look to the Clemson model. It is something we could replicate, whereas we will never be Texas or UGA. Through the Golden, Richt, and Diaz era UM had almost twice the number of OL as Clemson get drafted. They never really prioritized OL. Instead it is QB, DL, WR. That still makes them competitive for the national title. I think it’s because an elite WR1 is such a mismatch that it pretty much guarantees a 10 win season. Lot easier when the base is 10 wins and then only have a handful of really tough games compared to having a dogfight every week against less talented teams.
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To your point, if you breakdown the position groups even further in the NFL (LT, RG, WR1, FS, SS, etc) a WR1 is the highest paid behind QB and just before LT. WR group as a whole is around #5.

I’ll have to disagree with OL not being as important offensively. If you look at Clemson, they had two generational QB’s and another great one in Klubnik. Hard to hit that good at QB consistently.. Lincoln has and that model has worked. For most it won’t, and probably not here. When Cam was at wazzou, I don’t think his skill players were as far behind UM’s as the OL was.. and you see the difference in results he had.

Personnel wise, I think Mario is getting it right on offense so far with who we’ve paid up for. Lets not forget Lyle wasn’t cheap, neither was Martinez. He just needs to finally hit on an elite WR1 to take it to the next level.
 
CaneTheGaytors said:
So why then are we paying a terrible game day coach $8 million a year? If his one huge advantage is now gone?
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Terrible? No. He was actually good last year in time management and when to go for it decision making last year.
By far my biggest gripe with the gameday management last year was like the depth chart management at RB.
 
PennsylvaniaCane said:
They “overpaid” for a player to put them over the top. Regardless if it’s a QB, RB, DT, S or whatever. If that’s a missing piece you pay what you need to make it elite. If you’re a **** team then it doesn’t make sense. But if you have playoff talent and your 1-3 players away from being a legit title contender you give out blank checks to fill those spots.
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I agree with you 100% which is why it never makes sense to draft a running back that high since the fact that you’re picking in the top 10 means you have holes on your roster.

Usually the best years of a running back is the rookie contract (Derrick Henry is an exception).
 
TheOriginalCane said:
Yes.

If you have to have the #1 recruiting class every year just to win all your games, then your coaches should be scrutinized and/or fired.

Somewhere along the way, the coaches should be good enough to take Top 10 recruiting classes to 12 regular season victories. Particularly in the ACC.

Per the Composite, Miami currently has the best recruiting class in the ACC. We had the best recruiting class in the ACC for 2025. We had the best recruiting class in the ACC for 2024. We had the best recruiting class in the ACC for 2023. We had the 3rd-best recruiting class in the ACC for 2022. We had the 2nd-best recruiting class in the ACC for 2021. Clemson has not out-recruited Miami since 2022.

After this year, we will likely never have a regular-season game again versus an SEC or Big 10 team until we join either the SEC or Big 10. Yes, we will semi-occasionally play Notre Dame. Other than that, expect a steady diet of Big 12 and G5 teams.

We've had a chance to flush all the Manny players. This is Mario's team. We absolutely could and should be winning 11 to 12 games each regular season. No excuses. No spin.

And we need to stop worrying about SEC/Big 10 recruiting until we are no longer in the ACC. Soon, many of our recruiting limitations will be removed, and we will be able to compete on an apples-to-apples basis.
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Perfectly stated. Overall recruiting rankings is nice to talk about but what really matters is where you stack in your conference.

It’s an absolute failure on the coaches when we’re in dog fights with teams with inferior talent.

Tired of seeing us in a close game late in the third with an ACC team whose average recruiting ranking the last 4 years is 23.2 and ours is like 11.2.
 
Calinative said:
Terrible? No. He was actually good last year in time management and when to go for it decision making last year.
By far my biggest gripe with the gameday management last year was like the depth chart management at RB.
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He learned from his boneheaded mistakes and has a guy to help with clock management / analytics. I still don’t like how they handled GT last year passing on fg’s. He got desperate and GT forced him into playing more aggressive than we should have
 
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Canesq said:
Perfectly stated. Overall recruiting rankings is nice to talk about but what really matters is where you stack in your conference.

It’s an absolute failure on the coaches when we’re in dog fights with teams with inferior talent.

Tired of seeing us in a close game late in the third with an ACC team whose average recruiting ranking the last 4 years is 23.2 and ours is like 11.2.
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GT won that game purely on their coaches straight up teabagging Miami’s.
 
Another way to look at this position/spending is….. how much are we paying ChaMar brown and how much production is he gonna provide us this year? Is that better value than what cooper is asking vs how much production is he gonna provide as a FR??? Can we sustain better value at RB getting 1 portal each year vs the highly expensive FR? I say that admitting you should be pulling at least 1 hs RB per year as well.
 
pacusmc said:
If Texas can flip Johnson than we can flip the Uga running back. My guess is if cooper picks longhorns we are circling back to the peach state.
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what makes you think that? Are you implying we're on the same level as Texas?
 
Page305 said:
what makes you think that? Are you implying we're on the same level as Texas?
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Screenshot_20240427_103939_X.jpg

Someone needs to tell him about those Texas bags
 
9oh4Cane said:
To your point, if you breakdown the position groups even further in the NFL (LT, RG, WR1, FS, SS, etc) a WR1 is the highest paid behind QB and just before LT. WR group as a whole is around #5.

I’ll have to disagree with OL not being as important offensively. If you look at Clemson, they had two generational QB’s and another great one in Klubnik. Hard to hit that good at QB consistently.. Lincoln has and that model has worked. For most it won’t, and probably not here. When Cam was at wazzou, I don’t think his skill players were as far behind UM’s as the OL was.. and you see the difference in results he had.

Personnel wise, I think Mario is getting it right on offense so far with who we’ve paid up for. Let’s not forget Lyle wasn’t cheap, neither was Martinez. He just needs to finally hit on an elite WR1 to take it to the next level.
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Agree for the most part. OL is not to be overlooked. Mario has done fine with the offense. Our WR talent was good enough to contend for a championship last year. As stated by multiple people on the board, difference between good teams and great is monsters at DT. Pay big there, rush ends and cover corners.
 
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