I will reiterate what I've been saying for years now though: the largest contributing factor to performance increases we see on the field will be due to recruiting better athletes. This is something every top coach understands, and Cristobal is one of them: you need 4 and 5-star athletes to win.
I'm happy to see the investment into the S&C program as well, but Feeley nor Feld can turn a 3-star into a 5-star. But starting with monster athletes are when these types of programs really contribute to wins.
I agree w/ u, to a point, but let’s not act like Miami have been recruiting at a Bowling Green level.
There’s this narrative that’s been floating around that it’s been poor little Miami & the lack of caliber of athletes we’ve had. That’s simply untrue. The fact is, and I’ll say it time & time again, but the entire f’ing infrastructure has been in disarray from top to bottom, which included our S&C w/ these previous regimes.
I’ll personally tell u I wasn’t a fan of the Feeley hire, simply b/c his resume didn’t give me the confidence. In CFB P5 standards, u must hire of the sort. Idgaf if every recruit in that locker room is a 5 star; if u have a G5 mentality from top to bottom, ur team will not perform.
Let’s look at Miami’s 2021 roster who played a significant amount of snaps:
-Offense:
QB:
King (4 star - T) then TVD (4 star)
RB:
Harris (4 star)
Chaney (4 star)
Rooster (4 star)
OL:
Nelson (3 star)
Scaife (4 star)
Donaldson (4 star)
Gaynor (3 star) then Clark (3 star)
Rivers (4 star) then Oluwaseun (3 star)
WR:
Rambo (4 star)
Harley (4 star)
Pope (4 star)
Wiggins (3 star)
TE:
Mallory (4 star)
75% of the O was 4*+ who played significant snaps. If I throw in X at the WR position, that’ll drop it to 70%, which is still a high clip
Defense:
DL:
McCloud (4 star)
Silvera (4 star)
Ford (3 star)
JHH (3 star)
Harvey (4 star)
Johnson (3 star)
Miller (3 star)
Taylor (5 star)
Williams (4 star)
LB:
Steed (3 star)
Flagg (3 star)
Jennings (3 star)
Smith (4 star)
Striker:
GB3 (4 star)
Carter (3 star)
CB:
Stevenson (4 star)
Ivey (4 star)
Couch (4 star)
S:
Hall (4 star)
Bolden (4 star)
Kinchens (4 star)
Williams (5 star)
64% of the Def was 4*+ who played significant snaps.
So we’re talking roughly about 67-70% of the guys who played the most snaps being 4*+ from last yr alone, yet we saw guys getting easily tripped up, defenders dragged for an extra 3-5 yrds, guys bouncing off of players tackling, receivers unable to get off of jams, etc.
So yes, having the caliber of athletes is important, but u MUST have an up to date solid S&C program that caters to proper conditioning, football focused weight training, & nutritional regimen