Interesting stat regarding the NFL Combine

DMoney

D-Moni
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Between 2017-2018, Miami had 18 players invited to the NFL combine. Between 2022-2023, there are only six.

We talk a lot about the drop off from elite Canes talent to the Shannon and Golden era. And that was indeed a massive drop. But there was another steep decline from that era to the Richt/Diaz years.
 
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It took us a year or two, but well before Richt retired, we all knew Manny was bringing in JAGs on the defensive side. The defensive talent from 2017 until the Covid class of 2021 was absolutely abysmal outside of portal kids and a couple of exceptions. And our LB recruiting, in specific, was a black hole that sucked the life out of the defense.

So that cuts your NFL talent pool in half. Then you look at offense, and our QB, OL and WR recruiting was just as abysmal. Then we've had the injury bug at RB and only a couple hits at TE.

Zero surprise we average only .500 in P5 play. The portal and Covid are the only things that prevented an all out collapse.

As @gacaneaddict says, Mario is a talent acquisition machine. His mulligan class of 2022 is already producing guys with NFL upside like Bissainthe, Kelly, Brown, Cooper and Young. And I think we'll see that this 2023 class was underrated, even though it's a top 10 class. In 5 years, I'll bet it produces a Top 3 NFL class. It's all about stacking chips.
 
The timing of each coaching tenure plays a big part.

Shannon had the luxury of being the first coach removed from a national championship tenure.

As you went further down the line it became harder and harder for each coach from a recruiting standpoint.

It was a lot easier for Randy and Golden to recruit that we just had a down period with 1-2 coaches than 3-4.

Add in a widening $ and arms race gap as time went on...
 
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The timing of each coaching tenure plays a big part.

Shannon had the luxury of being the first coach removed from a national championship tenure.

As you went further down the line it became harder and harder for each coach from a recruiting standpoint.

It was a lot easier for Randy and Golden to recruit that we just had a down period with 1-2 coaches than 3-4.

Add in a widening $ and arms race gap as time went on...

Facts. We were indistinguishable from Pitt or Va Tech by the time Richt and Manny took over. ... Frenk, UHealth and the billionaires have reinjected some life into this program.
 
Diaz wasn’t a bad talent evaluator in my opinion. Definitely wasn’t anything to write home about though. The majority of his takes outside of linebacker we all supported or understood if I remember correctly.

Where his shortcoming were was his inability to recruit/develop talented “professionals”. Wrong type of character dudes
 
Well I guess I could be the idiot that makes up **** to fit my narrative.
I get that richt left in late 2018 but we’ve turned the roster and staff over twice since then. It’s hard to gauge talent from two coaches ago with the portal era was my point .

The only players left from richts last class are Harvey and keontra smith right ? So I apologize for the hyperbole of saying all the players were long gone and I apologize for using the word hyperbole as I understand it probably gave you a headache sounding it out.

I didn’t say it was all on Diaz I said it was more indicative on Diaz because he flipped the roster and he utilized the portal heavily.

I guess if all of that makes no sense to you then I would have to wonder, “are you a little retarded?”
 
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It’s clear that Manny and his staff sucked at talent evaluation and development (bedsides Banda)

Richt was past his prime and on his way to retirement

Golden was actually a real good talent evaluator
To be fair, Richt's departure and the underperformance of the 2018 season (which was far, far more on the offense) decimated the 2019 class. The only way we salvaged that at all was by being an early adapter of the portal. Something that Norvell gleefully took notice of.
 
Golden had so many misevaluations, its crazy to see all the short memories praising his evaluations just because Manny was horrendous.

His trench evals on both sides of the ball were devastatingly bad.

Darius Smith
Kevin Grooms
Ricardo Wiilliams
Jalen Grimble
Antonio Kinard
Thomas Finnie
Juniior Alexis
Hunter Wells
Thurston Armbrister
Jelani Hamilton
Raphael Kirby
Dwayne Hoilett
Robert Lockhart
Earl Moore
Corey King
Jacoby Briscoe
Preston Dewey
Gray Crow
D'Mauri Jones
Jawand Blue
Jontavious Carter
Taylor Gadbois
Vernon Davis
Danny Dillard
Larry Hope
Nate Dortch
Gaby Terry
Jake O'Donnell
Dequan Ivery
Kevin Olsen
Beau Sandland
Standish Dobard
Ufomba Kumalu
Alex Gall
Hunter Knighton
Ray Lewis III
Rykeem Lockley
Kiy Hester
Darrion Owens
Mike Smith
Calvin Heurtelou
Michael Wyche
Ryan Mayes
Trayone Gray
Juwon Young
Marques Gayot
Terry McCray
Joe Brown
Darrel Langham
Bar Milo
Jerome Washington
Jahir Jones
Charles Perry
Jamie Gordinier
Brendan Loftus
Hayden Mahoney
Ryan Fines
Tyler Gauthier
Robert Knowlees
Evan Shirreffs
James King
Terrance Henley
 
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