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Live At the Clemson Game - Observations and Thoughts

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Manny is the root of problem; he's too nice and doesn't develop a culture of accountability.

He treats players like kids instead of men. We need a tougher coach like Mario, who definitely wouldn't have that imposter syndrome.
 
Great post. I think, given the lack of WRs that can make the play on a 50/50 ball, Mallory should be split out wide. Yeah, he has improved as a blocker and we can use him there in certain sets. But let's be honest... he is a big, slow(er) WR. We need a guy like him on the outside.

Move pope to the slot (or the bench, either/or). Brevin working the middle of the field. I'd like to see more 2 RB sets (esp against teams that can't collapse the pocket like clemson did against us... we should be creating mismatches like clemson did against us with Etienne).

Idk. We got boat raced, sure. But I'm not as down on us as everyone else here (as usual, cause I'm never as high after a win either).

Bring on Pitt.
 
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RedSquare said:
I returned home after the Clemson game, early Sunday, feeling like my dog had been run over by the town bully. Twice.

But, life goes on and there is a game to play next week .....

So as promised, here are my thoughts and a full report:

1) As an aside, I remain convinced having traveled to many NFL and College stadiums, that Clemson (along with Texas A&M), has the most welcoming and friendly fan base. For anyone who has ever been to the sewers that are Gainesville or Tallahassee, you'd appreciate the contrast.

2) I was with my friend, as his guest, an NFL Deputy GM that was there to scout the game. Oh, ****, let's be honest, he was mostly there to watch Lawrence, Etienne, and Brevin live, but it's interesting how they truly do watch all players (and coaches, by the way). Nothing much escapes their eyes. We got to the stadium fairly close to kickoff, as we were anticipating rain as was forecast. But did have time to walk a bit around and it is, as i said above, a rather friendly place.

3) we sat inside in a box, and with social distancing, was just basically us so we could talk freely. my friend is the youngest brother of one of my old Yale teammates, who played in the Big 10 in his college days, (had his career cut short by injury), and has been working in the NFL for a decent part of his professional life. So he had a lot of stories, one of which was how everyone in the NFL knows intimately how much cheating goes on with the schools whose names you know. And how little the NFL cares. Fun fact: the NFLPA has numerous "ethics" rules about agent conduct. However, there is no specific prohibition against knowingly breaking an NCAA rule to the detriment of a player or university. On that topic, no one in the NFL could care less.

4) Now on to the game .... We talked a lot of X's and O's throughout the night, from the same perspective, as we were both were college QB's. What impressed me was the scope of knowledge he had across all positions, and how he always framed individual performances in the context of what a player was being asked to do in the system being run. Anything in quotes, is directly from him, and where I piped in, and made my own observations, I will note that.

5) In the talent disparity: "on offense, only jordan starts for clemson. on defense, only Bolden and Phillips. and UM has a better punter and better kicker." No one else sees the field as a starter for Clemson on UM's starting 22/"24." I argued that Mallory was also as good as their starting TE, and he thought that was probably true

6) D'eriq is a competitor, a leader, and a great athlete. "his position in the NFL, though, is in the slot. he'll catch 40 balls a season by accident in the NFL in the right system." We both observed that his ball placement on deep throws isn't good enough for the NFL, and against certain coverages at this level, he has some problems. That being said, he's definitely a "big step up from what UM has had to endure recently," and good enough to win a lot of games.

7) the most talented NFL prospect in the UM QB room is TVD. (SIDE NOTE: the knowledge he had of the respective rosters, and the details he had in his ipad, down to even the backups and younger players was impressive and surprising). Thinks Trevor Lawrence is a terrific prospect, and as physically "talented as a Peyton Manning or an Andrew Luck. HIS CAVEAT: "he's going to the NFL having never played on a bad high school or college team he had the sole responsibility to make good. he will likely go to some 2 win NFL team. How's he react to that? He's got a good head for this game, but that's not a question that has an easy answer, and it affects how he plays as a day 1 starter which is what will be expected."

8) UM's WR room is weak, and he says the reason is "mark pope and harley are both slot guys being asked to play like they belong on the outside." neither is NFL caliber. Likens is respected, so it's not that they are being undercoached. Wiggins and the freshmen are all more talented than Pope and Harley, but are not ready to play well enough to beat a great team like Clemson. Jordan and Mallory are both going to play in the NFL.

9) Lashlee completely ignored any attempts to run outside zone and his decisions in the run game were "baffling, especially since the weakness of UM's line is guard play." (Tackle play has been better this year overall). Venebales "dared Lashlee to get out of his comfort zone, and Lashlee took the bait." The result was Lashlee called a game that played right into what Venebles wanted to do. i.e., keep the passing game on the perimeter, and stay out of two TE sets that could create conflicts in the middle of the field.

10) On defense, he says Silvera "disappears" for too many plays, and Ford disappears for too many series. Harrison-Hunte was "the best interior lineman on the field for UM." he said that it's our LB's that are the weakest link on the defense, not our corners. although corner play as compared to the elite teams is average at best. neither blades nor ivey have long term NFL futures, though blades is the better prospect. As to Blake Baker, he questions whether "setting edges is something he actually pays attention to." (said sarcastically, but in reality, our edge sets have been miserable all season). too many times, were were dead based on alignment pre-snap. as well as Roche graded out this game, he is generally too weak in the run game to be an every down NFL player. Philips is not NFL ready, (he needs one more year as he's been injured and needs to show more tape), "but he will be NFL good."

11) the team is good enough to beat some good teams, "but not nearly good enough to beat a great one." On defense, until we get serious play from our LB's and more consistency from our CB's, we will struggle. on offense, the line is being coached up beyond its talent this year, due "in part to change in the system and part to the coaching of justice." If you wanted to steal a player to switch sides from Clemson to Miami, (beyond the obvious of TL), given that any of the Clemson players could pretty much start for UM, he said: "steal just one LB and two OL from Clemson and it's a much closer ball game, even with the weak WR room at UM" They actually don't like it when kids who are not clear 1st or 2nd rounders leave early. "nobody wants to take an early entry guy if he's just 6th round talent. the extra year in college makes a huge difference when their talent is not draft elite." that being said, no one on UM's roster should spend "even more than 2 minutes thinking about leaving early other than Jordan or Bolden or Hedley. and they could all stay another year. "jordan's in line blocking needs work to be NFL ready, bolden needs development in some of his coverage skills. although, Hedley could punt for us next week. Cam'ron is 4th round right now, Blades maybe 6th or 7th, and Silvera the same. If Jordan leaves, and Mallory is the featured TE next year, and continues to develop, he's 3rd round talent or better."

12) On Manny: "with some of these kids, he needs to put his foot in their *** and leave it until they **** leather." (i thought that was hilarious and am going to steal that line). Thinks his style is too nice for the kind of kids he's got on the roster. "But he's young, and has been a head coach for all of 1 1/2 seasons. He has upside from here. Give it a season or two." Thinks ironically, that Golden in some ways may have left Richt with more overall talent than Richt left Manny.

13) On Sweeney: "Definitely a college coach. He stays in college, at Clemson, he has Nick Saban type college career. He goes to the NFL? He has a Nick Saban type NFL career." (that was his best line of the evening)

14) UNC is the "most dangerous team on the schedule after Clemson. by far. They are also recruiting exceedingly well."

15) some of the officiating in the ACC is "mind numbing," but that's not why the game was lost.

Anyway, that is pretty much what I can remember. Anything else pops into brain, I will add it.

Go 'Canes
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That was excellent. Much appreciated.
 
Number 9. is so easy for me. Should have lined up ACE tight more - even ACE over and attacked with stretches and TE combos. I’m really surprised he got so shell shocked with his PCing.
 
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I agree with all of this and have pretty much been making all of these points. Good to see that s pro scout agrees with me
 
Goulds Cane said:
#11 UM kids love to declare early for the draft when they're projected to go 6th/7th or undrafted. It's a Cane tradition.

#12 I don't think anyone would disagree with the Golden/Richt/Diaz comparison. Golden brought in a lot of NFL talent they were just terribly coached. Richt brought in talent but they either declared early, retired due to injuries or grossly underachieved

#14 I think Pitt, VT, UVA & GT are all trap games
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They're not trap games when they've been toss ups for the last decade. We know if we don't come in and handle business we'll lose.
 
Meast21 said:
Amazing post.

Sooooo lets be honest Nesta, Blades, Cam, Philips, Bolden, Jordan, Hedley, Hall all gone. Can i run a parlay bet on this? Jackpot $$$
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IF Diaz manages to hold this season together and finish with 9 wins (it wouldn't be a disaster losing to UNC), his next challenge is convincing these marginal NFL players that they're best served spending another year in college.

That's a fight that no Miami HC has won for a long time and the difference between a v.good college team and one that always flatters to deceive.
 
@RedSquare Thank you for that information. It is much appreciated. I'm not questioning any of it really as it really lines up and makes sense. There is one thing that bothers me because it doesn't stand to reason. I refer everyone to point #9. Why???? Why on earth would an experienced and intelligent guy like Lashlee just purposely ignore the option of running outside zone? Why would he purposely ignore the middle of the field? Why would he not try to leverage his best weapon(Jordan) to exploit the middle of the field. If not Jordan then anyone. Mallory or a RB or a crossing route or a mesh concept. Why? This makes no sense at all. It's like asking why a boxer would avoid the left jab and get beat when he knew full well that left jabs were his opponents weakness? None of this makes any sense to me. There must be another piece of this puzzle that we are missing. Anyone?
 
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Mr. Dynasty1 said:
Great write up man!!!!

That guy knows his stuff. Tho I fear Phillips, Blades and others will still leave.

UNC is 100% capable of beating us again this year. Their running game and WRs are good. Will be a shootout for sure
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UNC will beat Miami handily. Not as bad as Clemson, but by a size able score,,
 
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scrantoncane said:
Great post. I think, given the lack of WRs that can make the play on a 50/50 ball, Mallory should be split out wide. Yeah, he has improved as a blocker and we can use him there in certain sets. But let's be honest... he is a big, slow(er) WR. We need a guy like him on the outside.

Move pope to the slot (or the bench, either/or). Brevin working the middle of the field. I'd like to see more 2 RB sets (esp against teams that can't collapse the pocket like clemson did against us... we should be creating mismatches like clemson did against us with Etienne).

Idk. We got boat raced, sure. But I'm not as down on us as everyone else here (as usual, cause I'm never as high after a win either).

Bring on Pitt.
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I’ve been posting the same thing for two seasons.

Mallory is as fast or faster than most WR 1’s in the ACC. He may not have the elite quickness, but he’s plenty quick enough. And, since he outweighs the CB by at least 40 lbs he won’t be redirected (Think “Gronk, Jr“ split wide). He also has disappointed with 50/50 balls but he at least looks like he wants to on half of them — unlike the WR’s — and seems like he would improve. Back-shoulder to him all day; corner can’t bring him down without help. He needs more snap for the “light to turn on“ and this is the way to do it while upgrading Miami’s ability to actually catch footballs on a given play.

- Steve Ishmael, who had a decent career at Syracuse ran a 4.58 — hand timed.
- Ervin Phillips, Syracuse, was a 4.42 — hand timed.

Mallory should be the type of tight end in UM’s offense that Kyle Pitts plays in UF’s offense, which is to say he doesn’t really play a traditional TE position. He’s not a hybrid-TE, more than he’s a hybrid-WR.

Or, a faster, heavier, Lawrence Cager with better hands and catch radius and yards after catch ability.
 
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And I also think that, given the coaching turnover from the past three seasons, a lot of these players are underdeveloped and pretty much have fallen behind to the point, where they cannot make up neccessary ground. Especially juniors and seniors.

When you hear that Justice is coaching up players beyond their talent, it pretty much tells me all I need to know. Especially on the O-Line, where players need minimum one year of proper coaching and training due to the massive jump from HS to College.

And it also doesnt help that three new offensive coaches didnt even have a full offseason to work with them.
 
1-3 sounded like a romantic lovers tryst... Glad you got to the nitty gritty quick. Good eval.
 
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