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Manny era defensive numbers

OrangeBowlMagic

OrangeBowlMagic

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With the off-season in full swing, I wanted to take a quick look at the defensive numbers overall since Manny arrived. Again, as with all statistics, this is not the absolute concrete only way to look at things. But I took PPG allowed, only against FBS teams (we don't care about scrimmages against FCS teams) since 2016.

Again, not perfect, because this doesn't account garbage time, it doesn't account for if your special teams or offense gives up points (for example, Miami's "defense" gave up 28 against GT last fall, including OT. But 7 were on a sack/fumble for a TD, and 7 were on a fake punt. So the defense only gave up 14, but this number reflects Miami giving up 28 points.). So, not completely perfect, but I think it's clearly the best number we can get to compare.

Here are the top 15 teams in the country in terms of average PPG allowed over the past 4 seasons:

TEAM4 YR AVG
CLEMSON15.20
ALABAMA16.13
WISCONSIN17.25
IOWA17.65
WASHINGTON18.20
MICHIGAN18.25
GEORGIA18.38
OHIO STATE18.43
APP STATE19.08
SAN DIEGO STATE19.73
AUBURN19.73
PENN STATE19.80
LSU20.43
MIAMI21.13
FLORIDA21.15


So Miami comes in at 14th overall in terms of points allowed in the past 4 seasons combined. Not a bad showing by Manny and his staff. Yes, 3rd downs at times have not been great. Yes, at times getting stops late in games have not been great. Yes, 14th puts you probably in that "very good" category, and not completely elite like Clemson and Bama have been. But overall, this performance is MILES better than what the offense has produced. And again, if your offense can get out of its own way, maybe you don't need to have a stop late in a game to secure a win. Maybe you don't have to be absolutely perfect on 3rd downs if your offense is scoring 30+ a game.

So, for me, as it's been for a LONG time around here, this season is squarely on the shoulders of Lashlee and the offensive staff. We know what the defense is going to provide. For 4 years, they've been a Top 15 scoring defense. I don't think people understand what the program can look like if you paired a Top 14 defense with even a Top 30 offense. I'm going to take a look at similar offensive numbers later on, but look at those names Miami is in company with on this list. Bama, Clemson, Wisconsin, Washington, Ohio State, UGA, Michigan, Auburn....these are all winning programs, and in most cases, REALLY successful programs. Please, for the love of god, just find SOME semblance of an explosive offense. We now have a punter. We *should* have a really good kicker. We know the defense is going to do what they do. Can we score 30 a game and finally overpower this division?
 
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Go Canes!! said:
The amount of points this D has given up because of ridiculously poor field position is insanely high.
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Yet another factor. Short fields definitely contribute. Also, teams like Bama and Clemson score a ton of points. Allows their defense to pin their ears back and play the pass more since the opponent is usually in catch up mode. A lot of moving parts. But you’re 100% correct, the performance of your offense absolutely plays into these numbers. And we know Miami’s offense hasn’t even remotely held up their end of the bargain.

2018 punting game contributes a lot here too.
 
Posted a thread with these numbers right before this season that illustrates just how bad this offense f-ed over the defense in 2018. In many of our games 2019 was a mirror image of these situations. NO other team in college football has had their defense sabotaged more by their offense than us:




In 2018 Miami Hurricane opponents scored a total of 253 points. I've mentioned it a lot on here, but decided to do a quick breakdown of just how many points were "gifted" to other teams last season. For simplicity's sake I've made the cutoff drives that were 30 yards or less that resulted in a score that usually came off an INT, fumble or special teams gaffe:


LSU 7 plays 22 yds 3
LSU Pick Six 7
LSU 4 plays 6 yards 3
FIU 4 plays 0 yards 3
FSU 6 plays 18 yds 3
FSU 4 plays 16 yds 3
FSU 74 yd punt ret 7
UVA 2 plays 7 yards 7
BC 7 plays 9 yards 3
BC 1 play 14 yards 7
GT 3 plays 23 yards 7
GT 7 plays 18 yards 3
GT 4 plays 4 yards 3
Duke 4 plays 3 yds 3
Duke 5 plays 29 yds 3
Wisc 1 play 7 yards 7

Didn't hunt for longer drives where a long punt return put other teams in the redzone, which I'm sure there were.

That's 72 points, almost 1/3 of our entire point total literally given away to other teams. Drives of 50-55 yards or less push that total close to 50%.

If this team is going to max it's potential we have to flip the field every time we don't score and most importantly, completely do away with careless turnovers, especially deep in our own territory. We need to make teams go 80 yards every time they take the field.

Imo guys like Headly and special teams coaching are almost as important as getting this QB decision right.
 
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Dwinstitles said:
This and our comp is trash
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Who's Iowa's comp? Who's Clemson's comp? Who's San Diego State's comp?

Such a lazy rebuttal. 12+ teams show up on the schedule every year, for every team. Of all those teams playing all those games, Miami has the 14th best scoring defense since Manny arrived. 14th out of 130 is top 11%. Not too bad.

And, if the take about the defensive success is that "the comp is trash", then that's even MORE of an indictment on the offense. The defense is inflated because the competition is trash, but the offense still can't crack the top 80 in any metric. Even more embarrassing.
 
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I'm not one of these guys who is super unhappy with the defense, the staff and their recruiting. But I will say this: it's a younger unit overall than we've had recently. Garvin, Patchan, Bandy should still be here and there's some pretty big shoes to fill overall. We need get healthy at LB and hope for better play from the DBs, which should be expected since Blades, Ivey, Hall, Bolden, Frierson were seeing their first major action in 2019.

DL Garvin, Hill, Patchan, Bethel, Nnoruka
LB Shaq, Pinckney
DB Bandy, Finley, Knowles
 
The offense has left the defense in bad position, as well as generating multiple 3-outs. Like was mentioned before, no offense means the other teams' offenses have not been forced to play catch up, which would have amplified the effects of Miami's pass-rush, which by any standard, has been great since Diaz got here. They haven't had the offense to pressure other teams' offenses and make them change their gameplans.
 
OrangeBowlMagic said:
Who's Iowa's comp? Who's Clemson's comp? Who's San Diego State's comp?

Such a lazy rebuttal. 12+ teams show up on the schedule every year, for every team. Of all those teams playing all those games, Miami has the 14th best scoring defense since Manny arrived. 14th out of 130 is top 11%. Not too bad.

And, if the take about the defensive success is that "the comp is trash", then that's even MORE of an indictment on the offense. The defense is inflated because the competition is trash, but the offense still can't crack the top 80 in any metric. Even more embarrassing.
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Candela 🔥🔥🔥🔥
 
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Defense has been far better than the offense we all know that. However I can Name a few games the defense stepped up in BIG games but I came name a lot of them when the defense didn’t and that’s the problem(acc championship game, 2 of the past 3 bowl games and more in the regular season).
 
brock said:
Defense has been far better than the offense we all know that. However I can Name a few games the defense stepped up in big games but I came name a lot of them when the defense didn’t and that’s the problem(acc championship game, 2 of the past 3 bowl games and more in the regular season).
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Sadly enough giving up tds in the 4th quarter after taking the lead. Most noticeable in the **** and tar ***** games....
 
brock said:
Defense has been far better than the offense we all know that. However I can Name a few games the defense stepped up in big games but I came name a lot of them when the defense didn’t and that’s the problem(acc championship game, 2 of the past 3 bowl games and more in the regular season).
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The defense didn't step up in the ACC championship game? I can't remember, how many points did the offense score that night to ease their load? How many did they score in the pinstripe bowl? How many in the bowl game this year?
 
Points per play is a better way to look at this. Helps to account for pace and teams like us who had an abysmal offense.
 
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