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Manny era defensive numbers

I think the point about our comp being trash is that, with a few exceptions on opponents D, they're trash on both sides of the ball. If our offense improves even to top 50 and ST's eliminates some mistakes, it helps our D immensely.
 
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If the offense had played to the same level as the defense, Miami would have won 10+ games and at least been in the ACC championship game every year. Nit pickers can find tiny faults and give occasional examples of the defense playing poorly but the fact is they have consistently ranked in the top 25 in almost every metric while the offense never ranks in the top 25 in ANY metric.
 
sebastian91 said:
Yeah, the offense sucks, and that contributes to defensive issues, as does special teams, and any number of other things. Stats are stats and can be made to say whatever we want them to say for the most part. For me, I have to ask myself if I trust the defense to come up with a big stop, make a play at a critical moment, save the game from the offense in the 4Q, rise up to sudden changes, make the open field tackle to get off the field, get to the QB on 4th and 17, make sure that FIU receivers are actually covered at the end of the game.....the answer to my question is a resounding no. I don't trust them as far as I can throw them, because if there's a way to fluck something up, they've shown time and again that they'll find it. Carry on with the stats though.
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Yup
 
Rellyrell said:
THANK YOU!
I was waiting for someone not to be blind by the smoke and mirrors. I’ve dissected this defense on countless of threads already. Outside of 2017, our schedule has included (not considering FCS teams), teams w/ a combined win pct on avg of 61% or roughly 8 wins.
2016, played one team that finished top 25 (reg season)
2017 (our best schedule), played 2 teams that finished top 25 (reg season)
2018, played one team that finished top 25 (reg season)
2019, played one team that finished top 25 (reg season)

We’ve had a cupcake schedule for a while. However, even w/ all that said, the offense have left the Def out to dry several times as well. The def have also given up several leads in the latter quarters after the offense took the lead.

We’ve always said the O was the problem, and I agree w that......this season the O shouldn’t (emphasize on shouldn't) be the problem this year, especially w another soft schedule. It’s going to be really interesting to see how we do this yr. Like Berrios said, there should be no excuses this season. The DL should be stout if not dominant, the O should get our players the rock in open space where we score.

I’m truly excited & intrigued by this yr b/c this storyline should either prove truth or more holes will be poked.
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Outside of a handful of SEC teams everyone’s schedule sucks. Every conference has 1-2 great teams and the rest is a garbled mess of mediocrity with another 1-2 teams occasionally breaking out.
 
OrangeBowlMagic said:
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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I can tell you this much, those who know football didnt need your post to already know our defense, guided back by coach richt mandating the 4-3 be brought back immediately, coach diaz being motivated by coach richt, that side of the ball has been playing inspired football most of the time. You have to definitely factor in punting/field position, just think how much better that 2018 defense would have been with a better punting game and an offense that at least had a semi pulse. We've had the guys the last 4 years playing championship level defense, including last year, but when you got one side of the ball being that pathetic, itll always hurt the overall group. Again, defense is our last worry, which is why those who kept trying to bash coach rumph and banda were chosing to be clowns, the main 2 that have been suspect defensive coaches is patke and blake baker, but if the defense balls out next year, being more mature as well as being with baker a 2nd year. The talent is their to be a dominant 1st team defense, up to the players and coaches to do their job come next season.

This defense has enuff talent on it to actually start being feared, that's one of the missing elements this defense has been missing, jon ford was basically playing with one arm last year, whoever plays next to em come next year, if they can play better than pat bethel, we''ll have an overall impressive d-line, cause pat bethel was a dawg in there at d-tackle for us, was never going to be the pass rushing type, but against the run, him and ford did real good work in there. Going to be real curious who steps up to take over bethel's spot, one of the most under appreciated Canes the last 2 years especially, but his whole career here, he made sure the coaches couldnt keep him off the field and earned his job!
 
Rellyrell said:
THANK YOU!
I was waiting for someone not to be blind by the smoke and mirrors. I’ve dissected this defense on countless of threads already. Outside of 2017, our schedule has included (not considering FCS teams), teams w/ a combined win pct on avg of 61% or roughly 8 wins.
2016, played one team that finished top 25 (reg season)
2017 (our best schedule), played 2 teams that finished top 25 (reg season)
2018, played one team that finished top 25 (reg season)
2019, played one team that finished top 25 (reg season)

We’ve had a cupcake schedule for a while. However, even w/ all that said, the offense have left the Def out to dry several times as well. The def have also given up several leads in the latter quarters after the offense took the lead.

We’ve always said the O was the problem, and I agree w that......this season the O shouldn’t (emphasize on shouldn't) be the problem this year, especially w another soft schedule. It’s going to be really interesting to see how we do this yr. Like Berrios said, there should be no excuses this season. The DL should be stout if not dominant, the O should get our players the rock in open space where we score.

I’m truly excited & intrigued by this yr b/c this storyline should either prove truth or more holes will be poked.
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It's crazy cause if I type it it's bad. But it's the truth it's only because dwinstitles is attached the post. I even wrote the person was right but it is also right that it's due to us playing against ****** squads. But I'm the mope where I would say 5 to 15 negative truths a day. While other write 20 things positive to say but no one is allowed to say anything. UF right by us in those stats is more impressive cause they play sec comp.
 
Rellyrel is now a mope cause he agreed with me but put more effort into it lol. I don't put the effort cause I been done explaining it but some people have to be reminded. I can't keep repeating these things. We don't play anybody all the teams I watched us play last year all sucked. And UF looked horrendous but got better as the season went along. Everyone else was hot garbage
 
Dwinstitles said:
It's crazy cause if I type it it's bad. But it's the truth it's only because dwinstitles is attached the post. I even wrote the person was right but it is also right that it's due to us playing against ****** squads. But I'm the mope where I would say 5 to 15 negative truths a day. While other write 20 things positive to say but no one is allowed to say anything. UF right by us in those stats is more impressive cause they play sec comp.
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The SEC? Where the narrative for 5 years now has been how abysmal the QB play has been in that league? This year with Burrow and Tua till the injury was a little better. But tell me more about the elite QB play recently at Ole Miss and Miss State and Kentucky and Vandy and Auburn and Arkansas. FOH with that nonsense.
 
Bad offense going 3& out +short field leaves no room for mistakes being made by a defense having to play a lot of freshmen and sophomores.those bashing the defense need to realize even a good veteran defense would have trouble stopping any offense that only has to go 40 yards from scoring if it's done repeatedly.
 
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Since 2016, let’s take a peek at the elite passers UF has had the misfortune of facing. You can definitely see why Miami’s defense and completion has been garbage when stacked up against these Maxwell Award candidates:

Drew Barker
Josh Dobbs
Kyle Shurmer (three times)
Drew Lock (actually good, scored 45 & 38 on Uf)
Jacob Eason (freshman)
Austin Allen
Jake Bentley (three times)
Danny Etling (twice)
Deondre Francois (twice)
Jalen Hurts (they scored 54 points against UF)
CJ Beathard
Wilton Speight
Quentin Dormady
Stephen Johnson
Kellen Mond (freshman)
Jake Fromm (3 times, scored 42 as a freshman)
James Blackman (twice, as freshman scored 38)
Terry Wilson
KJ Carta-Samuels
Jared Guarantano (twice)
Nick Fitzgerald
Joe Burrow (twice)
Shea Patterson
Jarren Williams
Sawyer Smith
Bo Nix
Ryan Hilinski
Deuce Wallace
Kelly Bryant
Bryce Perkins
 
OrangeBowlMagic said:
Since 2016, let’s take a peek at the elite passers UF has had the misfortune of facing. You can definitely see why Miami’s defense and completion has been garbage when stacked up against these Maxwell Award candidates:

Drew Barker
Josh Dobbs
Kyle Shurmer (three times)
Drew Lock (actually good, scored 45 & 38 on Uf)
Jacob Eason (freshman)
Austin Allen
Jake Bentley (three times)
Danny Etling (twice)
Deondre Francois (twice)
Jalen Hurts (they scored 54 points against UF)
CJ Beathard
Wilton Speight
Quentin Dormady
Stephen Johnson
Kellen Mond (freshman)
Jake Fromm (3 times, scored 42 as a freshman)
James Blackman (twice, as freshman scored 38)
Terry Wilson
KJ Carta-Samuels
Jared Guarantano (twice)
Nick Fitzgerald
Joe Burrow (twice)
Shea Patterson
Jarren Williams
Sawyer Smith
Bo Nix
Ryan Hilinski
Deuce Wallace
Kelly Bryant
Bryce Perkins
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Yeah but ESPN said it's the SEC so automatically Elite
 
Just playing devil's advocate here, but one thing nobody mentions when throwing out the "our defense is great, what if we only had an offense" argument, is "what happens to our defense if our offense actually does start scoring points? Is there any chance our defensive production actually goes down? Do the offense and defense live entirely in a vacuum, except to the extent that people argue a bad offense is bad for the defense, statistically?

Is there any chance that an offense that puts up more points will actually encourage the other team to try and score more points?

I'm just saying, we can't just assume that changing one variable in a positive direction won't change other variables in a negative way.

What we do know, is that this defense gave up 4th and 17, where a stop would have won the game. It gave up a drive the full length of the field to VT, where a stop could have won the game. It gave up a long drive against UF, where a stop could have won the game. We lost a lot of close games last year where, yeah, the offense didn't do it's job, but the defense also had chances to win the games, and didn't. The opponent doesn't need to score as many points as they possibly can in order to win the game. They just need to score more than we do. That bit doesn't change whether we score 20 ppg, or 30.

Time will tell, but I'm not sure our D has been as good as some of us would like to think it has.
 
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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It happens in the NFL too; It happens more often with elite defenses. After too many games of the offense sucking too much the defensive unit eventually airs it out to the media.

Just like how the better wide receivers make it clear when the QB is not good.. Terrell Owens the media made out to be a locker room head ache, same with Randy Moss with Oakland; If anyone were to look at the numerous players throwing to them especially T.O. running every type of route, like over the middle when there were guys like John Lynch just head-hunting.

Terrell Owens and Randy Moss were both elite first ballot hall of fame individuals/athletes no matter the era.
 
g8rh8rMD said:
Just playing devil's advocate here, but one thing nobody mentions when throwing out the "our defense is great, what if we only had an offense" argument, is "what happens to our defense if our offense actually does start scoring points? Is there any chance our defensive production actually goes down? Do the offense and defense live entirely in a vacuum, except to the extent that people argue a bad offense is bad for the defense, statistically?

Is there any chance that an offense that puts up more points will actually encourage the other team to try and score more points?

I'm just saying, we can't just assume that changing one variable in a positive direction won't change other variables in a negative way.

What we do know, is that this defense gave up 4th and 17, where a stop would have won the game. It gave up a drive the full length of the field to VT, where a stop could have won the game. It gave up a long drive against UF, where a stop could have won the game. We lost a lot of close games last year where, yeah, the offense didn't do it's job, but the defense also had chances to win the games, and didn't. The opponent doesn't need to score as many points as they possibly can in order to win the game. They just need to score more than we do. That bit doesn't change whether we score 20 ppg, or 30.

Time will tell, but I'm not sure our D has been as good as some of us would like to think it has.
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If I didn't know any better, I'd think this was rational, intelligent dialogue in response to an analytical thread and discussion. Holy Christ.

Now that my eyebrows have been blown off, a couple thoughts to what you (very intelligently) laid out:

1. I don't think the defense is great. I think it's very good, and it's sustained that level for 4 years, pretty consistently giving the team a very good chance to win just about every single time they took the field with a 50+ game sample size. I just want the credit given where it's due. Manny may turn out to be a complete abortion of a HC, but his defense has been very good (at times great, more infrequently average) for 4 years now. I just think it's important to realize that if the offense was even as close to as good as the defense has been, this team would be a 10+ win team every single year

2. There is absolutely a chance that the defensive metrics change if the offense starts exploding. You're 100% correct, if you change a variable (offensive performance, in this example) you cannot assume that nothing else will change. There very well may be some trickle down to the defense, but I'd love to see it just to see how much. But I think if you assume, at worst, close to as good a defense as we've seen, and pair that with a comparable offense, the bottom line will be more wins. It may not be better defensive metrics, but it'll make for a much better overall football team.

3. 100% correct on the collapses late this year by the defense. They did not get stops late in games, when perhaps 1 more would have resulted in a win. So those are tough to stomach, but I've said dozens of times on here, a TD in the 4th quarter is not worth any more points than a TD on the first drive of the game. They're both worth 6. So, yes, the defense didn't bow up late when we really needed them to a few times this year. And that can't just be ignored. But if the offense did much of anything in any of those games, or in the case of VT, if the offense didn't just gift points to them basically the entire first half, you may not need those stops late in games. They might have been garbage time TDs rather than game winning drives.

Great points, and great dialogue. But how bout we just field a Top 25 offense this year, and I'll take my chances with the defense reacting to the offensive improvement. I think we'll all be really happy.
 
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Go Canes!! said:
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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We make teams do this on Majority of their drives and we are 11 win program perennially
 
Until this defense passes the eye test and proves me wrong, I'm going to keep assuming that they'll fold when the game depends on it. They'll commit some stupid penalty to keep a drive alive, or miss a tackle, or not cover a receiver, or crash the wrong gap, or get to deep on the pass rush, or.....

I hope they fix their issues, some of which have nothing to do with an inept offense (but some that are certainly affected by an inept offense), but they've yet to show me that they're capable of being 'very good'.
 
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