Manny & the Recruiting Process (formerly Earl Little Jr 1.0)

[RVACane]

Your persecution complex is massive. Just because people see things differently than you doesn’t mean anyone, me included is “defending Manny”.

My persecution complex is massive because my people have been persecuted and it’s now engrained in my DNA.

I watch you and others take shots at people who point out issues all the time, myself included.

 

[TheOriginalCane]

******* gimmicks and nonsense gets us every time.... 5 regimes in a row....

This is a ridiculously bad take.

You are saying that the football program that invented

--4 fingers
--running through the smoke
--the U hand symbol
--dancing on the field
--saluting after sacks
--The Tez
--playing The Imperial March during games
--taking off helmets after big hits

is merely engaging in gimmicks and nonsense with the Turnover Chain?

Insanity.

 

[Angry Ibis]

Bro I wanted Mccloud off the field 2 years ago. Check the game day threads lol.

I was just pointing out just saying put someone else in doesnt always work like that. At LB they recruited /evaluated poorly. As you saw last szn the guys behind Shaq/Pinkney/Mccloud werent better.

Carter sits himself most of the time.

The Pope and Wiggins thing is more so on the offensive coach/position coach. If Lashlee wants them to sit they would/should. I have no clue as to why they didnt sit them down for a game or taken their reps..maybe they were waiting on a Harley type breakthrough...which obviously never came.
But having played college ball.....Majority of coaches go with SENIORITY for 1 reason or another...even the GOATS like SABAN/Meyer does so. I guarantee their are players ont hose teams saying they deserve reps or are better than the guys starting over them.

It appears and have for some time that at certian POSITIONS on his defense..Manny leans to seniority. That being said he still plays ALOT of players and we have seen him play younger players over certain players. So its a mix up on it.

He definately will lean to seniority at SAFETY. That position is very important in his defense. MANNY rotates a whole LB unit a few times a game. Probably more so than i seen most defenses do. I mean he takes out every one of them and runs in 3 new ones.

This is the type of stuff needed around here to squelch the CIS urban legend BS that gets rinse repeated.

It gets repeated to *****, leaving context out every time.
- GR was hurt and was brought along slowly
- McCloud was losing reps, the players behind him weren’t great either, COVID hit the D hard later in the season. McCloud was then moved out of LB for the bowl.
- Carter - Hall and Bolden get complained about all the time on here. The back ups to them did not flash
- TVD - he missed time due to COVID yet posters ***** he got no reps
- WRs - they were called out, stepped up for a game at the same time COVID wiped out all the freshman, they were atrocious in the bowl game, Rambo was brought in this offseason.

Miami plays plenty of young guys. Some of the vets are not cutting it and need to be shuffled out of the lineup. Quality depth is missing at key positions due to recruiting and/or evals.

All that is clear without creating false narratives.

 

[TheOriginalCane]

I’m being honest. Aside from GR, the best talent we’ve developed is a punter. The kicker came here as a 1 year Grad transfer.

Ahmmon Richards. But, you know, injury.

 

[Angry Ibis]

This is a ridiculously bad take.

You are saying that the football program that invented

--4 fingers
--running through the smoke
--the U hand symbol
--dancing on the field
--saluting after sacks
--The Tez
--playing The Imperial March during games
--taking off helmets after big hits

is merely engaging in gimmicks and nonsense with the Turnover Chain?

Insanity.

I believe we are on the same page. None of those things bother me in the least bit. I find the reference to gimmicks and nonsense a convenient anti-Manny excuse as the “inventor” of the chain, while meanwhile on one hand we have been doing the list mentioned for 40 years, and on the other the losing did not start with Manny whether we like him or not.

All of those things are better when we are winning and kicking ***. That said, none of them, including the Turnover Chain and Rings, have lead to the 20 year gap in greatness - 4-5 “failed” coaching regimes has.

 

[AllAboutTheU]

I’m in the distinct minority here, and I’ve been questioning his athleticism since he was playing Pee Wee football. But I don’t see this dude as the can’t miss CB that others do.

He seems like a high floor, lower ceiling type who we could definitely use. Comparisons to Minkah Fitzpatrick are silly that guy was a sure fire 1st rounder and freak athlete in HS. Golden recruited him pretty hard and I remember watching that tape. There was no doubt about that kid.

 

[252cane]

I don’t doubt that Little will likely go to Bama or similar. Knowing that we legit likely have higher priorities on our board, I don’t care about Little per se if our coaches don’t. It raises a broader issue for me.

There are other examples of us losing out to schools we should beat out for recruits because the other school’s HC got involved in the recruitment and Manny didn’t reach out and it made the difference. Where we want a kid, and he’s a top recruit - Manny needs to make sure he’s being competitive in his own role in these top recruitments.

God forbid I point that out and the Manny Defense League goes Meir Kahane on me.

according to ivins little is very high on the board. So idk

 

[Dwinstitles]

I don’t doubt that Little will likely go to Bama or similar. Knowing that we legit likely have higher priorities on our board, I don’t care about Little per se if our coaches don’t. It raises a broader issue for me.

There are other examples of us losing out to schools we should beat out for recruits because the other school’s HC got involved in the recruitment and Manny didn’t reach out and it made the difference. Where we want a kid, and he’s a top recruit - Manny needs to make sure he’s being competitive in his own role in these top recruitments.

God forbid I point that out and the Manny Defense League goes Meir Kahane on me.

Your a hater and not a real fan....ban chise and sands immediately @RVACane

 

[Dwinstitles]

Good post man. I support the staff not going all out for him if that’s their evaluation. But where it matters, we need our HC to be doing things to stay competitive in recruitments.

I usually never agree with @puertorricane but that post is a good one. We really don't know the context of wtf is going on tbh.

 

[Dwinstitles]

This is a ridiculously bad take.

You are saying that the football program that invented

--4 fingers
--running through the smoke
--the U hand symbol
--dancing on the field
--saluting after sacks
--The Tez
--playing The Imperial March during games
--taking off helmets after big hits

is merely engaging in gimmicks and nonsense with the Turnover Chain?

Insanity.

I think he means social media gimmicks and James Coley/TRob hires. Basically the coaches always tried to win the fans instead of games. They keep their neck above water till the higher ups and the fans they haven't fooled figure it out late in the game.

 

[Ethnicsands]

You and I are constantly hammering the evaluation drum. Maybe Diaz isn’t sold on him despite the stars. I in no way see Diaz as an elite evaluator, but it could be as simple as he’s not recruiting him as hard as Sabag because he doesn’t think he’s a good as Sabag does.

This will be another one of those guys who we will all keep an eye on. He’s either going to prove the stars right or wrong. I see him as more Tracy Howard than Rat Spermstain, but we’ll see. Tracy was a good player, and I’d take him now, but he was nowhere near the guy he was hyped as.

We are definitely aligned on evals. And I've said many times in this thread, if this is about evals, we'll see.

However, there's a different issue floating around in here. He's a local 5* and legacy kid. If you want to be 'in the game' for him, you got to appreciate how he's going to be recruited by others, Saban included. That's not really an eval point - it's a recruiting tactics and awareness point. We may have others higher, but it's almost a year to NSD and unless we really wouldn't want this kid, we should be recruiting him as if we do, because that's the deal with highly rated kids. Since it doesn't sound like we don't want him, it sounds to me like we're not recruiting in an organized manner, evaluations aside. Since everyone else here jumps on words out of context, I readily acknowledge that's not a claim, it's a concern and time will tell.

 

[Dwinstitles]

He seems like a high floor, lower ceiling type who we could definitely use. Comparisons to Minkah Fitzpatrick are silly that guy was a sure fire 1st rounder and freak athlete in HS. Golden recruited him pretty hard and I remember watching that tape. There was no doubt about that kid.

Facts

I wish we could pull those no doubter type athletes. Henry Juedy Cooper Cook Clowney Peppers.....wish we started pulling those type of athletes.

 

[Ethnicsands]

I counted at least six maybes in your post. You have a right to be skeptical.
But here a few more maybes. Maybe you don't know enough about the Little situation and all you doing is making assumptions. Maybe Manny doesn’t care about what Saban is doing as much as you do. And maybe having counter points to your assumptions doesn't mean I dont want things being discussed. It just means my assumptions are more positive. I might prefer to look at things as a glass half full while you are a glass half empty person.

If Manny wants this kid, he better care about how others are recruiting him. It's a competitive world. We don't recruit in a bubble. If Manny doesn't want him, then yeah, it wouldn't really matter what others do here. But the idea we truly don't want a local 5* legacy kid at a position of dire need for us who's known to be a good kid and good prospect, that's kind of absurd to begin with.

As for half full vs. half empty, that's your emotions talking. You're way too caught up in what you imagine others think or feel rather than just the topic we're discussing. Our glass has been totally empty for 2 decades. We're trying to discuss how to refill it. Wasting emotion debating whether it's half full or half empty sure sounds dumb to me.

 

[Lutzboy247]

If Manny wants this kid, he better care about how others are recruiting him. It's a competitive world. We don't recruit in a bubble. If Manny doesn't want him, then yeah, it wouldn't really matter what others do here. But the idea we truly don't want a local 5* legacy kid at a position of dire need for us who's known to be a good kid and good prospect, that's kind of absurd to begin with.

As for half full vs. half empty, that's your emotions talking. You're way too caught up in what you imagine others think or feel rather than just the topic we're discussing. Our glass has been totally empty for 2 decades. We're trying to discuss how to refill it. Wasting emotion debating whether it's half full or half empty sure sounds dumb to me.

Little is not a 5 star. He's not even the best cb prospect on his own team. That being said not making him a priority would be absurd, he should be a priority regardless if we think he's going to Bama or not. He's a solid cb prospect and a legacy, at a position of need like you said, we should recruit him just as hard as any of our other db prospects.

 

[puertorricane]

If Manny wants this kid, he better care about how others are recruiting him. It's a competitive world. We don't recruit in a bubble. If Manny doesn't want him, then yeah, it wouldn't really matter what others do here. But the idea we truly don't want a local 5* legacy kid at a position of dire need for us who's known to be a good kid and good prospect, that's kind of absurd to begin with.

As for half full vs. half empty, that's your emotions talking. You're way too caught up in what you imagine others think or feel rather than just the topic we're discussing. Our glass has been totally empty for 2 decades. We're trying to discuss how to refill it. Wasting emotion debating whether it's half full or half empty sure sounds dumb to me.

Why you keep mentioning 5 stars, I thought you cared more about evaluations.

 

[Handsome Squidbum]

Facts

I wish we could pull those no doubter type athletes. Henry Juedy Cooper Cook Clowney Peppers.....wish we started pulling those type of athletes.

James Williams. Miami just pulled one of those types of athletes. Note that I didn't mention Leonard Taylor as you've openly stated that if Saban wasn't recruiting a player hard, it means he is overrated.

Miami's player evals should be tethered to Nick Sabans evals just as so many cuck "Miami fans" are tethered to Sabans old saggy ball sack.

This is a clear cut example of that philosophy in action. This is the flip side to "Miami got its eval wrong and Taylor overrated because Saban didn't pull out all the stops." Here, cuck fans think they Miami is getting its eval wrong because the staff decided to focus on other players, while Saban has decided to pursue Little. God forbid that Miami staff actually act like professionals and do their own independent evals.

 

[HurricaneHauk]

I think it definately is. The way the staff were at full staff about rousseau when i saw in person lets me believe this. They were bringing him along slowly from injury and gave Patchan a bone.

Ross was a hand picked recruit by Manny, Manny was the one who saw the potential but people think Manny didn’t want to play him over Patchan because he’s older

Remember when everyone was *****ing about Lingard not playing? Manny had it out for him!

Remember Ahmon was secretly suspended by Richt? Yeah that turned out so close to the truth

Manny started 3 freshmen LBs but all of a sudden he’s averse to starting younger players?

Brooks played a crap ton of snaps along with Flagg but that doesn’t fit the narrative

Should I keep going

 

[Ethnicsands]

DVD is an excellent recruiter.

You know this how? He's literally never even been a recruiter as a coach before, because this is his first season as a coach.

T-Rob is both an excellent recruiter and evaluator.

You know he's an excellent evaluator how? Do you have knowledge of how the evaluation process worked at his prior schools, and whose approvals were required for the choices? What support he got in evaluating? I'm optimistic as heck about him but folks are just making isht up at this point in terms of what credit he deserves for evals.

He wouldn't have signed on to be in a Rumph situation where Diaz holds his hand and say who can he can recruit and who he can't. There is zero chance he'd have taken the job if he wasn't allowed to recruit who he wanted.

This is an odd comment, IMO. There's literally zero chance that he's allowed to just recruit and offer and take commitments from whoever he wants. Commitments require HC approval, and admission require AD / institutional approval, meaning LOIs effectively do also. That's a certainty. If Manny has turned over his approvals to a position coach who just got here, Manny should be fired on the spot. He can't have, of course. So there's no way T Rob was told come here and you can do whatever you want on recruiting. Did he get told we're excited about his eval ability and to expect support from Manny on it? Sure, that's believable. That's a world apart from your 'zero chance he'd have taken the job....' comment. Also, you reference the 'Rumph situation.' There's a lot of assumptions around here about that. Very little actual knowledge. Did T Rob ask Manny about what happened? Probably. Did Manny promise him more than an employer can reasonably promise an employee? Highly doubtful. If I had to guess, I'd assume Manny would have handled any such question diplomatically, particularly since Rumph is still working with the program.

Since it doesn't appear that two of Miami's top recruiters are spending a lot of time on Little, one of three things is true.

1. T-Rob is oblivious to a player with Little's talent and is overlooking him (unlikely)
2. Miami wanted Little, but Diaz got the impression that Little Jr is Bama bound and so he's has moved on to other targets (haven't Miami fans complained that we waste time on players who aren't interested, miss out on other good prospects, and end up with plan Z kids who aren't Miami caliber) or
3. Miami did its eval of Little and decided that it likes other prospects better. Bama has him higher on their board. That explains why the GOAT coach called him and Diaz supposedly hasn't.

1. is silly. It's not unlikely, it's a strawman. 2. is concerning if true, because it's a year to NSD, Little is a legacy, and T Rob is a heck of a recruiter. If we want him, but at scared off by Saban wanting him, that's pathetic, IMO. 3. is concerning also, because we're desperate at CB and this kid is a really good prospect no matter whether we have a couple guys higher on the board or not. We've failed at our board targets for years, so if this kid is just lower on the board, we should be recruiting him at this point as if we want him. If we end up not wanting him, no worries, but until we're sure we have better options, half-assing his recruitment is just another in a long line of mediocre to poor recruiting tactics we've seen from multiple head coaches over two decades.

If your argument is that Diaz and co. have dropped the ball and he's simply a bad recruiter, I think that's objectively silly (especially as he was picked as the best HC recruiter in the state of Florida by a wide margin by a number of recruiting professionals who aren't pro-Miami). There is nothing to suggest that is the case other than personal enmity. This isn't to say I'm absolutely, incontrovertibly right- there is a scenario where your version of events is true and I'm wrong- if we hear that T-Rob is putting on a full court press and Miami is making a last ditch effort to sway Little, then you win, Diaz is running a Mickey Mouse organization and this is another case of Too Little, Too Late. But until that happens, I'm
going to stick with logic. The recruiting (or lack thereof) is deliberate.

What a bizarre comment. Wow. You think it's objectively clear that Manny's a good recruiter because of some dumb 'poll' tweeted out by a dumb reporter who doesn't even know **** about the details of recruiting at any of these programs and just went by last year's results without knowledge of what went into them or prior years results or infrastructure or evaluation processes? If you want to make the case that Manny's a great recruiter, cite some relevant facts, not a silly opinion poll or morans.

In any case, I've been pointing out Manny wasn't a good recruiter since before he became HC, as well as the need for major improvements in processes and infrastructure around recruiting for years. Hopefully he's learned and it'll be better going forward, but this isn't about Little or one article - this program hasn't recruited well for decades and Manny didn't come here known for recruiting. Nothing he did as DC suggested he was a good recruiter, either.

BTW- You seem to think I'm Pro-Diaz. I'm not Pro-Diaz. I'm Anti-Dumb. Pointing out the fallacies in poster's ridiculous arguments may give the impression that I'm Pro-Diaz. I am of the opinion that Miami has been a dumpster fire for so many years that it is going take any coach not named Urban Meyer or Nick Saban a minimum of 3 years (and probably longer) to get the program back on the right track. I'm looking for milestones and benchmarks like Miami landing 5 star players despite a losing record and players who shouldn't declare early sticking around. That establishes to me that players and recruits believe in what Diaz is selling, even if fans don't. The culture needs to change first, the wins will follow. I also want to see a HC who fixes problems. I don't expect perfection yet from a young HC but I expect adaptability. Miami was bad at CBs evals and development so it went out and got one of the best in the biz. So far, I think Diaz is hitting the benchmarks that I think are necessary for rebuilding a program. Acknowledging that doesn't make me Pro-Diaz. Once he stops hitting the benchmarks, I'll say it's time to change.

I don't really care whether you're 'pro' manny or 'anti-' manny. What's wrong with this exchange is you think I'm 'anti-Manny.' I'm not. I want him to succeed. But I'm honest in my assessments and skeptical of him until he proves he deserves the benefit of the doubt, both because of what he did and didn't do before becoming head coach here and what he's done since he became head coach.

As for time, yes, it will take time for success. But that observation is used by too many around here to essentially contend we can't discuss the signs of incompetence until years go by. We've seen that story unfold over and over around here. I don't expect instant success but I want to see the signs that he gets it and is doing the things needed for steady improvement and success in time. Because in the absence of doing the things needed for success, all you're doing is losing a few more years until he fails and the next unqualified corch is hired.

I agree culture change is critical, and I admit I don't think Manny is helpful in that regard. He's not a leader as far as I can tell. Not a strong figure, wants to be liked, is too much talk and spin and not enough substance. IMO.

 

[AllAboutTheU]

Facts

I wish we could pull those no doubter type athletes. Henry Juedy Cooper Cook Clowney Peppers.....wish we started pulling those type of athletes.

James Williams is a start. Just need to keep stacking these guys year after year. Can’t afford down years.

 

[The Franchise]

We are definitely aligned on evals. And I've said many times in this thread, if this is about evals, we'll see.

However, there's a different issue floating around in here. He's a local 5* and legacy kid. If you want to be 'in the game' for him, you got to appreciate how he's going to be recruited by others, Saban included. That's not really an eval point - it's a recruiting tactics and awareness point. We may have others higher, but it's almost a year to NSD and unless we really wouldn't want this kid, we should be recruiting him as if we do, because that's the deal with highly rated kids. Since it doesn't sound like we don't want him, it sounds to me like we're not recruiting in an organized manner, evaluations aside. Since everyone else here jumps on words out of context, I readily acknowledge that's not a claim, it's a concern and time will tell.

What if we recruit him super hard, and he commits when we're not sure we even want him to sign? Again, I'm not looking to defend Diaz because, if he really does want this guy, then he needs to recruit him hard like you have to recruit 5 stars or guys coveted by the KKK belt.