My Manny Diaz thoughts.

[252cane]

Some stats i got on diaz from last 2 years.

2014 (La Tech)
Total D- 35th
Run D- 17th
Pass D- 91st
Scoring D- 39th (24.7ppg)
Sacks- 16th (39)
TFLs- 2nd (114)
Ints- 1st (26)
Forced Fumbles- 34th (13)
3rd down D- 19th
Red zone D-89th

2015 (miss st)
Total D-56th
Run D-70th
Pass D-57th
Scoring D-36th
Sacks- 42nd (30)
TFLs-13th (98)
Ints- 42nd (13)
FF-123rd (5)
3rd down D- 37th
Red zone D-9th

What this tells me is the defense will get 30-40 sacks and around 100 tfls but the rest is a mixed bag.

 

[The Franchise]

Kool will work wonders with our DL. I'm hoping he will be the element that transforms Diaz from a career journeyman DC to high-level results.

I think Richt hired Kuligowski as insurance in case Diaz doesn't work out. His defenses were D'Onofrio-ish at MSU.

I think he hired Kool because he's the best DL coach in the country, and he was suddenly available.

 

[MedleyCane]

Kool will work wonders with our DL. I'm hoping he will be the element that transforms Diaz from a career journeyman DC to high-level results.

I think Richt hired Kuligowski as insurance in case Diaz doesn't work out. His defenses were D'Onofrio-ish at MSU.

I think he hired Kool because he's the best DL coach in the country, and he was suddenly available.

Yep, and he was intimately familiar with him as their teams faced each other often.

 

[Footballhelmet]

I don't care about sacks and TFLs unless they're in conjunction with turnovers and keeping points off the board and stopping long excruciating drives.

Kool will work wonders with our DL. I'm hoping he will be the element that transforms Diaz from a career journeyman DC to high-level results.

It's been shown that turnovers are a combo of luck and bad offensive play and that the defense doesn't have much of anything to do with them.

 

[Jeeperaf]

I don't care about sacks and TFLs unless they're in conjunction with turnovers and keeping points off the board and stopping long excruciating drives.

Kool will work wonders with our DL. I'm hoping he will be the element that transforms Diaz from a career journeyman DC to high-level results.

It's been shown that turnovers are a combo of luck and bad offensive play and that the defense doesn't have much of anything to do with them.

Correct. A portion of turnovers are the direct result of luck and bad O play/decision making. There is also a portion of turnovers that are the direct result of relentless high caliber play that put the D athletes in the right position at the right time to cause the turnover chain of events to start AND to be (or have teammates) in the right place at the right time to secure said turnover.

 

[Zbrod95]

Some stats i got on diaz from last 2 years.

2014 (La Tech)
Total D- 35th
Run D- 17th
Pass D- 91st
Scoring D- 39th (24.7ppg)
Sacks- 16th (39)
TFLs- 2nd (114)
Ints- 1st (26)
Forced Fumbles- 34th (13)
3rd down D- 19th
Red zone D-89th

2015 (miss st)
Total D-56th
Run D-70th
Pass D-57th
Scoring D-36th
Sacks- 42nd (30)
TFLs-13th (98)
Ints- 42nd (13)
FF-123rd (5)
3rd down D- 37th
Red zone D-9th

What this tells me is the defense will get 30-40 sacks and around 100 tfls but the rest is a mixed bag.

If you go back farther specifically to the 2010 MSU D and his first 2 years at UT, you'll see a different story because he had a good amount of NFL talent on them. You'll also see that obviously without that talent, it's a completely different story than that one too.

 

[FrancisSawyer]

Overall he's decent. I'm just happy that he'll bring a more aggressive approach. Not going to bother looking at his total defense numbers. Instead I'm going to look at his numbers as far as things Miami needs.

We need sacks, tackles for a loss, and turnovers. Despite wherever our total D ranking ends we will surely see an increase in our team TFL, sack count, and turnovers.

Let's have a look
Since Golden was here we've only had a player have 9.5 or more tackles for a loss twice. Sean Spence and Shayon Green. Denzel Perryman hit 9.0 once.

The max sacks that a player ever had under Golden and Dorito is 6. Thurston Ambrister and Anthony Chickillo tied for that.

It's been a decade since Miami has had a 10 sack guy. 2006 Calaias and Kareem were the last two to do it. That's Diaz whole career as a DC. Look how many 10+ sack guys he's produced.

Manny Diaz
Defense Coordinator History
Middle Tennessee
2006: 5 players with over 9.5 tackles for a loss. Coached Erik Walden with 11.5 sacks that year. Walden is still playing in the league with the Colts today.

2007: 3 players with more than 5.0 TFL. Coached a DB with 5 INTs

2008: 7 players with more than 5.0 TFL

2009: Coached 4 players with more than 5.0 TFL including one player with 20 TFL and 7 sacks in SunBelt DPOY Chris Mccoy who played in the league. Also coached 3 All SunBelt conference DBS including Marcus Udell who had 7 INTs that year.

Mississippi State
2010: Coached 5 players with more than 5.0 TFL. Including 1st Rounder Pernell McPhee . Starting Seahawks LB, 2x NFC Champion, Super Bowl winner and All-Pro KJ Wright. KJ had 98 tackles

1st Rounder 2x all Pro and Pro Bowl DL Fletcher Cox Also Coached Charles Mitchell (93 tackles) who played in the league and DL Josh Boyd who also played in the league.

Texas
2011: 5 players with more than 7.5 TFL. Jackson Jeffcoat had 20 TFL and 8 sacks. Emmanuel Acho with 110 tackles, 14.5 TFL, and 3.0 sacks. Alex Okafor with 12.5 TFL and 7 sacks. Carrington Byndom 1st Rounder Kenny Vaccaro, Quandre Diggs , Keenan Robinson and Keeston Randall round out the NFL players from that 2011 defense.

1st Team All Big 12
Emmanuel Acho
Alex Okafor
Kenny Vaccaro

2nd Team
Keeston Randall
Jackson Jeffcoat
Keenan Robinson
Quandre Diggs

2012: 8 players with more than 5 TFL. Okafor with 10+ sacks.

1st Team All Big 12
Kenny Vaccaro
Jackson Jeffcoat

2013: Coached 4 players with more than 7 TFL. Jeffcoat with 19.5 TFL 13.5 Sacks, Cedric Reed with 16.0 TFL and 10 sacks, Malcolm Brown with 8.5 sacks. Other NFL talent from the 2013 team: Adrian Phillips , Mykkele Thompson

1st Team All Big 12
Jackson Jeffcoat

2nd Team
Cedric Reed
Carrington Byndom

Louisiana Tech
2014: Coached 8 players with 6.5 or more TFL. 3 players with more than 10.0 TFL. Also coached another 10+ sack guy. Two DBs with at least 5 picks.

1st Team All C-USA
DB So Xavier Rhodes

2nd Team All C-USA
DL Houston Bates

Mississippi State
2015 : 6 players with 6.5 TFL. 3 of them 10+ TFL.
Two Linebackers with 90+ tackles.

2nd Round DL Chris Jones

3rd CB Will Redmond

What that shows me is that he can get **** done. We are going to get pressure and the front 7 should be solid. He made NFL talent at Middle Tennessee. He and Coach Kool will have these boys penetrating and smacking opponents in the mouth real soon.

For those of you who forgot here's coach Kools DL resume from Missouri I couldn't find his toledo players.

Coached Kool NFL Dlineman (Is years they spent in the league)
2001: 1st Round Pick Justin Smith (2001-2014) 5x Pro Bowler. 3x All-Pro

2003: 6th Round Keith Wright (2003-2006)

2005: 6th Round CJ Mosley (2005-2015)

2005: 3rd Round Attiyyah Ellison (2005-2010)

2007: 4th round Brian Smith (2007)

2009: 6th Round Stryker Sulak (2009-2010)

2009: 1st Rounder Ziggy Hood (2009-Present)

2011: 1st Rounder Aldon Smith (2011-Present) First Team All-Pro, Pro Bowler

2013: 1st Rounder Sheldon Richardson (2013-Present)

2014: 2nd Rounder Kony Ealy (2014-Present)

2015: 1st Rounder Shane Ray (2015-Present)

Motor

Good thread but here are my thoughts about the D going forward. You say that you are looking for more sacks, TFL, and turnovers and that if those are improved then you don't care what the numbers for total D are. Look I get you but let me play devil's advocate. If we improve on the categories you mentioned and still have a total D in 40's or worse then we were not a very effective defense overall.

Now I know that Diaz is somewhat of a question mark. He runs an aggressive defense overall but he has also been known to play soft coverage behind that. He has also tended to struggle when his blitzes and pressures aren't getting home. Having said that I don't think Richt brought him here expecting him to be mediocre. I think Diaz is still developing as a DC. What makes this such an interesting juncture in his career is that as DC at Miami under a good HC in Richt, Diaz will have access to much better talent that he has had in his career. Now add to that he will be working with Coach Kool who is considered to be the Best DL coach in the nation.

The key for Diaz IMO is to take all of his experience and all of his weaknesses and failures, learn from them and figure out how to fine tune his defense and how to better defend certain offenses and formations. If he can do that while also crafting a defense to fit what SoFla kids do best then he could have tremendous success here. I also think he understands that with all the elite talent he will be acquiring he had better field very good to dominate defenses consistently here. Either he succeeds here or his career goes down the toilet. So I fully expect Diaz to be extremely motivated to field the best defenses of his career here.

 

[NVA CANE]

Being aggressive isn't a miracle cure, it's just part of the solution. Don't fool yourselves into thinking you'll be happy with an aggressive defense that keeps giving up big plays. You won't be happy and you shouldn't be.

 

[Canezum5]

I don't care about sacks and TFLs unless they're in conjunction with turnovers and keeping points off the board and stopping long excruciating drives.

Kool will work wonders with our DL. I'm hoping he will be the element that transforms Diaz from a career journeyman DC to high-level results.

It's been shown that turnovers are a combo of luck and bad offensive play and that the defense doesn't have much of anything to do with them.

Hey al. How's summer in Detroit?

 

[Canezum5]

Being aggressive isn't a miracle cure, it's just part of the solution. Don't fool yourselves into thinking you'll be happy with an aggressive defense that keeps giving up big plays. You won't be happy and you shouldn't be.

Truth. Tbh, I don't want or see the need to be too aggressive. If the coaches see a top ten dline rotation then we shouldn't need to be that aggressive. Thus reducing how many big plays we give up.

 

[cane since birth]

Though i agree NVA, but now a days with how teams tun spread and are extremely pass happy along with the targeting rules has made defense ne handicaped, the formula now on defense with teams is being aggressive as **** and take chances

 

[jakeman1]

If this works like I think it will, the schemed Diaz uses, especially with Kuligowski coaching the DL, will start to get kids excited about coming to play DL at Miami again. FSU and UF have been stockpiling DT's for years, with kids choosing to go there, knowing they'll be behind other kids, vs competing for starting jobs early at Miami, and it's because of the passive scheme that D'Onofrio played. DL defines the defense, but it's going to take the kids seeing Miami play it, before they can really start to get some of the elite DT's they've been losing to other schools.

 

[252cane]

Some stats i got on diaz from last 2 years.

2014 (La Tech)
Total D- 35th
Run D- 17th
Pass D- 91st
Scoring D- 39th (24.7ppg)
Sacks- 16th (39)
TFLs- 2nd (114)
Ints- 1st (26)
Forced Fumbles- 34th (13)
3rd down D- 19th
Red zone D-89th

2015 (miss st)
Total D-56th
Run D-70th
Pass D-57th
Scoring D-36th
Sacks- 42nd (30)
TFLs-13th (98)
Ints- 42nd (13)
FF-123rd (5)
3rd down D- 37th
Red zone D-9th

What this tells me is the defense will get 30-40 sacks and around 100 tfls but the rest is a mixed bag.

If you go back farther specifically to the 2010 MSU D and his first 2 years at UT, you'll see a different story because he had a good amount of NFL talent on them. You'll also see that obviously without that talent, it's a completely different story than that one too.

2010 miss st defense was 49th. And it was a mix bag just like that stats above.

 

[rsa coral gables]

i have no clue how diaz will do here, but i am pretty sure that, at the very least, he will be a lot better than the previous regime. and to boot, i think our O will score more points and stay on the field a lot longer than the previous regime, both of which will help the D.

 

[DTP]

People tend to learn best from making mistakes and it seems, at least from the outside looking in, that Diaz has corrected some of the problems that plagued him in Texas. I'm hoping that the combination of Coach Kool and what should be a talented D-Line will curb some of the need to blitz. In obvious passing situations, they can let the linemen get up field in pass rush but keep the linebackers in an underneath zone to protect against screens, draws and quarterback scrambles. I think Grace will be a monster in these situations as he's essentially an extra safety plugged in at linebacker.

Total defense is a pretty statistic but it's not the end all. Obviously scoring defense is the most important stat. If the other team doesn't score, it doesn't matter how many yards you give up. With all the spread, no huddle scoring machines in college football these days, it's near impossible to totally shut down a good offensive team. Look at Alabama in the championship game against Clemson. In SEC play, where the games are purposely slowed down, they were able to shut down most of their opponents. Against Clemson, where Watson was allowed to run his offense at the regular Clemson pace, they ate up Bama's defense. That's why turnovers and negative yardage plays are so critical in today's game. It's no longer about just stopping the run on first and second and getting a pass rush on third. Your defense has to make game changing plays.

 

[Brian Piccolo]

i have no clue how diaz will do here, but i am pretty sure that, at the very least, he will be a lot better than the previous regime.

Why?

Diaz is a disappointment given the home run nature of Richt's hire.

He's not sure thing to be an upgrade.

 

[Canezum5]

i have no clue how diaz will do here, but i am pretty sure that, at the very least, he will be a lot better than the previous regime.

Why?

Diaz is a disappointment given the home run nature of Richt's hire.

He's not sure thing to be an upgrade.

Totally disagree. No way you don't upgrade from the worst defensive coaching in school history.

 

[The Franchise]

I don't care about sacks and TFLs unless they're in conjunction with turnovers and keeping points off the board and stopping long excruciating drives.

Kool will work wonders with our DL. I'm hoping he will be the element that transforms Diaz from a career journeyman DC to high-level results.

It's been shown that turnovers are a combo of luck and bad offensive play and that the defense doesn't have much of anything to do with them.

That's been shown? Where?

 

[The Franchise]

i have no clue how diaz will do here, but i am pretty sure that, at the very least, he will be a lot better than the previous regime.

Why?

Diaz is a disappointment given the home run nature of Richt's hire.

He's not sure thing to be an upgrade.

Totally disagree. No way you don't upgrade from the worst defensive coaching in school history.

Everyone assumed anyone would be an upgrade over Shannon at HC. That turned out false.

I think Diaz will be an upgrade simply because of Kool, but that's not the benchmark. He doesn't just need to be an upgrade. He needs to be a monster upgrade.

 

[rsa coral gables]

i have no clue how diaz will do here, but i am pretty sure that, at the very least, he will be a lot better than the previous regime.

Why?

Diaz is a disappointment given the home run nature of Richt's hire.

He's not sure thing to be an upgrade.

agreed it is not a sure thing, but the person and scheme Diaz is replacing is very likely to be better, so that in itself should be an upgrade.