About to go off a little bit. Don't like it, tough ****. Feel free to debunk any of it or just neg my *** to high heaven.
First and foremost...
*Our defense is NEVER gonna be "Miami caliber" with D'Onofrio running it. It is what it is. Oh, what's that? I'm crazy? We still lack talent? When you lack talent, your players are at least CLOSE, they're in their proper spots. When areas are WIDE OPEN and everything is easy pickins, THAT'S COACHING. Somebody explain to me how and why the drag routes have been open for weeks. Explain to me how and why we can't even cover a RB flare route, even when we rush 3 and use 8 in coverage. Yeah, we lack elite athletes at some spots on defense but many times WE DON'T EVEN HAVE A GUY ANYWHERE NEAR THE BALL. We blitz LB's and leave slot WR's un-covered or covered by a Safety who's 12 yards off the ball. WE ****IN' "SPOT DROP" FOR CHRIST SAKE!!! We have LB's who stare at the QB while there's a WR camping out in their zone. The QB throws the ball to the WR who's literally standing 5 feet away from our LB, who's totally unaware that he's standing there. Have yall noticed that our intermediate passing defense is where we struggle most? Teams aren't abusing our CB's, they're abusing our intermediate areas. When Miami completed a flare route, or any other short route, there was an FSU defender there within a blink of an eye. That's not talent, that's SOUND defense and players knowing their assignments.
*Our blitz schemes are terrible and totally lack innovation. You watch FSU's defense and they blitzed from places a QB or O-Line would never expect. Miami lined up in trips formation and Pruitt blitzes the CB that was lined-up on the #3 receiver. He was unaccounted for, unblocked and Morris got flagged for the grounding penalty. D'Onofrio just simply sends extra guys. There's no foolery with his blitz scheme therefore it's easy for OL to pick them up. He doesn't manipulate the O-linemen.
*We use 300 pound Olsen Pierre on the edge. Yeah, like we're gonna get any ****in' pass rush with that. SMH
*On one of Winston's 3rd down scrambles (for a 1st down) we slanted our DE inside, LEAVING NOBODY ON THE EDGE TO CONTAIN WINSTON. He simply rolled right and ran for a 1st down. Is this a ****in' joke? That is so un-sound it's hard to believe that a D-1 coordinator would even do such a thing. I wouldn't believe if I haven't already seen us do this a million times.
*Walford. Been told yall about him but the booger eaters insist on telling everybody he's an NFL TE. (Yeah, yeah, yeah I know, it was a bad game. Right.) But yeah, he's super pedestrian. Yall wanted him to get targeted more often and tonight you got your wish.
*OC Coley still sucks. He was actually impressing me in the 1st half. He used the middle of the field and ****. It was successful though, so he went away from it in the 2nd half. Back to the vertical game. The 2nd pick Morris threw...yup...all verticals as usual. Oh, and I love the play-action plays on 3rd and long. That's a staple with Coley. And I can't forget the back-to-back play-action roll-out passes he called. The first one got snuffed out by the DE so hey, let's call the same play AGAIN.
*I thought there was a couple plays where Duke should've ran harder and been more aggressive. Seemed like he was always looking to cut back. There was a few runs where he should've just WENT but instead he was tip-toeing looking for a cut back opportunity. He ran kinda soft on that failed 4th down conversation. Overall he played well but there was a handful of runs where I said "where the **** is he going?!"
*Highsmith: Winston wasn't throwing YOU the ball dumbass. You don't play WR. High-point the football. SMH
*Again, the defense. I know we still lack talent at some spots but there's wayyy too many instances where we don't even have a defender close to the ball...and that has nothing to do with talent. A lack of talent is when you have players close but they're simply not good enough to make a play. (i.e. the deep ball Highsmith gave up) The fact that a drag route is almost always wide open against our defense has nothing to do with talent. The fact that our LB's stare at the QB when receivers are hovering 4 feet away from them has nothing to do with talent.
*Burns is NOT a kick-returner. Someone needs to tell him that he's allowed to make a move left or right and he doesn't have to run straight into a sea of opposite jerseys. I thought he was literally gonna get sawed in half tonight.
And finally... (and most unfortunately)
*FSU is on their way up up up. They are loaded with talent and they have innovative coordinators on the both sides of the ball, especially on defense. I have no doubt that Miami will add more talent to the squad but until we get innovative coordinators our ceiling will never reach it's full potential. There's still too many issues that I see which are NOT related to talent. (or lack of)