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Myth Buster: Talent or Coaching?

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Brooklyndee said:
Not so smart is an elite POSITION COACH who definitely develops his position. His defense as a whole, PRIMARILY at defensive line is the reason that defense carried them to two national championships. I agree the offense was subpar and with a defense that good you can get by with a subpar offense especially when u get the production you did out of ur tight ends and running backs.

ANYONE saying Mr grab em by the ***** is a GENERATIONAL talent instantly loses any credibility built up by very valid points previously. By the way, same way you bring up Kirby it's hysterical how you don't bother to give Mario the same credit when it relates to him with offensive lineman. It's clear you simply don't like Mario & that's fine. Him and Kirby are virtually the same when it relates to developing one set position at a very high level.

It's only mental gymnastics when you try throwing shade at Mario comparing the situations of Herbert and him being an elite QB to either Kirby or Dumbo's situations. Both Kirby and dumbo you acknowledge had absolutely stacked rosters and THAT is the reason they win. Well Mario had Herbert in his first two seasons at Oregon and at a time there was no portal. He followed up two corches who did nothing to build up the overall talent of the team and it simply got better and better in his time there. So his elite QB had nothing behind him to support him. Does that seem like maybe it's a relevant point? And none of that changes what I stressed.
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Jameis was a generational college QB. Idc what he did in the pros, this ain’t the NFL. Dude won the Heisman completed almost 70% of his passes and threw over 40 TD’s. Say what you want about Jimbo’s offense and what he did in other years, he destroyed everybody that year with Jameis. He didn’t have a portal.

Kirby was the D coordinator for most of Bama’s titles. His defense carried him to rings at Georgia. He also built the full roster.

I really don’t get why people have to tear down successful coaches while propping up their guy as if he’s on that same level. Mario is not. Until
he wins a championship, he won’t be. No amount of excuses why he hasn’t will change that. He is a great O line developer. He’s a better position coach than he is a HC. So saying that about Jimbo and Kirby should be a moot point, according to you. I really don’t have a problem with Mario. I was fine with him being the guy bc he brought the money and support, but I’m not gonna act like he’s a top 5 coach bc he’s not.
 
GojiraCane said:
Over a decade ago - and this always stuck with me - an anonymous NFL scout said of Miami late in Randy Shannon’s tenure that they were the worst coached team in college football. I still remember this from Canespace. Presumably that would extend to development. That 2008 class seemed more impactful as freshmen than they did as juniors in his final season.

There have been varying reasons for Miami’s lack of success.

2006: WR recruiting failure - had three 3 WRs mid season
2007: Same as 2006, failure in Coker evaluations
2008: Starting mostly freshmen
2009: High attrition, no depth. Miami had only 72 players
2010: Poor development, poor QB depth
2011: Poor defensive scheme, poor depth (74 players)
2012: Poor defensive scheme, mostly freshmen, high attrition
2013: Poor defensive scheme, poor depth (75 players)
2014: Poor defensive scheme, freshman QB
2015: Poor defensive scheme
2016: Poor offensive scheme, attrition and poor depth (76 players)
2017: Poor offensive scheme, Lack of depth at QB, TE
2018: Poor offensive scheme, poor offensive line
2019: Poor offensive scheme, poor offensive line, QB issues
2020: Defensive recruiting misses
2021: Offensive line and linebacker recruiting failures
2022: Same as 2021, poor offensive scheme

This might be simplistic, but there seemed to be fundamental issues each year except 2017 and perhaps 2020 that rendered overall talent levels almost meaningless.
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And Canes fans every year
So Close Nbc 90Th Special GIF by NBC
 
GojiraCane said:
Baring major injuries, I think we go 10-2.
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This is should be the expectation, honestly. I will even settle for 9 wins.

We should start the season 5-0 against Miami(OH), TAMU, BCU, Temple, & GT. 4 of 5 of those games are at HRS, & if it’s true we only lost to TAMU on the road due to a chimp as an OC, then we should be good to go in the revenge match up.

****, I’ll even accept 4-1 to start the yr.

UNC is a toss up; so let’s just say we’re 5-1, 4-2 after that game.

Then we have Clemson. I fully expect a L here. So 5-2 or 4-3. UVA & NCSt should be wins, period. That’s 7-2 or 6-3 at this point.

We have a revenge game against FSU, & if this team has any pride, this should be a W. I don’t care if it’s by 21 or 1…no way u get smoked by 40+ points and come back the following season & allow that to slide. We should be 8-2 or 7-3 after this game.

We then finish up w/ two cupcakes in UL (who no longer has Cunningham) & BC (who no longer has Flowers). That should take us to 10-2 or 9-3.

That’s not unreasonable w/ better coaching, & better pieces that fit the supposed upgrade in coaching.
 
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Cryptical Envelopment said:
Let me expound on one of your points... Not only is it an "inexact science," but the rankings are basically what happens when you let librarians into the lab to perform the experiments. The people who rank these kids are not player personnel people, they aren't scouts, they aren't coaches, they are literally superfans who didn't have the journalistic chops to get a job at a real outlet and basically declared themselves capable of evaluating HS kids, one of the hardest things to do in sports. Furthermore, their system is corrupt and they've admitted as much. It's an amateur clown show.
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Thank you. Absolutely nailed it & couldn’t have said it better. Really is a joke & heavily influenced, if not corrupt, system.
 
Rellyrell said:
⚠️ Lengthy Post‼️‼️ ⚠️

There’s a lot of myths that’s plagued our society: The Lockness Monster, Big Foot, Kim Kardashian’s *** being real; but, no myth has divided the CIS society into factions none other than the debate of Miami not having enough talent vs. coaching. This subject is as divisive as if Miami should have its own stadium, Miami is broke, & if Miller Lite is truly less filling or if it indeed taste great.

I wanted to examine this notion from several angles, looking at polar opposite ends of the spectrum regarding top tier programs who are flushed w/ talent (e.g Bama) and successful programs without the same caliber of talent (e.g Baylor) to see where we fall. I will also look at how we’ve faired when it comes to blue chip success, and finally I will take a look at how we compare to our contemporaries in the woeful ACC Coastal.

The starting point I’ll use is 2007; why? B/c in 2007, two seismic hires took place that changed two historic programs’ fate, Miami & Alabama.

BLUE CHIP ACQUISITION-

Let’s first examine 6 programs in regards to blue chip acquisition since 2007 - present: Alabama, UGA, Clemson, Utah, Baylor, & TCU. (Please note: I did not take into account player attrition for any program since it all washes it out, but I did take in consideration transfer-in from The Transfer Portal).

-Alabama: 342 blue chip players (71 Five-Stars)
-UGA: 268 blue chip players (54 Five-Stars)
-Clemson: 188 blue chip players (28 Five-Stars)
-TCU: 58 blue chip players (1 Five-Star)
-Baylor: 41 blue chip players (2 Five-Stars)
-Utah: 37 blue chip players

How does Miami compare? 179 blue chip players (12 Five-Stars).

Conclusion on talent acquisition: While we have not hoarded the same amount of blue chip talent as three of the most dominant programs since 2007, it was interesting to see how we’ve been fairly on par w/ Clemson in regards to acquiring total blue chips during this time frame.

With that being said, let’s see what we’ve done with such acquisitions, comparably, with the draft (to gage why we may struggle to get high end blue chips to consistently consider us).

THE DRAFT (I’ll only focus on the top 3 teams compared to Miami in this exercise, since we love to blame bags for everything as an excuse)-

*The classes of 2007-2020 are the only ones that have been drafted or draft eligible since 2010-2023.*
-Bama had 259 blue chips (50 Five-Stars)
-UGA had 202 blue chips (40 Five-Stars)
-Clemson had 142 blue chips (22 Five-Stars)
-Miami had 132 blue chips (7 Five-Stars)

-Bama:
38% of Bama’s total blue chips were drafted (99)
68% of their 5* were drafted
72% of Bama’s drafted blue chips were in the first 3 rounds

-UGA:
33.6% of UGA’s total blue chips were drafted (68)
67.5% of their 5* were drafted
48.5% of UGA’s drafted blue chips were in the first 3 rounds

-Clemson:
31.6% of Clemson’s total blue chips were drafted (45)
77% of their 5* were drafted
60% of Clemson’s drafted blue chips were in the first 3 rounds

Miami:
28% of Miami’s blue chips drafted (27)
86% of our 5* were drafted
32% of our drafted blue chips were in the first 3 rounds

Conclusion on The NFL Drafts: This could explain why high end players are not beating down our doors with consistency; the blue chip players we’ve acquired, we’ve done far less in not only getting them drafted, but the draft position for our blue chips have been well below sub-par.

RECORDS SINCE 2007 (Let’s deep dive in the notion of talent vs. coaching)-

-Bama: 194-27
-Clemson: 173-46
-UGA: 166-49
-TCU: 142-63
-Utah: 138-64
-Baylor: 114-88

Miami? 116-84

In this example, Miami has the 6th worst record out of two polar opposite ends of the spectrum. We can reason why Miami would have a worst record than Bama, UGA, & Clemson due to a talent discrepancy, but Utah, and TCU??
-We’ve acquired 300% more blue chips than TCU
-We’ve acquired almost 500% more blue chips than Utah
-We’ve acquired about 430% more blue chips than Baylor;

Yet, since 2007:
-TCU has won 10+ games 8x (including 4 Conference Titles, 9 bowl games {3 NY6 bowls}).
-Utah has won 10+ games 7x, (including 3 Conference Titles, 10 bowl games {1 NY6 bowl})
-Baylor has won 10+ games 5x (including 3 Conference Titles, 6 bowl games {1 NY6 bowl})

Miami? One 10 win season, and one bowl victory since 2007.

Utah, TCU, & Baylor are also doing this as under dogs, having far less talent than the likes of USC, Oregon, Texas, Oklahoma or equal talent as the likes of UCLA, Washington, Iowa St, & OK St. Which brings me to

THE ACC COASTAL AND HOW WE COMPARE-

Unlike TCU, Utah, & Baylor, we’ve out recruited every single team in our division since 2007.

Blue Chip Acquisition during that time:
-UNC: 107 (6 Five-Stars)
-VT: 69 (2 Five-Stars)
-UVA: 35 (2 Five-Stars)
-GT: 33
-Pitt: 25 (since joining the ACC in 2013)
-Duke: 11

Yet, here’s our record against said opponents:
UNC: 6-10
VT: 9-7
UVA: 9-7
GT: 10-5
Pitt: 7-3
Duke: 12-4

So is this a talent issue, or have something else been going on?

Final Conclusion: Yes, we have experienced a plethora of attrition; however, if u compare our attrition and stack the remaining roster talent/season to the majority of the teams we’ve faced annually, on paper, we’ve still had more than enough talent.

The NFL draft agrees with that assessment:
Since 2007-
-Miami: 57 Players Drafted (19 in first 3 rounds)
-UNC: 43 Players Drafted (20 in first 3 rounds)
-VT: 34 Players Drafted (11 in first 3 rounds)
-Pitt: 29 Players Drafted (7 in the first 3 rounds)
-GT: 19 Players Drafted (4 in the first 3 rounds)
-Duke: 9 Players Drafted (2 in the first 3 rounds)

Imo, the fate of Miami’s program is all cumulative. It’s not a coincidence that programs like Baylor, Utah, & TCU have thrived in a CFB world filled w/ handlers, w/ big fish choosing bigger programs; that’s coaching. Then again, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that programs like Bama, UGA, & Clemson are thriving w/ the shear amount of 5 stars & blue chips they’ve acquired; we can say that’s talent.

With Miami, we’re neither Bama-esque nor Utah-esque when it comes to talent or coaching. We should have enough talent to be a perennial 10 win team + winning the division (which is no longer an option), but the coaching has been putrid.

Every top program I’ve studied all have one thing in common: dedication and commitment from the top-down. With Miami, we’ve seen apathy from the admin, lazy hires filled with cronyism and nepotism, and a lack of semblance both at the AD and coaching levels. To constantly hide behind the theory of “Miami doesn’t have talent or enough talent” is foolish and disingenuous. Once upon a time, I believed that, but when I see other programs filled w/ non blue chip caliber rosters, taking down much tougher opponents, it puts things into perspective.

The hardest thing for anyone to do is face truth b/c it hurts. The NFL draft is a reminder that the program has some work to do, but with this renewed dedication, it shouldn’t take 5 yrs. There’s too many past and current examples showing that a turn around can be done in two yrs. Hopefully moving forwards, we’ll have a definitive answer vs. a theory of talent vs. coaching; I’m of the opinion we’ll have both, but this season will give me an even more definitive answer one way or another.
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Fantastic post, @Rellyrell!

As I’ve said many times over the years, our talent has been more than sufficient to win 9-10 games on a yearly basis for a long time. Our corching has been historically bad, as well as our previous admin.

Mario is ON the clock. Last season was a travesty. The narrative that we have to do a “full rebuild” is bullshyte. No more excuses. Get it done.
 
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NC_Canes_11 said:
Kirby is an elite defensive coach. He won with an average QB bc his defense and roster as a whole was elite. Jimbo won bc he had a generational college QB and a stacked roster. Mario had an elite QB and didn’t win big. If you wanna blame his coordinators or roster, that’s also on him.

Absolving Mario of blame, while also saying Kirby and Jimbo won in spite of them being the HC is laughable. Mario has everything to prove, while those guys have a ring. Stop with the mental gymnastics.
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Sorry, hard to believe, but at the end of the day Kirby didn’t have an average QB. Kid may be 5-10, yet more athletic & better skill set than might imagine on first look. Could make every throw & use wheels when needed. ****, 25 years old & in system for years. “Average” quarterback ended up drafted in 4th round despite having accumulated some baggage.
Name the last Miami QB who was better? Waiting . . .
 
TheEye said:
Yup. 5 years minimum. So predicting he fails early really helps nothing. Unless you just want to do something else on a Saturday which is totally understandable.
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Predicting an early failure may help if it leads to so much public pressure that a HC finally understands be has to adapt or he's getting fired. Do you think Diaz would have hired Lashlee instead of another caveman football OC if the fanbase had stayed quiet after a 6 win season? (still better than Cristobals 1st season btw )

The criticism already worked to some extent with Cristobal - I would have bet money that Cristobal was going to hire another pro style OC to follow Gattis. I'm shocked he didn't hire Arroyo. He obviously should have hired a spread OC from day 1, but hiring Dawson showed Cristobal is at least capable of some level of introspection. Cristobal has nearly evolved from a caveman into a modern human.
 
TimeBum said:
Predicting an early failure may help if it leads to so much public pressure that a HC finally understands be has to adapt or he's getting fired. Do you think Diaz would have hired Lashlee instead of another caveman football OC if the fanbase had stayed quiet after a 6 win season? (still better than Cristobals 1st season btw )

The criticism already worked to some extent with Cristobal - I would have bet money that Cristobal was going to hire another pro style OC to follow Gattis. I'm shocked he didn't hire Arroyo. He obviously should have hired a spread OC from day 1, but hiring Dawson showed Cristobal is at least capable of some level of introspection. Cristobal has nearly evolved from a caveman into a modern human.
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I’m still not sold on Dawson being a true spread coach. I hope we see some exciting play calls this season.
 
TheEye said:
I’m still not sold on Dawson being a true spread coach. I hope we see some exciting play calls this season.
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I'm not sold on it either. Reeked of settling on someone he could push around after Cristobal took weeks to pick a new OC. Not saying Dawsons a bum, but having supposedly deep pockets and ending up with a pair of G5 coordinators is suspect. Hopefully Cristobal outsmarted us all.

I have to give myself a reason to turn on the TV and watch UM games. Even with Diaz, I still could occasionally enjoy an offensive highlight or two in most games. Cristobal did the impossible and made UM football unwatchable for basically an entire season.
 
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crossover22[]_[] said:
So are you giving him a pass for 2 seasons of **** football?


Wake forest is good with much lower ranked jags. So mario needs Bama roster to be better than wake?
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Yup that's the way u build a monster this is the blueprint. He saw it with butch and he saw it at bama. He even said he knows how to build it he seen it. He's mentioned it.
 
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Ricaneswag said:
Yup that's the way u build a monster this is the blueprint. He saw it with butch and he saw it at bama. He even said he knows how to build it he seen it. He's mentioned it.
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Yes that was the blueprint up til around 2007. Cristobal didn't see it at Bama. Bama was already a monster when Cristobal got there. And Saban built that squad by buying every 5 star he targeted, not by some sophisticated recruiting /scouting program looking for underrated gems. Same thing with Smart, the big difference between Smart and Richt is that Smart had zero problem playing with dirty money. Richt tried to distance himself, if a booster said "I'll drop 500k for WR1", Richt wouldnt be interested. Smart has no such moral objections.
 
Ricaneswag said:
U wyling that sh ain't even realistic. That's the problem with this fan base. U know what a rebuild from the ground up is? Look at Michigan under Jim.
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I look at the possibility of a significant upswing this way.

We substantially bolstered the offensive line. If that succeeds, everything else starts to work. TVD has more time. The wide receivers have more time. The running backs get bigger holes. Couple that with a competent scheme and there is actually the potential for a strong offensive turnaround. And that could be enough.
 
TimeBum said:
I'm not sold on it either. Reeked of settling on someone he could push around after Cristobal took weeks to pick a new OC. Not saying Dawsons a bum, but having supposedly deep pockets and ending up with a pair of G5 coordinators is suspect. Hopefully Cristobal outsmarted us all.

I have to give myself a reason to turn on the TV and watch UM games. Even with Diaz, I still could occasionally enjoy an offensive highlight or two in most games. Cristobal did the impossible and made UM football unwatchable for basically an entire season.
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You can argue that Manny did exactly the same thing in 2019. The only difference was that we had less of a drop off between J Williams and N Perry than we did with TVD and everyone else. Both teams had terrible offenses, both had bad offensive lines.
 
TimeBum said:
Yes that was the blueprint up til around 2007. Cristobal didn't see it at Bama. Bama was already a monster when Cristobal got there. And Saban built that squad by buying every 5 star he targeted, not by some sophisticated recruiting /scouting program looking for underrated gems. Same thing with Smart, the big difference between Smart and Richt is that Smart had zero problem playing with dirty money. Richt tried to distance himself, if a booster said "I'll drop 500k for WR1", Richt wouldnt be interested. Smart has no such moral objections.
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U have to have no morals to win. It's a dirty game and I'm sure Mario would of been down even before NIL. And imo every title team has gotten dirty since the ice age.
 
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