Regardless of what happens tomorrow...it just needs to be said...EVALUATIONS and subsequently PLAYER DEVELOPMENT are/is what is going to bring this University back out of the dark ages.
I have been harping on this point for a decade! All else aside, it's about evaluations. I actually think 'development' is an excuse most of the time. People use it as a plug number. If things look bad, kids didn't develop. If they look good, they developed. Yet most of that is not development, but coaching (schemes, game plans, play calling) and S&C. "Development" was said to suck under Coker and Randy, but still kids not only got through to the NFL but played well there. If they didn't 'develop', then how did they get to the NFL?
Anyhow, that's an aside. It is and has always been about evaluations.
Butch and JJ could see which kids had what it takes inside to make themselves into players. It's about way more than sparq scores. It's about determination, competitiveness, etc. Some people know what to look for, others don't.
I think when you mention Coker and Shannon...they are the definition of guys that couldn't develop the guys they had...the good evaluations they DID have (and to be fair, they struggled here, but they had some hits), they couldn't get the very best out of them. Calais Campbell, Sam Shields, Jon Beason, Colin McCarthy...they are good players and good evals...but the staff just didn't develop them to their fullest potential while at Miami.
I mostly disagree. I'm not saying they were good at development. But the reason people say they weren't has very little to do with actual development. Those guys ran **** programs. The kids weren't put in positions to make plays. So of course they didn't look 'developed' when you judged by games. But schemes, game planning, play calling and S&C all played into that. And it's hard for one kid to look developed if the whole squad is underprepared. Beason and McCarthy were solid at UM, just stuck in crappy schemes on crappy teams with crappy coaching and CC had some injuries. They both played well early in their NFL careers, which should tell you that they were 'developed.' Campbell, similarly. He looked great as a sophmore, actually. If he looked worse thereafter, that wasn't development so much as the other topics I've mentioned. And Shields, they just had him at the wrong position. If anything, he developed really well in a short time once he switched to DB, or he wouldn't be in the NFL today. Ditto Graham. One year at UM and he was ready for the NFL.
It wasn't 'development' so much as it was bad evals, bad S&C, bad schemes, bad game plans, bad play calling, bad execution and bad motivation.
Everything you said in regards to scheme, S+C, coaching, etc is apart of development.
Calais Campbell barely lifted weights while he was here and was extremely behind the curve from a technique standpoint as a second round pick (its why he wasn't a first round pick). Sam Shields couldn't read a playbook. Antonio Dixon was taught zero technique. We could list them all day. But, those squads under Coker and Shannon had units that were extremely under developed. Under Shannon, Clint Hurtt was useless as a coach and the talent we had on the DL was at a disadvantage and were light years behind in development of technique. Under Coker, quarterback development was stunted by having a revolving door of coaches...perhaps, you can't make chicken salad out of chicken ****, but the lack of coaching didn't help. Early in Mike Barrow's tenure at Miami, LBs werent developing (he's gotten better, to be fair). Under Marquis Mosley, we saw players like Kayne Farquharson (a player in need of good coaching, fast), do nothing, Hankerson didn't develop at all, Jenkins, Leggett, etc...no development.
There were many other issues with those staffs, but #1 in my opinion was evaluations...and development. Miami had plenty of good players at the time, but they never developed them. Other aspects come on tier two, IMO. They were staffs that generally didn't know what a good player looked like and when they did get one, they couldn't develop them to the level they should.
You hear stories of how Antonio Dixon goes from undraftable to a guy teams would have drafted with just a WEEK of pro coaching. Sam Shields goes from not able to read a playbook to immediate contributor to eventually a Super Bowl team in about a month. You can't make that **** up.
