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SIAP (Scrimmage Tonight?)

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HighSeas said:
I rewatched that game to scout their RB Spencer Brown (who's solid albeit slow) and Diaz/Baker had no answer for their wide zone run game.

Every HS DC on the planet knows how to shut down a wide zone offense (with limited pass game) ever since the Lions/Bears/Pats did it to the Rams a few years ago.
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They limited the same rushing attack to 97 yards on 30 carries the year before. Don't think they simply forgot. An awful day all round
 
Coach Macho said:
More excuses.
You know your QB can turn the ball over AND your defense can still play lights out, right?
That's what good defenses do.
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Stats show under Mannys lead as DC this defense was top 10 in the majority of categories and top 5 in a few. Someone posted the stats recently. I think people are trying to rewrite history re Manny as DC.
 
Umbra said:
If the’ defense had destroyed the offense and we saw something like King being 5/16 or 8/16, we'd hear nothing besides the fact that King isn't fully healed, that he is too short to see over the linemen, and that Garcia should start against Bama and that the Defense looked serviceable against an offense that wasn't at 100%.
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You’d hear what was said after the 2001 fall scrimmage “The defense is always ahead of the offense”. And that was a team that won a national championship.

I don’t care if the scrimmage was scripted or if they called off the dogs to give the offense some confidence. It’s a little disconcerting to see the defense get boat raced (from listening to some accounts) this early in fall camp.
 
Warrior808 said:
Here are your exact words......


I sat and talked football with D'Onofrio for 3 hours last night. Half of that time was spent watching film cut-ups of Miami's games against Wake, UVA, Louisville, Notre Dame, USF, etc etc etc. I don't think I left a stone unturned. I asked this man all kinds of questions. He is by far the coolest coach I've ever met. I admire his willingness to share information. The guy is a nerd for football. He can sit and talk about schematics for hours. We talked about Quarters coverage, Cover-3, Cover-2, line stunts, blitzes, etc etc etc. Everything.

With that said...

After communicating with him for the past month or so, and definitely after last night, I have no choice but to say that this man is verrrrry smart when it comes to X's and O's. Most of you know that I was skeptical. I didn't necessarily think he was bad but a lot of what was going on made me scratch my head and I didn't have much positive to say about the defense. Well after watching cut-ups there's no doubt in my mind that the majority of the time we're doing the right things on defense but the kids aren't executing. You can see some of our unheralded players (won't say names) making mistakes in these cut-ups.

Come to find out that him and I actually run the same exact defense. He does a few things I don't do, naturally, but the basics are identical. Same position names, most of the same coverages, some of the blitzes are even named the same, many of the same principles, etc. There's minor differences...i.e when he plays Cover-3 he drops his Safety down to a hook-curl zone while I drop mine down to the flats. However, the reason he does it that way makes plenty of sense.

After speaking to him and looking at cut-ups I've come to three conclusions about our struggles...

1) Lack of talent
2) Complexity
3) Mental errors

You can see, on tape, plenty of instances where guys were supposed to cover flats but didn't get their *** out there. Or instances where LB's were supposed to "re-route" WR's but didn't even touch them as they ran by. There was also some missed tackles.

However, D'Onofrio's understanding of the game, and his understanding of offensive tendencies are top notch.
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Now find the part where I said we have too much complexity on defense and we ask our defensive players to do things that aren't conducive to their/our success. (such as 3-4 2-gapping up front)

Yall picking the good things I said about D'Onofrio and leaving out the negatives.
The dude is smart, but I said his scheme doesn't fit here and his ability to 'apply' what he knows may be lacking.
 
Coach Macho said:
Now find the part where I said we have too much complexity on defense and we ask our defensive players to do things that aren't conducive to their/our success. (such as 3-4 2-gapping up front)

Yall picking the good things I said about D'Onofrio and leaving out the negatives.
The dude is smart, but I said his scheme doesn't fit here and his ability to 'apply' what he knows may be lacking.
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Hes smart? Come on Macho. His defense didnt fit anywhere. He was ran out of Houston too after almost ruining Ed Oliver career. This is like what Paul Johnson said about Al Groh after firing him as DC... "When he draws his defense up on the blackboard it looks genius, but that never seems to translate to on-field performance and thats a problem for me"... (paraphrasing but basically said but its great on paper but sucks as a DC on the field)
 
Jassid82 said:
Hes smart? Come on Macho. His defense didnt fit anywhere. He was ran out of Houston too after almost ruining Ed Oliver career. This is like what Paul Johnson said about Al Groh after firing him as DC... "When he draws his defense up on the blackboard it looks genius, but that never seems to translate to on-field performance and thats a problem for me"... (paraphrasing but basically said but its great on paper but sucks as a DC on the field)
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You can be smart as **** and still field poor units. Happens all the time. There's a lot more to coaching than just being smart.
The guy I sat in that room with knew defense, he struggled in other aspects, mainly with his philosophies and complexity. (which I stated before)
 
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canesthing3 said:
This was a painful read. The usual suspects making definitive declarations based on a scrimmage that they didn’t watch.

If you just read this board you would honestly think that we have the worst defense in college football history with an offense that’s not far behind.
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Another one who doesn't read.

Based on 'A SCRIMMAGE' or a large case study involving multiple scrimmages + game examples?
 
CBurrr93 said:
People have their head in the sand. I’ll never forget Hornibrook for Wisconsin (who threw the ball like a transgender Bernie sanders) light this defense up. One of our best defenses. He was out there playing 11 on 0. With his noodle arm. Manny’s soft *** zone sucks
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Is "transgender Bernie Sanders" redundant? Don't know, just askin'.
 
fincane said:
They limited the same rushing attack to 97 yards on 30 carries the year before. Don't think they simply forgot. An awful day all round
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Relying on talent and disruption is a high-variance strategy both game to game and year over year.

No scheme has the answers to everything but how you choose to fit runs (including fronts and alignment) and how you defend space in the pass game (including safety looks) determines what an offense can and cannot attack. People like @Coach Macho complain about Diaz's scheme because it's unsound.

Now that doesn't mean it can't work. If Miami's front improves to where they aren't getting gashed by the run and they play more 2-deep man coverage with big physical press corners it could be an elite defense. But again that's entirely dependent on talent transcending and I still have major doubts about them stopping an RPO superspread offense with diverse run concepts like UNC.
 
So the scrimmages are just isolated incidents, right? (versus all 3 of our QB's)
Chalk it up to 'favorable conditions' for our QB's.

So we've never allowed mediocre QB's to look great against us since Manny's been here, right?

If your answer to the above question is "yes we have but" then just STFU.
Yall focusing on one scrimmage I'm talking about a bigger case study.
 
Kn[]_[]ckles3o5 said:
I'd say look back on that 2017 Roster that performed so well and tell me how impressed you are with the guys in that two deep on defense in retrospect.

Here's how I see it.

We will have some questions at DE but we have guys that could step up their play. While the names in 2017 were highly touted, in hindsight they were all just solid players. None of them were game changing level dominant. An argument could be made for Garvin but he wasn't an every down player and made his impact situationally. Another young guy like Chantz Williams could do the same this year.

At DT we had some dudes like RJ and Norton but I wouldn't be surprised if we have similar talent in place on the roster. JHH and Nesta with Miller and Ford to me could potentially be a better two deep. I believe that dominating interior pass rush is the key to success for Manny's scheme. Without pressure in the QBs face the zone is susceptible. When we can move the middle of the pocket into the QBs lap then Manny's scheme tends to get it done in a big way.

At LB we come in with Flagg who isn't Quarterman level good but may not be far off if he takes a step forward. Frierson and K Smith make up a potentially more consistent duo than McCloud/Pinck/Mike Smith. I would honestly take this years LB corps over that one if K Smith is the real deal.

At CB I think its fair to say we are better and deeper. Especially if the light comes on for Ivey and T Rob improves the play across the board.

At S we have a similar veteran in Bolden compared to Jaquan Johnson. The potential of the safety group is there but at the moment It's not quite as good.

To sum it up. Until the bullets fly it's always a what if scenario. We aren't watching the practices. We don't really know how good the play on the interior of the line has been. The coaches know what they have on defense. Bama will definitely let us know where we stand.

I believe that the interior D line specifically JHH and Nesta can play at Norton RJ level or better. IMO that by itself will make us solid on defense. If the DEs can continue to eat and LBs can just be dependable, we will be **** good. The secondary just needs to perform equal to last season if the front 7 steps up and the expectation is that we should actually be much better. I have a good feeling about how this defense can perform. Outcome vs Alabama not withstanding.
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Pretty much agree across the board.

Had the exact same thoughts at DE and DT.

Would love to be wrong on the LBs, but I just see Quarterman and Pinck in a better light than a lot of people I guess. To me, what we have just seems a bit weaker compared to what we had.

CB I agree fully. I was also thinking about bolden compared to JJ. I'm high on dudes like JW and Kinchens as compared to what we had, but it is a wash on safety.

I think our offense is just that much better which is why I think the Defense seems worse. But I think going against our better O will improve the D too.
 
NorthEastCane said:
You’d hear what was said after the 2001 fall scrimmage “The defense is always ahead of the offense”. And that was a team that won a national championship.

I don’t care if the scrimmage was scripted or if they called off the dogs to give the offense some confidence. It’s a little disconcerting to see the defense get boat raced (from listening to some accounts) this early in fall camp.
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I think it's a different game nowadays that emphasizes and favors offense much more than 2001. It would be more accurate to look at the Clemson/Bama teams the last few seasons and see how they felt about Offense versus Defense in their scrimmages.
 
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Coach Macho said:
So we've never allowed mediocre QB's to look great against us since Manny's been here, right?
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I think more people agree with you on this than you think. Very possible you are right about this season too, especially with your credentials.
I think people are really just disagreeing with you that we should judge and make assumptions about the 2021 team (regardless of the past trends) based on what we know so far about THIS team.

The argument is really about if we should start a season optimistically and be disappointed or with low expectations and be pleasantly surprised. No one will change their opinion on that via CIS discussions. By 9/12 you may have a lot more people agreeing with you, but obviously you trying to get people to be realistic and killing their optimism isn't going to be received well here lol.
 
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