I was watching some old 2001 games, and one thing that stood out was our size. Miami was the bigger team in every game. Butch recruited big body types and built them up. There are several reasons why teams like Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia and Oklahoma are always contenders, but the most obvious reason is their team size.
When TRob had his initial press conference, he said flat-out that Miami needs to keep its big guys home if they want to compete with the top teams. It's no coincidence he's the lead recruiter for Kenyatta Jackson despite being a DB coach. I sense that getting bigger and more physical is our top priority in the offseason.
We've already seen this in several ways. We took DeAndre Johnson, who is physically mature and good against the run. We brought in a giant and aggressive CB in Tyrique Stevenson. Finally, we signed Cody Brown to give us another big back along with Thad Franklin. That 4th and 1 stuff against UNC was unacceptable. There's a reason you don't see scatbacks on the field in the Playoffs.
Of course, it's a balance. Golden tried to make us a Big 10 team and flopped miserably. But the best modern teams combine explosive playmaking and defensive speed with sheer physicality. Here are a few moves that could improve our team size before Bama:
- Bring in a transfer OL. The fact that Justice offered his old OL from UNLV (320 pounds, 685 lb. squat) tells me thinks he's better than what we have inside.
- Give Navaughn Donaldson and Jalen Rivers every chance to win jobs. You can't hand them the jobs, but they instantly make us a bigger and more physical team if they are on the field.
- Give Scaife reps at center. Gaynor will be the favorite (Lashlee and Justice both talked him up) but you at least have more flexibility and get some bigger bodies reps at G.
- Bring in a transfer LB > 230 pounds. They need to run, too, but Bama and Ohio State had LBs in the 235-240 range on the field in the title game. We didn't have anybody crack 230 and struggled to replace 240-pound Shaq. I'm still mad we passed on Diego ***ot (6'3, 240), who is a star for Navy.
- Utilize more unbalanced lines. Now that we have better numbers and more prep time, I'd love to see us get as many of our people-movers on the field as much as possible. We did that a bunch in the Stoutland era.
The Alabama game will tell us a lot about how we stack up physically and how far we still have to go.
