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The # 1 Problem with UM football from 2003 to present

PanamaCityCanes said:
Teams that run cool offenses with bad offensive lines have to be that way in order to stay competitive. They still lose three games every year. One would hope that Miami would have ambitions to be like Alabama and Clemson, not Oklahoma State.
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Not really sure the offense is to blame for Oklahoma State not winning games.

Clemson won a National Title in 2016 with a relatively average offensive line. None of those guys were 5 star recruits or All American quality players. They were able to beat an "unbeatable" Alabama team by running a hurry-up, spread offense that didn't require their line to have to out-muscle Alabama's trench monsters.

Now you can sit here and whine about not getting top level offensive linemen every year while slogging through 17-12 victories against the Central Michigans of the world. Or you can adjust your offense to better fit the personnel you recruit successfully on a year in, year out basis. It would be stupid for Wisconsin to abandon their power running scheme because they tend to recruit linemen better than skill players. Just like it's stupid for a team like Miami to try to adopt a power running scheme when they recruit skill players much better than linemen.

You don't have to give up recruiting linemen, just run an offense that doesn't absolutely require having them in spades.
 
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CaneDogX said:
Miami is known to be a hot-bed of skilled players. 5 Star, skilled athletes at nearly every school in Dade/Broward county. Positions like WR, FS, RB, etc. Teams like Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson come to south Florida and cherry pick our athletes but Miami can match big schools recruiting athletes like Pope, Lingard, Thomas, etc. Recruiting classes are always top 10// top 20. However, the fundamental problem with Miami since 2003 is more than just our coordinators, or play-calling or our coaching.

What do Ohio State, Clemson, OU and Alabama have in common.. year after year. Their QBs change, their RBs change... yet they still dominate. Why?

The # 1 problem with UM football is we do not prioritize our OL. South Florida is deep with speed and skill but not deep with big uglies. Top schools always dominate the line of scrimmage. So we can go on about our talent and recruiting classes, our QB play but we're not landing top OL and DL.

When was the last time we had a dominate OL and DL? I'd say it was 2000, 2001. We continually target these athletes yet Wisconsin dominates us twice... with nowhere near the athletes. We have more 'skill' and more 'athletes' then every team we play.. yet we lose. Why? Because our we're not prioritizing the OL. This year is just another example of misguided recruiting.
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If you have a good oline it makes everyone else on o look better. See how Jonathon Taylor does being our line. Kyle wright may have looked like a 5vstar if he had a line. Kayaa may have been the next Dorsey behind a good line. It changes everything. It has also been the demise if Fsu except they are addressing it somewhat with scheme.
 
Nope. Biggest problem has always been coaching. We can never bring the right guys in and the guys we bring in can't identify and or develop talent. Hopefully Manny notices that he has a group of novices on this staff and completely revamps the staff with up-to-date innovative minds next year.

Just get a group of folk that do a good job of scouting and developing players then putting said players in favorable schemes. Recruiting should handle itself with the school's name alone afterwards. Our standard at this moment in time shouldn't be Bama, UGA, Clemson, or any top 10 team right now but the mid 2000s-early 2010s Virginia Tech. Their recruiting was never out of this world but you couldn't tell because they were so well coached.
 
CaneDogX said:
Miami is known to be a hot-bed of skilled players. 5 Star, skilled athletes at nearly every school in Dade/Broward county. Positions like WR, FS, RB, etc. Teams like Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson come to south Florida and cherry pick our athletes but Miami can match big schools recruiting athletes like Pope, Lingard, Thomas, etc. Recruiting classes are always top 10// top 20. However, the fundamental problem with Miami since 2003 is more than just our coordinators, or play-calling or our coaching.

What do Ohio State, Clemson, OU and Alabama have in common.. year after year. Their QBs change, their RBs change... yet they still dominate. Why?

The # 1 problem with UM football is we do not prioritize our OL. South Florida is deep with speed and skill but not deep with big uglies. Top schools always dominate the line of scrimmage. So we can go on about our talent and recruiting classes, our QB play but we're not landing top OL and DL.

When was the last time we had a dominate OL and DL? I'd say it was 2000, 2001. We continually target these athletes yet Wisconsin dominates us twice... with nowhere near the athletes. We have more 'skill' and more 'athletes' then every team we play.. yet we lose. Why? Because our we're not prioritizing the OL. This year is just another example of misguided recruiting.
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If I'm not mistaken, Ken Dorsey was sacked THREE times in 2001. Holy **** how do you lose being a statue and taking three sacks.
 
PanamaCityCanes said:
It is when the gimmicky stuff doesn't work, and that's what you built your whole team around.
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I really don't see Oklahoma State losing too many 17-10 barn-burners. When they lose, it's usually because their defense didn't stop anybody.

A lot of that "gimmicky stuff" is now run by almost every powerhouse program in the nation. There's a reason why nobody lines up under center with a fullback and multiple tight ends anymore. It's the same reason nobody lines up in the wishbone or the wing-T any more. It's outdated and has been surpassed by modern offenses.
 
PanamaCityCanes said:
Who said it needs to be "all world"? I would just like to find some guys who can slow down the guys in front of them. That would be a start.
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I hear you. That's all I want as well. Problem is, if we are going to play a system like Alabama, we need to have better OL to do so. Until we do, we should probably change things up a bit and actually do what works for us.
 
DTP said:
I really don't see Oklahoma State losing too many 17-10 barn-burners. When they lose, it's usually because their defense didn't stop anybody.
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Which is another symptom of being a second-tier program that has to gimmick its way into staying close with better teams. It still results in 3+ losses every single year.
 
Outside of the 2001 team, none of Miami's championship teams had incredible offensive lines either. It's not a new phenomenon. We've vary rarely had great offensive lines.
 
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PanamaCityCanes said:
Which is another symptom of being a second-tier program that has to gimmick its way into staying close with better teams. It still results in 3+ losses every single year.
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So when Clemson and Alabama adopted spread formations and dumped pro set crap, it was a gimmick for them to stay competetive? Or is it because it works better?
 
Sigh. No one is asking for "incredible" or "great". Just don't turn us into a program that doesn't believe we can get an OL good enough to avoid playing gimmick football.
 
I say again. Richt was able to recruit OL. Look at the talent he pulled into UGA. Legit OL players wanted to play for Richt. Drop him Coral Gables and it's a different story. So the question remains, why don't OL palyers want to play in Miami?
 
DTP said:
So when Clemson and Alabama adopted spread formations and dumped pro set crap, it was a gimmick for them to stay competetive? Or is it because it works better?
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Different conversation. People here want us to run an offense that doesn't need an OL. They run offenses in which their OL is still an asset.
 
CANEMC said:
It's scheme and coaching. We need an Air Raid or Spread OC. These guys consistently take 3 star OL or less and set records. Here's just two examples (of many) on the current WSU roster. There were a couple guys who didn't have stars. Unreal. You can only imagine what they'd do with SoFL athletes. And I've been saying this **** since Leach begged for the job.

Mason Miller - Football Coach - Washington State University Athletics

Mason Miller enters his second season on Coach Leach’s coaching staff as the offensive line coach. Miller arrived in Pullman after serving one year as Nevada’s
wsucougars.com wsucougars.com


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Success? i don't think so
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I see it as:

1) QB is the main issue above all else. We used to be "QB U". A Miami QB hasn't attempted a pass in the NFL in 11 seasons. And it'll be another 2-3 years before that's even a possibility.

2) WR is a huge problem that isn't discussed enough. With all the athletes in South Florida, to not have a big time WR in the last 15 years is ridiculous (although Ahmon Richards may have been).

The game shifted to more spread offense concepts in the late 2000's, we stayed stuck in the "Pro-Set" mentality, and the game passed us by.

It's very hard to be a top team now if you're not producing either big time QB's or big time playmakers on the outside at WR.
 
You can attribute any of three things, bad coaching, poor recruiting in the trenches and recruiting the wrong kids. I think recruiting the wrong kids is overlooked, it’s what been going on at FSU the last few years and it happened to us around 2003 on.
 
CaneDogX said:
Miami is known to be a hot-bed of skilled players. 5 Star, skilled athletes at nearly every school in Dade/Broward county. Positions like WR, FS, RB, etc. Teams like Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson come to south Florida and cherry pick our athletes but Miami can match big schools recruiting athletes like Pope, Lingard, Thomas, etc. Recruiting classes are always top 10// top 20. However, the fundamental problem with Miami since 2003 is more than just our coordinators, or play-calling or our coaching.

What do Ohio State, Clemson, OU and Alabama have in common.. year after year. Their QBs change, their RBs change... yet they still dominate. Why?

The # 1 problem with UM football is we do not prioritize our OL. South Florida is deep with speed and skill but not deep with big uglies. Top schools always dominate the line of scrimmage. So we can go on about our talent and recruiting classes, our QB play but we're not landing top OL and DL.

When was the last time we had a dominate OL and DL? I'd say it was 2000, 2001. We continually target these athletes yet Wisconsin dominates us twice... with nowhere near the athletes. We have more 'skill' and more 'athletes' then every team we play.. yet we lose. Why? Because our we're not prioritizing the OL. This year is just another example of misguided recruiting.
Click to expand...

Is that all it takes? If we just "prioritize" OL recruiting it will get better?

Easier said than done. Also, we have landed many big time OL during that span: Seantrel Henderson was as elite a HS prospect as they come, KC McDermott was a high 4 star guy that had offers from the top programs, Donaldson was a top ~50 prospect, etc.

If your point is that OL has been our biggest, most consistent weakness - then yes, sure. But it's not just because our coaches haven't "prioritized" recruiting OL. It's that, PLUS the inability to consistently land them, the inability to develop them fully, poor play calling that hasn't put them in positions to succeed, etc.

I know we like to think there are quick fixes, but there aren't. "Prioritizing" OL recruiting isn't suddenly going to convince kids to pick Miami over traditional OL factories like Alabama, ND, Wisconsin, etc., nor is it not suddenly going to maximize their talents when they get here.
 
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