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This Defense could be dominant

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Strength of our defense hinges on:
- DB room is fixed (I'd say yes)
- Young highly touted DL takes a step (I'm hopeful)
- Scheme/communication is fixed (tbd)
- Toure/Bonner additions make the LB room above average (tbd)

4/4: Elite defense
3/4: Great defense
2/4: Competent defense
1/4: We're cooked
0/4: Don't even want to imagine what that looks like
 
FrancisSawyer said:
This idiot doesn't mention the dramatic upgrade in the secondary? Instead he frames it like we lost most of our secondary?
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I could be wrong but I think his issue is moreso how well everyone will gel. I hate how quick everyone is to compare a transfer-heavy team to FSU instead of it working out positively like Ole ****.
 
CanesFan93 said:
I could be wrong but I think his issue is moreso how well everyone will gel. I hate how quick everyone is to compare a transfer-heavy team to FSU instead of it working out positively like Ole ****.
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The issue was not the transfers because their 2023 transfer heavy team went undefeated. The issue is a transfer heavy team full of guys who have never produced. Bringing in a Jared Verse the CAA Defensive rookie of the year vs a Marvin Jones who never seen the filed or a Keon Coleman vs a Jalen Brown, simply isn’t the same.

On the other hand Oregon has been portal heavy as well, with 16 portal commits in 2023 and 14 more in 2024, but no one has ever made that statement about them.
 
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Empirical Cane said:
It can always get worse.
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Hard to imagine a worse defense. But the season results could be much worse if we continue to give up 35+ points a game and can’t score.

Let’s try and be positive.

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I know there is some reservations about how good our defense can be, but count me among those that expect a big leap this year. I think the DC will have a better scheme that allows us to play faster but within a more structured system. With major improvement in player personnel with the DBs and the expectation that we WILL have at least one breakout DE (Blount, Lightfoot, Lowe and Pickett) if not multiple… Also I think we will get better production out of our DTs and LBs than we have in the past too.

I’m drinking the kool-aid. I would be surprised if this wasn’t a top 25 defense.
 
rascon said:
I know there is some reservations about how good our defense can be, but count me among those that expect a big leap this year. I think the DC will have a better scheme that allows us to play faster but within a more structured system. With major improvement in player personnel with the DBs and the expectation that we WILL have at least one breakout DE (Blount, Lightfoot, Lowe and Pickett) if not multiple… Also I think we will get better production out of our DTs and LBs than we have in the past too.

I’m drinking the kool-aid. I would be surprised if this wasn’t a top 25 defense.
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Agreed. I think it will be a lot better, though not likely "dominant." My only worry is depth at DT. We really can't afford losing any of the top 3 for a significant amount of time.
 
Any word on any potential hire for the head of strength and conditioning coach or we run this as a committee?
 
SinisterCane said:
From being dominated to dominating in one year, it’s quite a stretch
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Just looking at it apples to apples. Minnesota ranked 56th in total defense in 2023 the year before Hetherman, then leaped to fifth nationally in total defense in 2024 with him as DC. In the same time Miami ranked 24th nationally in total defense in 2023 and 27th in 2024 under Lance.

Hetherman took over a Minnesota defense featuring only 2 top 150 players (one being true freshman Koi Perich), two more low 4 stars and the rest were low 3 stars or unranked, and not one of them ever making an all conference team.

On the other hand at Miami he gets:

5 former All Conference players
Bain (also top 150 four star)
Mesidor
Blay
K. Scott (#1 JUCO CB and 4 star)
Toure

4 former five stars
Lowe
Scott
Lightfoot
Blount

2 former Freshmen All Americans
Poyser
OJ

8 additional former Four stars
Wesley
D. Brown
M. Bryant
PoPo
Pickett
A. Jones
Pruitt
Lucas

The big difference between Hetherman and Guidry is Hetherman is coming from the Big Ten and has consistently contained much better offenses. Hetherman also inherits much better talent, this 2025 defense is by far more talented than the 2023 or 2024 defense. As I stated before Jadais Richard and D'Yoni Hill are not close to Xavier Lucas and Ethan O'Connor. 2023 Mohamed Toure was better than 2023 Cisco Mauigoa and so on and so on…

All of this is speculation. Just looks like Miami finally has a DC who knows how to maximize his talent. So with Miami players, playing at their full potential, being played in the same position as the Minnesota players, these Miami guys can be dominate.
 
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I am hearing reports of guys ‘flying around’ and how they are ‘physical specimens’.

This could be a special year.
 
Trav said:
If we can hold most teams to 20 or under we're winning a lot of games.
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This is exactly what I am thinking. **** if Miami had Hetherman at DC and Minnesota band of 3 star defensive players last season, Miami makes a deep run into the playoffs.

Could you imagine pairing the #1 offense in the nation with the #5 total defense in the nation. We could be celebrating ring number 6.
 
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