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What did Willis do wrong

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bbcane said:
Is this an indictment on UM? Or said scout?
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if you look at the guys where this has been the case then it is an indictment on UM. Often guys were not put int he correct position to be successful. I do not believe that for one moment that NFL scouts don't want to draft UM guys.
 
Poptimus said:
Which is exactly why I don't understand that some here allege Richt didn't say anything about Willis to scouts. Do people not realize how insanely thorough the draft scouting process is these days? If a player farts, an NFL team wants to know about it.

And we have it on authority that UF coaches badmouthed Willis. Does anyone really believe that NFL teams wouldn't cross-reference any such allegations by his recent team, the one where he served as captain? It's precisely those types of players with red flags that are investigated by NFL teams the most. But we're supposed to pretend that no coach from Miami was asked about Willis and teams just blindly took UF's word and removed a guy with a 2nd/3rd round grade off their board? Please.
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People are running with narratives they're concocting on the fly.

We don't what Richt did or didn't say, it's just baseless speculation.

I'm sure Richt was contacted, and I'm sure he was factual. This wasn't his first rodeo with a player and difficult past, but Willis came back, worked hard and wasn't so much as suspended for some much as a quarter... and, we know that staff had a short leash in doing so. It's pretty hard to believe that Richt would have too much bad to say.

We also don't know what, if any, effect the Gator coaches comments had because that entire staff was ****-canned for sucking ***.

I believe the answer is as simple as the people who evaluate these prospects for the next level saw player they think peaked already, and the people managing his time between his last game and the draft did a ****-poor job of getting in front of those concerns.
 
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DMoney said:
Both. One example is Calais Campbell. He would have been a Top 5 pick if Palermo (our DL coach in 2006) never left.
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Unless you believe that scouts hold a bias against UM then I think you have to conclude it is on UM. We have known the NFL is good at selecting players and I linked to data earlier in this thread. Our guys always seem to go a few rounds later than their talent suggest. This points to their lack of development or wrong position at UM. You often see our guys use differently in the NFL then they were used at UM.
 
Andrew said:
Unless you believe that scouts hold a bias against UM then I think you have to conclude it is on UM. We have known the NFL is good at selecting players and I linked to data earlier in this thread. Our guys always seem to go a few rounds later than their talent suggest. This points to their lack of development or wrong position at UM. You often see our guys use differently in the NFL then they were used at UM.
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Imo you guys are arguing about nothing at this point. The comment that led to this exchange was D$ saying our guys do better on second contracts than first. Let’s acknowledge we dont have any actual data here to compare our guys to anything on average, let alone adjusting for position, round and outliers. But even if it were true, what would it mean? The entire premise of second contracts in a league with a sub-3.5 year average career is time sequence dependent. A couple guys who do better than expected _and_ player longer than expected will materially distort your averages on this issue. Campbell was drafted second round - not bad at all - but his career has been both first round quality and long for a DL. But add in Frank Gore, Chris Myers, Jimmy Graham, T. Gooden, L. Miller, Linder.... None of that tells you the nfl is systematically misevaluating UM guys.

Separately, we do know that our last 17 years has been marked by awful coaching and that does mean our guys arent getting overvalued because of hype. Hopefully that changes because it would require our guys to get hyped based on performance for that to change, and that would be an improvement over the Clappy, Radio, Gluten and Pricht eras.
 
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Andrew said:
Unless you believe that scouts hold a bias against UM then I think you have to conclude it is on UM. We have known the NFL is good at selecting players and I linked to data earlier in this thread. Our guys always seem to go a few rounds later than their talent suggest. This points to their lack of development or wrong position at UM. You often see our guys use differently in the NFL then they were used at UM.
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Anthony Chickillo was nearly a criminal case
 
Andrew said:
Unless you believe that scouts hold a bias against UM then I think you have to conclude it is on UM. We have known the NFL is good at selecting players and I linked to data earlier in this thread. Our guys always seem to go a few rounds later than their talent suggest. This points to their lack of development or wrong position at UM. You often see our guys use differently in the NFL then they were used at UM.
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It has nothing to do with bias. A mistake is a mistake. What would you call the Dolphins picking Phillip Merling over Calais Campbell?
 
Clearly, the NFL delineates between robberies, beating women, and other felonious activities and whatever they think plagues Willis. NFL is ok with a guy who punches a girl and is otherwise mentally “healthy”. But they’re scared to death of what they might see as an overall mental/emotional pathology.

I’m not saying Willis suffers from emotional/mental pathology, but the mere conjecture would certainly explain what happened. They might see him as a ticking time bomb right or wrong, and that’s enough to get him blacklisted because he hasn’t shown consistent dominance on the field.
 
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Downey: Yes, Captain, I was given an order by my squad leader, Lance Corporal Harold W. Dawson, United States Marine Corps, and I followed it.

He was supposed to protect people who couldn’t protect themselves. He was supposed to protect Willy Santiago.

That’s what Downey did wrong. Not follow Dawson’s code red order.
 
By the way, anyone suggesting the NFL has any bias against the University of Miami is absolutely paranoid beyond reach.

There has never been another University which has raised the valuation of NFL franchises more than us.

In fact, they were willing to spend time on our players well beyond the level indicated by the **** poor coaching we were giving them.

Unfortunately, that time has passed, and they are diverting their attention to other programs that have filled the void.

I mean seriously, can you look at the draft class we presented to the NFL this year and with a straight face tell me you think most of it should have been selected in the top half? Sheldrick Redwine tested as our best athlete. I'm not knocking him, I love him and I'm happy for him, but come on...

The only debate is on Willis.
 
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Flat out, it is what is between his ears that was the concern and many of his choices he made along the path to the Draft.
 
CaneSince4Ever said:
LOL...so was ya' boy Butch taking Green over Reed & Portis.
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Yeah....Thing is...if it wasn't for Butch....Portis would've been a DB in Gainesville...and Reed would've been at Louisiana Tech....Butch never was crazy bout CP and his attitude...they never saw eye to eye...he let Soldinger deal with his antics....
 
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simplycanes said:
By the way, anyone suggesting the NFL has any bias against the University of Miami is absolutely paranoid beyond reach.

There has never been another University which has raised the valuation of NFL franchises more than us.

In fact, they were willing to spend time on our players well beyond the level indicated by the **** poor coaching we were giving them.

Unfortunately, that time has passed, and they are diverting their attention to other programs that have filled the void.

I mean seriously, can you look at the draft class we presented to the NFL this year and with a straight face tell me you think most of it should have been selected in the top half? Sheldrick Redwine tested as our best athlete. I'm not knocking him, I love him and I'm happy for him, but come on...

The only debate is on Willis.
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The irony is, the nfl draft is pretty easy to understand if you just assume the people who work for nfl teams generally want to do their jobs as well as they can, and just dont have any specific biases in favor of UM (which our fan base obviously does).

Redwine tested well, but his overall body of performance didnt match the testing. DB is a playmaker and instinct position, so that factored in. Jaquan had the plays and instincts, but size and speed were far enough off the median to make him a tough pick. Our whole fan base overhyped our guys off of the excitement of beating ND in ‘17.

Just think of all the threads about how our talent has been alabama level, just our corching has stunk. I’ve consistently pointed out that both our overall roster and our coaching has been lacking, if playing for titles is our expectation.

Btw., Miami had five guys drafted and a few UFAs. Not bad, and not particularly different than you’d expect for our performance. Willis played well enough in ‘18 to get drafted, but what happened with him between ‘14-17 and then post-regular season ‘18 factored in also.
 
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