What I was happy to see and why my excitement is tempered

[Miami82]

Like most here I was ecstatic about the aggression we showed on defense but I also noticed a few things that I found disturbing.

1) We dont seem to be as talented as I think we should be. Now hold on. I'm not excusing the staff for any issues on defense. Quite the contrary. For the record I think this scheme is an abomination and I think Golden and his staff need to go. What I am getting at is player development. Take the secondary for example. Look at all the talent on that unit. That group should be the strength of the defense. They were up against a rather pedestrian Duke offense and while they got the job done, they hardly stood out or dominated. Those kids should be much better than they looked Saturday. That falls under teaching part of coaching and it doesn't seem like these kids are getting much of it.


2) Functional strength and explosive power. We should have ragdolled that Duke team. We should have been able to physically dominate them and push them around but we didn't. I see all these great weight room numbers like bench press, squats and power cleans many of which I hear are new team records. All I hear in the off season is how much bigger and stronger we are yet I never see us physically dominate the trenches. This speaks to S&C. I'm no expert but to my eyes there seems to be something sorely lacking here.

These two things really popped out at me. Lack of player development and a lack of functional strength and explosive power. The fact that we are in year 4 of this regime makes these two things especially disturbing. Add to this the garbage scheme we have been running and now it's quite clear why we have fielded historically bad defenses the last couple of years. Unfortunately it also becomes quite clear that the ceiling for this years team isn't quite as high as we may have thought with or without this garbage scheme. We can borrow **** Lebeau's playbook, run cover 1 all day and install Buddy Ryan's 46 but at the end of the day you can't polish a **** and it all falls on this staff. They have failed in more ways than one.

Golden and staff need to go.

Some people call it swag some people call it attitude. These kids have been neutered under this regime. This staff was put together as super recruiters. We don't have teachers or innovators. I would love to see what Gary Patterson or Chris Petersen would do with this team.

 

[Consigliere]

Just a few thoughts, not original (on offense).

1. Why does Gus get any carries? Ever?

2. Why don't we run the ball more often and earlier? How many yards do you have to average per carry to understand?

 

[fincane]

Just a few thoughts, not original (on offense).

1. Why does Gus get any carries? Ever?

2. Why don't we run the ball more often and earlier? How many yards do you have to average per carry to understand?

You just mentioned not liking the third back. What is a good number of touches for Duke to have? How many touches should Yearby get at 180 lbs?

Duke had 27. Yearby had 12. That isn't including any plays wiped out because of penalty where the play doesn't count but you get hit just the same.

I don't think even when healthy this O-Line is at its most productive simply lining up and trying to run over people. Spread the field. Use the attention paid to the WRs to run draws and power plays out of the shotgun. That plays to the talent you have on the team. More plays that involve Dobard mean a more dynamic player at WR isn't playing.

You want to win the game but overpowering Duke doesn't mean much unless that is gonna translate when you face better front 7s. I'd much rather they find something that will work for this team throughout the season no matter the opponent. I don't believe trying to mash teams is that something.

 

[DiegoCane]

Like most here I was ecstatic about the aggression we showed on defense but I also noticed a few things that I found disturbing.

1) We dont seem to be as talented as I think we should be. Now hold on. I'm not excusing the staff for any issues on defense. Quite the contrary. For the record I think this scheme is an abomination and I think Golden and his staff need to go. What I am getting at is player development. Take the secondary for example. Look at all the talent on that unit. That group should be the strength of the defense. They were up against a rather pedestrian Duke offense and while they got the job done, they hardly stood out or dominated. Those kids should be much better than they looked Saturday. That falls under teaching part of coaching and it doesn't seem like these kids are getting much of it.


2) Functional strength and explosive power. We should have ragdolled that Duke team. We should have been able to physically dominate them and push them around but we didn't. I see all these great weight room numbers like bench press, squats and power cleans many of which I hear are new team records. All I hear in the off season is how much bigger and stronger we are yet I never see us physically dominate the trenches. This speaks to S&C. I'm no expert but to my eyes there seems to be something sorely lacking here.

These two things really popped out at me. Lack of player development and a lack of functional strength and explosive power. The fact that we are in year 4 of this regime makes these two things especially disturbing. Add to this the garbage scheme we have been running and now it's quite clear why we have fielded historically bad defenses the last couple of years. Unfortunately it also becomes quite clear that the ceiling for this years team isn't quite as high as we may have thought with or without this garbage scheme. We can borrow **** Lebeau's playbook, run cover 1 all day and install Buddy Ryan's 46 but at the end of the day you can't polish a **** and it all falls on this staff. They have failed in more ways than one.

Golden and staff need to go.

I have to disagree with you on both points when it comes to the players. IMO, we simply don't really know how talented the secondary or how strong we our up front. Its impossible to know when we have/had been playing in that abortion of a scheme up until Duke. Its impossible to look talented, strong, explosive when you are playing on your heals all game long.

As far as dominating Duke, we pretty much did that.

Duke was 22-51 (43.1%) for 179 yards which is 3.4 yards per attempt. The nations leader last year were 47.1% and 5.1 yards per attempt.
Duke had 25 carries for 85 yards for 3.4 yards per carry. That would be around top 15 statistically very year.
Allowing 264 yards a game would be top 5 every year.


We will see what happens going forward. My hope is we continue to amp of the aggression even more as the season goes on, let the DL penetrate and make plays in the backfield. If we do, I think you will see the natural talent in a lot of our players come through. If not, they will continue to underperform. This scheme has made a lot of good football players look pedestrian or down right bad.

 

[Consigliere]

You just mentioned not liking the third back. What is a good number of touches for Duke to have? How many touches should Yearby get at 180 lbs?

Duke had 27. Yearby had 12. That isn't including any plays wiped out because of penalty where the play doesn't count but you get hit just the same.

I don't think even when healthy this O-Line is at its most productive simply lining up and trying to run over people. Spread the field. Use the attention paid to the WRs to run draws and power plays out of the shotgun. That plays to the talent you have on the team. More plays that involve Dobard mean a more dynamic player at WR isn't playing.

You want to win the game but overpowering Duke doesn't mean much unless that is gonna translate when you face better front 7s. I'd much rather they find something that will work for this team throughout the season no matter the opponent. I don't believe trying to mash teams is that something.

There is no right amount of touches, it depends on how the game is going. So against Duke....

Could Duke have had more then 25 carries, absolutely.

Could Yearby have more then 9, absolutely.

Should Gus have any, NOPE.

How about Chocolate? How about Dorsett or a WR out of the backfield?

We had OL problems all game (injuries) and we were still were getting good rushing yards in the 4th Quarter. Duke and Yearby had the following runs in the 4th quarter (16, 0, 6, 11, 1, -3 and 5) and averaged 5.1 YPC. That is really good.

So to review....

Gus shouldn't touch the ball.

We need to run the ball more and earlier.

Give other people carries in creative ways.

You can do everything above and still spread the ball around to WRs.

 

[fincane]

You just mentioned not liking the third back. What is a good number of touches for Duke to have? How many touches should Yearby get at 180 lbs?

Duke had 27. Yearby had 12. That isn't including any plays wiped out because of penalty where the play doesn't count but you get hit just the same.

I don't think even when healthy this O-Line is at its most productive simply lining up and trying to run over people. Spread the field. Use the attention paid to the WRs to run draws and power plays out of the shotgun. That plays to the talent you have on the team. More plays that involve Dobard mean a more dynamic player at WR isn't playing.

You want to win the game but overpowering Duke doesn't mean much unless that is gonna translate when you face better front 7s. I'd much rather they find something that will work for this team throughout the season no matter the opponent. I don't believe trying to mash teams is that something.

There is no right amount of touches, it depends on how the game is going. So against Duke....

Could Duke have had more then 25 carries, absolutely.

Could Yearby have more then 9, absolutely.

Should Gus have any, NOPE.

How about Chocolate? How about Dorsett or a WR out of the backfield?

We had OL problems all game (injuries) and we were still were getting good rushing yards in the 4th Quarter. Duke and Yearby had the following runs in the 4th quarter (16, 0, 6, 11, 1, -3 and 5) and averaged 5.1 YPC. That is really good.

So to review....

Gus shouldn't touch the ball.

We need to run the ball more and earlier.

Give other people carries in creative ways.

You can do everything above and still spread the ball around to WRs.

There is no right amount if magically the RBs could be like video game players and hits don't accumulate and wear on them as the season goes on.

Its the same reason Clemson didn't run Boyd against lesser opponents during his time there. His carries increased when he was needed. Georgia limits the carries for the most physically impressive RB in college football because they know they need him throughout the year. Gray may wind up redshirting as well. Only played against FAMU if I remember correctly. Maybe he played against Arky State. Wouldn't be surprised if some mysterious injury comes up. You hand Duke the ball 30 times when he already has an ankle injury and you might see a lesser player against GT.

 

[Awsi Dooger]

IMO, we are running at least twice as many plays out of the shotgun as proper. One of the shames of current college football is too much scheming. So often it's simply not necessary. There are vastly different levels of talent. Waste time on thinking instead of shoving and you end up with trips formations that don't accomplish anything except to bring the opponent closer to your level than warranted. Watching in person it's comical how low percentage some of these calls are, like deep sideline passes. That's wonderful. It reminds me of golfers who try the hero shot when it's not called for, and actually diminishes your chance for success.

As I posted last night, Miami for the second consecutive year detoured from basic power running plays for no reason at all against Duke, and paid for it with fewer points on the board than rightful or otherwise would have been achieved. The possession beginning at our 16 with 7:38 remaining in the second quarter was perfect evidence. We should have been doing that all night, lining up under center with double tight end sets and imposing ourselves on them. That opens up so many gorgeous offshoots. What happened to actual play action from under center? Does that even exist in our playbook anymore? It was a staple of Canes football for decades. Now just like our ridiculous uniform choices we think we have to emulate the rest of the college football world and run wimpy looks from the shotgun. The opposing defensive coordinator must be hard pressed to suppress a chuckle when we throw those sideline screens as opposed to straight ahead power.

The game plan against Nebraska was fine. We aren't restored to a level to line up against them head to head for 60 minutes, particularly on the road. But Coley maddeningly doesn't seem to differentiate between opponent to opponent and situation to situation. Home versus Duke it should be a 2/1 mix of run to pass. I've bet games and charted them for decades. It's unbelievable how many good things happen when that tally is 25+ rushes at halftime. Brock Huard understood as much. I finally watched the first half tape last night. He was calling for basic power football and Duke Johnson to have an all time game. We chose otherwise and aided the Blue Devils' cause beyond anything they were capable of themselves. That second quarter other than the opening handful of running plays from the 7:38 possession was as close to a self-inflicted waste as humanly possible.

 

[Cane Dynasty]

IMO, we are running at least twice as many plays out of the shotgun as proper. One of the shames of current college football is too much scheming. So often it's simply not necessary. There are vastly different levels of talent. Waste time on thinking instead of shoving and you end up with trips formations that don't accomplish anything except to bring the opponent closer to your level than warranted. Watching in person it's comical how low percentage some of these calls are, like deep sideline passes. That's wonderful. It reminds me of golfers who try the hero shot when it's not called for, and actually diminishes your chance for success.

As I posted last night, Miami for the second consecutive year detoured from basic power running plays for no reason at all against Duke, and paid for it with fewer points on the board than rightful or otherwise would have been achieved. The possession beginning at our 16 with 7:38 remaining in the second quarter was perfect evidence. We should have been doing that all night, lining up under center with double tight end sets and imposing ourselves on them. That opens up so many gorgeous offshoots. What happened to actual play action from under center? Does that even exist in our playbook anymore? It was a staple of Canes football for decades. Now just like our ridiculous uniform choices we think we have to emulate the rest of the college football world and run wimpy looks from the shotgun. The opposing defensive coordinator must be hard pressed to suppress a chuckle when we throw those sideline screens as opposed to straight ahead power.

The game plan against Nebraska was fine. We aren't restored to a level to line up against them head to head for 60 minutes, particularly on the road. But Coley maddeningly doesn't seem to differentiate between opponent to opponent and situation to situation. Home versus Duke it should be a 2/1 mix of run to pass. I've bet games and charted them for decades. It's unbelievable how many good things happen when that tally is 25+ rushes at halftime. Brock Huard understood as much. I finally watched the first half tape last night. He was calling for basic power football and Duke Johnson to have an all time game. We chose otherwise and aided the Blue Devils' cause beyond anything they were capable of themselves. That second quarter other than the opening handful of running plays from the 7:38 possession was as close to a self-inflicted waste as humanly possible.

TL;DR Our corches are fvckin stupid. Yeah we know.