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What We Need To See Before UVA

nvlahos

nvlahos

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Offense -
  • QB - Jarren continue to develop and progress. Would like see him make quicker decisions and the game keep slowing down for him. As Roman covered, he clearly has the ability to make big time throws. Love what I've seen so far from Jarren and Enos's development of him from Game 1 to Game 3. Keep it up.

  • RB - Would love to see the run game really dominate games and set up the pass a little more. DJ, Cam, even Burns have looked great so far. I think we should give them the ball a little more (5-7 more runs a game) and really start to dictate our physical presence. Get Lingard going too.

  • OL - Continue to gel and develop. Zion has looked alot better since game 1. Granted the competition level has dropped but looks like he's got his timing right and is improving. Remember ; LT as a True Freshman 2-star recruit. Lets see him continue to gain confidence. Sciafe has looked great at RT, really wish Manny started him out there against UF. Clark continue to develop. He's been good, but has also gotten beat bad a few times. Would be nice to see him improve over the next few games. Gaynor and Donaldson - get nasty and gain confidence against smaller less talented DLs were going to be facing.

  • TE/WR - Brevin stay healthy. JT get some big plays. Also would love to see Pope and Mallory used more as well.

Defense -
  • DL - Get Nesta back, and start to dominate. Need to see more TFLs and Sacks from this group. Too much talent to not be dominating the line of scrimmage versus lower level opponents. Really want to see Garvin get after the QB and Rousseau to play more.

  • LB/Striker - Romeo has been our best defender this year. Love the way he has been playing. Honestly would like to see Sam Brooks more. His speed at LB is what has been missing from the position. Unfortunately we may have seen the ceiling of Shaq and Pinckney. Shaq has played a bad 2.5 games so would like to see him get back on track, but the sideline to sideline speed for them is just not there.

  • CB - Give me some INTs. Bandy needs to get his confidence back up after a bad UNC game. Also would like to see the young guys make some plays (Ivey, Blades, Couch) and play solid.

  • S - Has arguably been our worst position group so far. Amari has been bad (tackling and angles), and maybe its time to consider moving him down to Striker. Really want to see Gurvan play at the level everyone is saying he can play at. Need to see him be more sound in tackling and maybe get a pick or two to get some confidence. Bubba could be a huge addition to this group. Will be watching him closely against VT
Overall - A little concerned with how we've looked under Blake Baker but trust Manny to get things right.
 
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Not bad. Gonna be interested to see what OL looks like when we again face real D1 opponents. If we are indeed better up there, your points about the physical run game are spot on. S as worst position group? They need help, but PK (as a position group ;)) is still giving me the heebie jeebies. :eek:
Hopefully Bolden is as good as billed or even better.
 
Romeo has been great in the box defending the run, but the strikers and safeties as a whole have been suspect at best most times in coverage and that showed even more vs UNC where they looked to exploit the slot. We need to have a counter to that as that is a teams counter to our striker. We adjust to that and we'll shut down coastal offenses. Our offense is only gonna get better for awhile we all hope.
Let's see what the coaches have got in em.
Also we need a kicker who can make a kick inside 30 yards
 
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JW has the potential to be the best QB in this schools history numbers wise..please don’t @ me. The tape doesn’t lie. Only a RS freshman. Was harsh on him after UF..and I am first to admit I was team Tate before we got Enos and when Jarren was a fatty. But Jdub fits this pro style multiple offense perfectly. I was wrong. I understand what I’m seeing out of this kid and the improvement week too week..All he needs is multiple ten win seasons under his belt and a couple coastal titles. Hopefully a ACC championship and a playoff birth
 
I agree, can’t wait to Saturday to see how the team is progressing.
 
Baxa- terrible
Secondary- has been underwhelming last 2 games
D line- needs to get more pressure but I think Bakers scheme has a lot to do with that.
Hedley has been great so far.
Rb's look good, starting to look more physical, excited to see what Lingard can do.
The other skill guys have been mostly good.
Jarren has been great, needs to keep improving his deep ball and pocket awareness.
Red zone and 3rd down play calling needs to improve to take the next step and start dominating lesser teams as we should.
Overall, legit areas of concern: Baxa, red zone offense, baker scheme, and depth in defensive back 7, but Enos has dramatically improved our offense, we have a legit qb now, and o line showing signs of life.
 
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nvlahos said:
Offense -
  • QB - Jarren continue to develop and progress. Would like see him make quicker decisions and the game keep slowing down for him. As Roman covered, he clearly has the ability to make big time throws. Love what I've seen so far from Jarren and Enos's development of him from Game 1 to Game 3. Keep it up.

  • RB - Would love to see the run game really dominate games and set up the pass a little more. DJ, Cam, even Burns have looked great so far. I think we should give them the ball a little more (5-7 more runs a game) and really start to dictate our physical presence. Get Lingard going too.

  • OL - Continue to gel and develop. Zion has looked alot better since game 1. Granted the competition level has dropped but looks like he's got his timing right and is improving. Remember ; LT as a True Freshman 2-star recruit. Lets see him continue to gain confidence. Sciafe has looked great at RT, really wish Manny started him out there against UF. Clark continue to develop. He's been good, but has also gotten beat bad a few times. Would be nice to see him improve over the next few games. Gaynor and Donaldson - get nasty and gain confidence against smaller less talented DLs were going to be facing.

  • TE/WR - Brevin stay healthy. JT get some big plays. Also would love to see Pope and Mallory used more as well.

Defense -
  • DL - Get Nesta back, and start to dominate. Need to see more TFLs and Sacks from this group. Too much talent to not be dominating the line of scrimmage versus lower level opponents. Really want to see Garvin get after the QB and Rousseau to play more.

  • LB/Striker - Romeo has been our best defender this year. Love the way he has been playing. Honestly would like to see Sam Brooks more. His speed at LB is what has been missing from the position. Unfortunately we may have seen the ceiling of Shaq and Pinckney. Shaq has played a bad 2.5 games so would like to see him get back on track, but the sideline to sideline speed for them is just not there.

  • CB - Give me some INTs. Bandy needs to get his confidence back up after a bad UNC game. Also would like to see the young guys make some plays (Ivey, Blades, Couch) and play solid.

  • S - Has arguably been our worst position group so far. Amari has been bad (tackling and angles), and maybe its time to consider moving him down to Striker. Really want to see Gurvan play at the level everyone is saying he can play at. Need to see him be more sound in tackling and maybe get a pick or two to get some confidence. Bubba could be a huge addition to this group. Will be watching him closely against VT
Overall - A little concerned with how we've looked under Blake Baker but trust Manny to get things right.
Click to expand...
The good thing is if Jeff Thomas and Garvin don’t start dominating like expected , they probably don’t turn pro this year and we get some experienced guys back next year
 
Our red zone offense sucks as well, on top of that we can't kick field goals. I'd like to see that improve.
 
I think we may have underestimated the acclimation period for the defense along the front 7. I think Baker is playing a defense designed by Manny but calling the game differently and emphasizing different attack strategies. I'm hopeful that Baker goes over film of the first four games and is smart enough to either focus on and correct mistakes players are making or correct his strategic approach and realize that some of his favorite plays may not be best suited to the talent level he has here at Miami.

I've noticed we ineffectively stunt and twist, sometimes across the entire defensive front and it seems to just slow us down and not achieve the design intended. I fear Baker is over thinking his strategy in the trenches and not trusting his talent. Hopefully the players are failing to execute and small corrections will translate to better overall success. Either way the back end would really benefit from a bit more consistency up front as would the front four if the young secondary could reduce the number of blown coverages and poor alignments.
 
I wanna see Jarren take more chances. Enos needs to let him know throwing a pick isn’t gonna get him benched. Of course he can’t do that in big situations, but taking a shot early in the game or in a situation on 3rd down at mid field when a pick is essentially a punt isn’t the worst thing that could happen. Let our guys have their shot at some 50/50 balls
 
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This is THE game. The players can't look towards it yet but we sure as **** can. We'll absolutely be 3-2 heading into the game.

We need to see Jarren improve at the start of games. Against UNC he couldn't move past his first read and missed a wide open Deejay on the first 3rd down of the game and on Saturday he badly under-threw Hightower for an easy first down in the RZ and threw a bad ball to JT in the ensuing third down.

Sucks we lost the UF game but thank god for the prep it gave us. UVA and Pitt are the only defenses left that can compare to UF's and you've got to think the offense will be able to handle themselves because of what they saw in week 0.

As for Blake and the defense. Lord have mercy on our soul.
 
I like the sequence with regards to increasing competition level prior to UVA. But I Don’t like that it’s a short week for us while they’ll be coming off a bye.
 
Everything people have covered sounds good, but did deeper and I want to see the following items:

LB - McCloud needs more burn at LB even if it's at the expense of Shaq & Pinckney. He's by far the best athlete of the 3 and has the highest upside. Kind of got screwed here under Diaz because he was the one who never played the traditional "LB" role here.

OL - Need a 3rd guard and 3rd tackle to step up to at least not frighten the staff if they have to enter the game.

CB - Staff needs to settle on Blades as the 2nd CB. He's been much better than Ivey, let the kid just settle into the role rather than whatever they're doing right now.

WR - Hightower continues to develop as the jack of all trades WR that KJ is. Wiggins continues to develop as the explosive outside threat. He is our most physically gifted WR. Having these two continue to grow behind our starters would be a welcome sight.

Kicker - Pray.
 
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I've had this one circled for 6 months, and I know the kids have too.

Last year was incredibly embarrassing to not only lose, but to go out so meekly. It was like a 3 hour pillow fight.

This year, in a revenge game, at night, on a Friday.....if we're 3-2 and they're 4-1 (or hopefully 5-0, but at Notre Dame will be tough), it should be a big crowd, LOUD, and a frenzied atmosphere. I fully expect Miami to win this game convincingly. I'm actually more confident about this game than I am VT, at Pitt, or at FSU.

The only thing that gives me pause, and I've said this since the day the schedule came out, is UVA is off the week before (while we play VT) and we have a short week to prepare. So they get 13 days, we only get 6. I don't like that at all. But it is what it is, I expect the team will be incredibly jacked for that game, especially if we handle business the next 2 games as we should.

But UVA shouldn't be the type of team that we lose to. We're going to struggle against teams with elite fronts who can handle our OL (hello, UF) and/or dynamic passing games who throw the ball vertically to exploit our young and learning secondary (hello UNC). I just don't see a plodding, methodical offense beating us this year, when you consider that I think the strength of their defense is the back 7 so I think Miami should be able to move the ball and score at least in the high 20's/low 30's. We're not going to score 13 points again, I'll guarantee you that.

I can't wait for 10/11.
 
Great post.


My biggest thing with the offense. Instead of waiting until the second quarter. Let’s start fast and put up points in our first 3-4 drives. And put some pressure on the others defense and offense to play with a razor margin for error. Against UNC we had a razor thin margin for error. I’d like to see us make some other teams respond to that type of adversity.

Other wise on offense its simple as you pointed and it’s an overarching theme for every group. Continue to develop and get better.

Defense though...

I need to see much better play for every single group.

I need better coverage from our DB when asked to play on a island. Ivey and Bandy, Bandy I know hasn’t been beat a lot but he’s suppose to be our best guy. Can’t give up long TDs.

S/Striker: better tackling and coverage on the slot fade routes. The better teams are going to try and attack that matchup. It basically cost us 2 games (along with other mistakes). But right when we had all the momentum and one more stop might have broken the other team. We’ve given up two 50 yard plays to a simple slot fade route.

LB: can’t expect anything different from this
Group. You’d be a fool. They are 4 years in and are
Finish college products. You aren’t going to magically see Pickney not take the wrong gap and Shaq all of sudden learn to get QBs to the ground for Sacks. I expect each of them to have a senior moment/ game where they make some huge plays but otherwise it is what it is at this point.

DL: pass rush needs major improvement. Run defense needs to show consistency.

Coaches: put the players in position to play fast and make easy plays. Eliminate complex things that lead to stuff like busted coverages on critical downs.

Players: make plays regardless of what play was called and make your coaches look smart.
 
ghost2 said:
Safety play will dictate the success of our defense this year, IMO. We need Bubba to be ready to contribute asap and we need more of everything from the rest of that group.
Click to expand...

Agree, though I think more pressure up the middle will help that out a lot. We're really missing Willis right now.
 
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