Why we won't see elite linebacker play Video evidence

[SoFlaSmitty]

Honest question bro did you take the time to read this because I did. For one we shouldn't be undersized on defence. No elite Miami team has been undersized since probably the 83 chip team. Look at the alignment from the link you post and then you will understand why when our NT swim moves we end up with 2 lineman on our linebackers. Our Dt think they are getting penetration when the play is designed to give them a free release.

I didn't need to read it, I ran it when I coached in high school. I know the concept of it. Correct if our DL isnt undersized then it should work even better. They take care of everything in the holes and getting to the QB. If they arent doing their job it has nothing to do with the LBs or the scheme. If the NT is swimming cause thats his football instinct telling him to. I doubt a coach is saying swim every play.

 

[CanesAreAble]

They shouldnt look this bad with most staff being here 5 years with their recruited players.. LB play looks weak and lost and scheme doesnt even seem to care for strong corner play.. Not really panic but 5 years in Manny should have dominant D with his recruited guys.. We dont trot out freshman, everyone is like a 3rd year player..

I agree LB and CB recruiting have been disappointing.

 

[Canesq]

So when there's a disparity of talent in Miami's favor, you don't want any conclusions drawn from it, but when Miami is playing the best team in the nation, then you want conclusions drawn so that you can criticize. OK then.

Yes that’s what competition is about. How can claim to be one of the best when you are basing your elite status on dominating scrubs?

Isn’t the ultimate goal for this team and specifically this defense is to be able to compete on the field with the Clemsons and the Bamas of the world? Or are you ok with being UCF? Or Ronda Rousey?

All I was saying is let’s see how the defense does against Clemson’s offense with a number one overall QB.

If we slow them down and perform well then that would validate our elite defensive status.

If the offense destroys our defense like the Ravens did the dolphins last year, then I don’t GAF about your stats from the FAMU’s and the Bethunes of the world.

 

[The Franchise]

I agree with this. Can we beat the Clemson's of the world when by design our safetys are expected to make most the tackles? In your opinion what should be expected of the linebacker in the defense based on our philosophy?

If we start signing elite recruits like Clemson does every year, then we can beat them. They're not doing anything earth shattering up there. ***** has them playing hard every week despite the rat poison, and he's recruiting at an elite level. If Manny can do those 2 things, then we can beat Clemson because we'll always have access to the best players a few miles from campus.

 

[Go Canes!!]

They shouldnt look this bad with most staff being here 5 years with their recruited players.. LB play looks weak and lost and scheme doesnt even seem to care for strong corner play.. Not really panic but 5 years in Manny should have dominant D with his recruited guys.. We dont trot out freshman, everyone is like a 3rd year player..

I swear some of you live in some type of fantasy land. This is the reality of our linebackers:

Austin-Cave-True freshman
Corey Flagg-True freshman
Avery Huff- NCAA mandated redshirt. Didn't practice until August of 2019-No spring practices-two very limited fall

San Brooks-2nd year-limited game action
Keontra Smith-2nd year-limited game action

Bradley Jennings-Coming off serious injury
Patrick Joyner-Coming off serious injury
Waymond Steed-Coming off serious injury

Gilbert Frierson-Established player
Zach McCloud-Established but limited player

This group is supposed to be dominant?

Right.

The reality is we had young guys sitting behind two All-ACC caliber starters. More than anything, prior injuries and inexperience have hindered the product we are fielding in 2020.

We have no idea what we have in these guys for those reasons. It will take time to figure it out. Down the road it will be far better than it is now.

@The Franchise

 

[Echtcane]

Yes that’s what competition is about. How can claim to be one of the best when you are basing your elite status on dominating scrubs?

Isn’t the ultimate goal for this team and specifically this defense is to be able to compete on the field with the Clemsons and the Bamas of the world? Or are you ok with being UCF? Or Ronda Rousey?

All I was saying is let’s see how the defense does against Clemson’s offense with a number one overall QB.

If we slow them down and perform well then that would validate our elite defensive status.

If the offense destroys our defense like the Ravens did the dolphins last year, then I don’t GAF about your stats from the FAMU’s and the Bethunes of the world.

I think we've made important changes, turned a corner and have headed in the right direction. Fixating on the Clemson game seems like an opportunistic way of looking for negatives when we're in a critical building mode where the goal should be getting wins against teams we can beat and transferring that momentum to recruiting.

If you want to bring up Clemson, do it in relation to when they were in our position. Dabo was a first time head coach too. It took him 2 1/2 years to fire his first offensive coordinator and 3 1/2 years to fire his first defensive coordinator. In Swinney's 5th full year at Clemson he faced the equivalent of what we face this year against him, a championship level FSU team. They lost 51-14 at home. Is that game something he or his staff should be judged against? Should the fans have had a meltdown immediately afterward saying we're never gonna get to that level and calling for firings like some of our fans do in year 2?

 

[CanesAreAble]

I swear some of you live in some type of fantasy land. This is the reality of our linebackers:

Austin-Cave-True freshman
Corey Flagg-True freshman
Avery Huff- NCAA mandated redshirt. Didn't practice until August of 2019-No spring practices-two very limited fall

San Brooks-2nd year-limited game action
Keontra Smith-2nd year-limited game action

Bradley Jennings-Coming off serious injury
Patrick Joyner-Coming off serious injury
Waymond Steed-Coming off serious injury

Gilbert Frierson-Established player
Zach McCloud-Established but limited player

This group is supposed to be dominant?

Right.

The reality is we had young guys sitting behind two All-ACC caliber starters. More than anything, prior injuries and inexperience have hindered the product we are fielding in 2020.

We have no idea what we have in these guys for those reasons. It will take time to figure it out. Down the road it will be far better than it is now.

i think his point is that we shouldn’t be relying on the guys we are after multiple recruiting cycles.

LB recruiting has been weak. I like the young guys we have, but as you said, they’re not ready.

 

[Go Canes!!]

i think his point is that we shouldn’t be relying on the guys we are after multiple recruiting cycles.

LB recruiting has been weak. I like the young guys we have, but as you said, they’re not ready.

Why shouldn’t we be? The vast majority are just getting their feet wet. Besides McCloud we have no idea what they’re capable of.

 

[Coach Macho]

Our DL (when they're not slanting/stunting) play vertical. They get up-field and aren't concerned with gap responsibility.

Sometimes it works for a TFL, but here lies the problem.

Many times our DL run themselves out of the play and/or allow O-linemen to reach our Linebackers far too easily.
On outside zone running plays the OL simply lets our DL run upfield, they work to the 2nd level and get a body on our LB's, and often times there's a nice cut-back lane.

You can't ask your LB's to defeat blocks every play and make tackles. We will never see a Linebacker with a high number of tackles in this defense. It's not a Linebacker friendly scheme.
I'm sure D-linemen love it though, which may help with DL recruiting.
Truth be told, right now we don't even have the ideal DL to run this scheme IMO. Most of our DT's aren't athletic enough. Some of them get into the backfield and can't make the tackle. (Miller is an example, kid can't change direction to save his life. Stout at the point of attack though)

I'll show you the issue in a drawing.

Here the offense is running Outsize Zone/Stretch.
I drew the 3-technique getting reached and running through the backdoor. Now, he's likely never gonna make this play, but look how it allows the Guard to move on to the LB.
If that 3-tech stays in the B-gap, he protects the Linebacker, and the Linebacker can likely shoot through the moving A-gap.
In this case, since the 3-technique took himself out of the B-gap, the Guard is gonna move to the 2nd level and cut-off the LB.
In this play the RB would either hit the outside for a nice gain or cut inside of the DE, depending on how the blocks played out.

 

[Coach Macho]

Outside Zone from 10 Personnel shotgun.
As you can see, if the DT backdoors the Guard then it allows him to move on to the LB.
If that DT isn't athletic enough to redirect and make the play then it's off to the races.

 

[CanesAreAble]

Why shouldn’t we be? The vast majority are just getting their feet wet. Besides McCloud we have no idea what they’re capable of.

I agree with the last part, but if we hadn't recruited so poorly at the position, we'd have upperclassmen ready to go.

I don't blame guys for getting injured (e.g. Steed), but we should have more bodies in the LB room, IMO.

Our LB recruiting:

2017 -- Jennings, Steed, Wilder
2018 -- Joyner (who's moved back to DE)
2019 -- Huff, Brooks
2020 -- TAC, Flagg

We only have seven scholarship LBs, and NONE of them had played significant snaps coming into this year outside of McCloud.

I like the potential there, but we bungled recruiting at the position a little bit.

 

[CanesAreAble]

Our DL (when they're not slanting/stunting) play vertical. They get up-field and aren't concerned with gap responsibility.

Sometimes it works for a TFL, but here lies the problem.

Many times our DL run themselves out of the play and/or allow O-linemen to reach our Linebackers far too easily.

Philosophically, do you think the tradeoff is acceptable?

I'm genuinely asking because I don't really care what we run so long as it works.

We do get creased sometimes, we also create a lot of havoc plays.

 

[The Franchise]

i think his point is that we shouldn’t be relying on the guys we are after multiple recruiting cycles.

LB recruiting has been weak. I like the young guys we have, but as you said, they’re not ready.

Shaq, Pinckney and McCloud all played together as true freshmans under Manny. So I'm not sure I buy that we can't get a true freshmans LB ready.

 

[CanesAreAble]

Shaq, Pinckney and McCloud all played together as true freshmans under Manny. So I'm not sure I buy that we can't get a true freshmans LB ready.

I suspect (I hope) we'll see more as the year progresses.

It's obviously been a weird off-season.

 

[SotaCanespiracy]

Our DL (when they're not slanting/stunting) play vertical. They get up-field and aren't concerned with gap responsibility.

Sometimes it works for a TFL, but here lies the problem.

Many times our DL run themselves out of the play and/or allow O-linemen to reach our Linebackers far too easily.
On outside zone running plays the OL simply lets our DL run upfield, they work to the 2nd level and get a body on our LB's, and often times there's a nice cut-back lane.

You can't ask your LB's to defeat blocks every play and make tackles. We will never see a Linebacker with a high number of tackles in this defense. It's not a Linebacker friendly scheme.
I'm sure D-linemen love it though, which may help with DL recruiting.
Truth be told, right now we don't even have the ideal DL to run this scheme IMO. Most of our DT's aren't athletic enough. Some of them get into the backfield and can't make the tackle. (Miller is an example, kid can't change direction to save his life. Stout at the point of attack though)

I'll show you the issue in a drawing.

Here the offense is running Outsize Zone/Stretch.
I drew the 3-technique getting reached and running through the backdoor. Now, he's likely never gonna make this play, but look how it allows the Guard to move on to the LB.
If that 3-tech stays in the B-gap, he protects the Linebacker, and the Linebacker can likely shoot through the moving A-gap.
In this case, since the 3-technique took himself out of the B-gap, the Guard is gonna move to the 2nd level and cut-off the LB.
In this play the RB would either hit the outside for a nice gain or cut inside of the DE, depending on how the blocks played out.
View attachment 131610

Thank you coach. My original post was never intended to criticize the defense really, it was more so a rebuttal to the people that complain about our linebacker play.

 

[Canesq]

I think we've made important changes, turned a corner and have headed in the right direction. Fixating on the Clemson game seems like an opportunistic way of looking for negatives when we're in a critical building mode where the goal should be getting wins against teams we can beat and transferring that momentum to recruiting.

If you want to bring up Clemson, do it in relation to when they were in our position. Dabo was a first time head coach too. It took him 2 1/2 years to fire his first offensive coordinator and 3 1/2 years to fire his first defensive coordinator. In Swinney's 5th full year at Clemson he faced the equivalent of what we face this year against him, a championship level FSU team. They lost 51-14 at home. Is that game something he or his staff should be judged against? Should the fans have had a meltdown immediately afterward saying we're never gonna get to that level and calling for firings like some of our fans do in year 2?

You make fair points but Dabo and Manny aren’t completely analogous. This is his defense with his defensive recruits as Richt gave him complete control on that side of the ball.

So it’s a fair to ask questions about the reoccurring issues with the scheme and player development. You can’t say this is a Miami defense.

I wouldn’t have an issue if you saw mistakes from the young players but you can also see the talent