Will Diaz attacking 4-3 defense improve our run defense?

[Golsen82]

Watching the 2014 Louisiana Tech vs #5 Auburn and gotta say its impressive how their shutting down Auburns run game. Looks like GT. I have faith it will improve, only thing we can do is study Diazs previous defenses and see how we do this season. Go Canes!!!

 

[FrancisSawyer]

Every time Diaz takes over a defense, his first year has been his best year it seems to me. Always a complete increase in defensive play, but then year 2 it always seems that everyone figures his defense out within the conference and starts tearing it to shreds.

We will know if Diaz is the real deal if he manages to put us within the top 20 in year 1, and maintain a top 15 defense in years 2/3.

Ideally, Year 2 our D-Line should return everyone minus AQM, LB should return all of the 2-deep minus Grace, Safeties will return Jaquan Johnson and have 3 upperclassman and 2-3 freshman competing for the other spot and the 2-deep. As of right now only position that scares me is CB because we obviously have a big question mark after Corn Elder (As of now) and I don't see anybody in this next recruiting class that are ready to be a lock down corner or coverage freak straight out of HS. Then again, there is no SR film to prove either side as of now.

Agreed. We should field a top 20 defense this year and I would say that he needs to be able to produce top 10 defenses consistently. As far as his pattern of early success followed by a drop off goes, it would seem to me that like you stated, teams would figure him out. What I am curious about is if that playd correlates at all with the level of talent at his disposal and/or is it indicative of a propensity to do the same thing over and over again.

As I've said before, Richt didn't bring Diaz here to be average or mediocre. Diaz now has a good amount of experience from which to draw from in addition to having the tremendous opportunity to craft his defenses by mining the richest talent pool in the nation. I think it would be fair to say that he will be working with a higher talent level here since So Fla is known to produce talented, fast and uber athletic players at almost every position.

I think the biggest question to me is if Diaz is at the point in his development as a coach where he can see his mistakes and use that experience to fine tune his defense and put it all together so to speak. What is the main difference between a guy like Diaz and established and successful DC's such as Pat Narduzzi, Mark Dantonio, Don Brown, Dave Aranda and John Chavis? Is it scheme? I believe it is the ability to use your scheme as a foundation while you tailor your approach from game to game depending on what offense you face and the ability to adjust in game on the fly. I think the best coordinators are able to identify and successfully exploit the opposing offenses weaknesses while simultaneously mitigating their own.

I dont think people realize how high (and maybe unrealistic) a standard it is to say consistent top 10 defense. For example, here is Florida States total defense ranking for the past 10 yrs;
15, 52, 3, 2, 4, 42, 108, 13, 36, 15.

Their scoring defense looks fairly similar. The team everyone wants us to get back to beating and consistent national champion contender has only been a top ten defense in 3 of the previous 10 yrs.

I think that is a very fair point. Having said that, it is my impression that FSU has consistently done less with more over the past 15 years. The Winston era seems like an outlier. This may be somewhat due to the fact that outside of Winston, FSU has struggled to find decent QB play. Also I will point out that if the goal is set at top 15 defenses then FSU achieved that 6 out of ten years. The 108th place finish in 2009 is totally inexcusable and for as much elite talent that they are able to stack year after year, finishing 52nd and 42nd are not very impressive.

Even acknowledging the recent rise in parity and a trend of offensive dominance, I still believe that we should maintain and expect standards of excellence at UM. I don't think the standard of consistently fielding top ten defenses at the U is unrealistic given the our geographical advantage in recruiting and the history and tradition of our brand.

I hear you, also valid points. I just wanted to throw a different perspective on what a widely considered good defense looks like stats wise.

For me, a consistent top 30 overall defense if fine as long as pts per game is also in at least that range and turnover rate is higher. With the proliferation of wide open spread offenses, its almost impossible to keep people form getting yards and scoring. Heck, even a completely stacked and well coached Alabama team couldnt shut everyone down. Thats why I feel getting turnovers has become a crucial equation, maybe even more so then yards allowed. Taking away two or three scoring opportunities by causing turnovers is more impact full when going against these high powered offenses. Their percentage of drives that end in a score is very high so it has a greater effect on the final score.

The game is changing and when going against some of the great offensive teams from say Oregon or Baylor it also might be more realistic to shoot for turnovers and high impact plays for loss with the understanding that yards will be given up playing that way. Those offenses are too good to completely shut down. So what if you give up extra yards when the result is 3 or 4 extra change of possessions because of a big loss of yardage or turnover. Thats my thinking anyway. This is where I like the philosophy of Diaz.

I think that ultimately you are probably right. You make a very compelling argument. I just feel that we have the access to the type of players that would conceivably allow us to build dominant defenses to counteract these spread offenses. I feel the right DC could achieve this. I really do. I appreciate the Alabama example and am very aware of that. The one thing I would point out is that Bama DL had talent but that DL was built to hold the point of attack where as Diaz and Kool are looking for more athletic penetrating types to better disrupt offenses.

 

[MIAMIDOMINATION]

honestly we need some monster DTs before we see a dominant run D at miami again

maybe these guys can coach up the current talent, only time will tell

 

[NJshoreCane]

We score lots of points and get decent leads and it will be a moot point

you cant win a NC by outscoring your opponent...defense or lack of defense will decide who wins. Just like if Clemson actually covered Bama's TE they would have won.

If Clemson special teams made the flight to Arizona, they would have won.

You just made his point for him

My point was it takes solid play in all 3 phases. No one is taking home the trophy if they play as poorly in any of the 3 phases as Clemson did on Specials.