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 trend 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.