Waay two early 2024 projected depth chart. ( please advise/revise)

[grover]

That Safety depth is scary.

1. Jaden Harris, unproven.
2. Markeith Williams, skinny af and unproven.
3. Zaquan Patterson, true freshmen.
4. Shhhhheeeetttt.....Meesh Powell had 3x the number of snaps at Slot CB vs Safety last year.

It's pretty shocking too me they seemed to be prioritizing CBs this entire cycle and never once seriously pursued a big time Safety. I must be missing something?

They believe Powell is a more natural safety, so they want another CB to be more versatile and reshuffle the backfield. At this point, we just need quality DBs, specific position is less critical.

 

[calinative umstudent]

Just a few thoughts about Guidry's system and your depth chart. I was under the impression that in Guidry's scheme the SLB and what you are calling the Striker here are one and the same. Same with Star and Nickel in his scheme. Isn't Star a hybrid position CB/Safety? Isn't that what we call the Nickel is this scheme? Just like the SLB position is in essence a hybrid position that is LB/Safety. This is what Diaz called a Striker but Guidry doesn't call it that. He just calls it Sam. So in effect you have two extra position groups in your defensive chart. @Lance Roffers Am I on the right track here?

Edit: So I would erase the Striker group then adjust the Sam depth accordingly

Sam
Jaylin Alderman
Cam Pruitt
Bobby Washington
Adarius Hayes

Nickel/Star This is the tough one
Damari Brown
Michael Powell
Jadais Richard
Dylan Day

We need Powell at Free Safety so moving Damari Brown to Star just makes sense. Daryl Porter Jr. at Field CB and Dyoni Hill at Boundary CB. Just doing this little exercise has made it very clear that we still need more depth in the secondary. I was shocked that the Robbie Washington to CB experiment went nowhere. Washington certainly showed that he has the talent, we have a huge need and it's not like Robbie is going to be getting a ton of snaps at WR. Unless he refused the switch which would be foolish on his part. I'm at a loss to explain it.

I do it this way because it’s a little more descriptive of the actual order for different scenarios imo. I wrote striker just as the general Safety/LB hybrid, and Star just as the general S/CB hybrid that is more of a big presence. Whether or not we really use them I think it’s good to show.

With Guidrys defense it’s hard to make a fully personalized depth chart cause how do you make a depth chart for a team that runs 3 and 4 man fronts? Or for when you are in 425 which I’m pretty sure is Guidry normal preference vs 335 which we ran a lot last year due to necessity?

for LB I kinda just put them in for pecking order. think it’ll mostly be Alderman/Aguirre going in and out for each other. So I put them both at Sam to start. Pruitt is that exact Lb/S hybrid and I expect him to get quite a bit of PT.

 

[FrancisSawyer]

I do it this way because it’s a little more descriptive of the actual order for different scenarios imo. I wrote striker just as the general Safety/LB hybrid, and Star just as the general S/CB hybrid that is more of a big presence. Whether or not we really use them I think it’s good to show.

With Guidrys defense it’s hard to make a fully personalized depth chart cause how do you make a depth chart for a team that runs 3 and 4 man fronts? Or for when you are in 425 which I’m pretty sure is Guidry normal preference vs 335 which we ran a lot last year due to necessity?

for LB I kinda just put them in for pecking order. think it’ll mostly be Alderman/Aguirre going in and out for each other. So I put them both at Sam to start. Pruitt is that exact Lb/S hybrid and I expect him to get quite a bit of PT.

OK I see what you were doing. Now that I understand your thought process I can see where you were going with it.

I think that the cool thing about Guidry's defense is that it is so flexible and versatile thus allowing it to transition seamlessly between the packages and even the different fronts you mentioned.

Like you said, we are a base 4-2-5 defense. In the base defense we play with an extra DB which is usually called a Nickel but in Guidry's scheme he calls it the Star position and again like you mentioned, it is in essence a hybrid CB/Safety. Currently, Meesh Powell is the Star. Now for example if we decide to go to a more traditional base 4-3 we will put in the Sam LB and play without the Star. The Sam in Guidry's scheme is a hybrid LB/Safety position. This is what KJ Cloyd played last year and this is the position that Cam Pruitt excelled at during the spring. Remember during spring that Pruitt was being praised for his great instincts, explosion and physicality as well as his ability to cover a WR/RB/TE deep downfield. I expect Pruitt to get a good amount of snaps in this role this year.

As far as the 3-3 looks are concerned, I believe there are a couple of options. Guidry can take his Jack DÈ and stand him up thus creating a 3-3 look or he can pull the Jack and replace him with the Sam LB which gives us a 3-3. Those are just examples I know of however there is a poster named @WestEndZone had an amazing post and video on this very subject. I highly recommend it as it is very well done.

 

[WestEndZone]

OK I see what you were doing. Now that I understand your thought process I can see where you were going with it.

I think that the cool thing about Guidry's defense is that it is so flexible and versatile thus allowing it to transition seamlessly between the packages and even the different fronts you mentioned.

Like you said, we are a base 4-2-5 defense. In the base defense we play with an extra DB which is usually called a Nickel but in Guidry's scheme he calls it the Star position and again like you mentioned, it is in essence a hybrid CB/Safety. Currently, Meesh Powell is the Star. Now for example if we decide to go to a more traditional base 4-3 we will put in the Sam LB and play without the Star. The Sam in Guidry's scheme is a hybrid LB/Safety position. This is what KJ Cloyd played last year and this is the position that Cam Pruitt excelled at during the spring. Remember during spring that Pruitt was being praised for his great instincts, explosion and physicality as well as his ability to cover a WR/RB/TE deep downfield. I expect Pruitt to get a good amount of snaps in this role this year.

As far as the 3-3 looks are concerned, I believe there are a couple of options. Guidry can take his Jack DÈ and stand him up thus creating a 3-3 look or he can pull the Jack and replace him with the Sam LB which gives us a 3-3. Those are just examples I know of however there is a poster named @WestEndZone had an amazing post and video on this very subject. I highly recommend it as it is very well done.

I'll see if I can make a video about the Star/Nickel position.

Historically, Guidry has run that position with a smaller, quicker, instinctual corner type. Looking at our schedule, I believe that will continue to be the case. However, if we have really certain special skillsets at Star AND Boundary Safety, can theoretically see us running more base with a LB/$ type at Star/Nickel (I'll call it "Heavy Nickel"). For this note, assume we will be facing a metric ton of 11 personnel with our schedule

If we look at our Defense last year, we became primarily a single high Man-Free (Cov. 1) team. We were good at it. So, if our Star/Nickel has the unique skillset we hear about with Pruitt AND our boundary safety is a do-it-all type, then we can match up Pruitt on the TE and the boundary safety can match up with the slot (this is a big ask of a safety, but a fully developed Zaquan type can do it). Thus, we can run our base Cov. 1 stuff with 43 (Heavy Nickel) personnel. If we want to mix in zone, great. Zone isn't as dependent on having great cover guys; deal off the releases and play your technique.

That being said, I still think we roll with a Corner type at Star/Nickel. Pruitt would also be an effective Will Linebacker as the "walk-out" guy in zone coverage. Let's see how we play it.

We desperately need to win the Florida game. On the one hand, maybe we are experimenting with this "heavy Nickel" kind of personnel groupings considering UF will want to shift and motion into favorable run leverages and, I think, will show us a heathy dose of 12 personnel. They seem to like their TE's. On the other hand, We can assume UF will want to force feed Wilson. That's a tall order for a boundary safety type.

My guess is we are running extra "heavy nickel" because Week 1 will show us plenty of 12 personnel and run sets. We will be substituting more than we regularly have in the Guidry era in my opinion.

 

[CanefaninBuckeyeland]

OK I see what you were doing. Now that I understand your thought process I can see where you were going with it.

I think that the cool thing about Guidry's defense is that it is so flexible and versatile thus allowing it to transition seamlessly between the packages and even the different fronts you mentioned.

Like you said, we are a base 4-2-5 defense. In the base defense we play with an extra DB which is usually called a Nickel but in Guidry's scheme he calls it the Star position and again like you mentioned, it is in essence a hybrid CB/Safety. Currently, Meesh Powell is the Star. Now for example if we decide to go to a more traditional base 4-3 we will put in the Sam LB and play without the Star. The Sam in Guidry's scheme is a hybrid LB/Safety position. This is what KJ Cloyd played last year and this is the position that Cam Pruitt excelled at during the spring. Remember during spring that Pruitt was being praised for his great instincts, explosion and physicality as well as his ability to cover a WR/RB/TE deep downfield. I expect Pruitt to get a good amount of snaps in this role this year.

As far as the 3-3 looks are concerned, I believe there are a couple of options. Guidry can take his Jack DÈ and stand him up thus creating a 3-3 look or he can pull the Jack and replace him with the Sam LB which gives us a 3-3. Those are just examples I know of however there is a poster named @WestEndZone had an amazing post and video on this very subject. I highly recommend it as it is very well done.

Dare I say, "we're multiple on the front end and the back end"?

 

[N.M.B. Cane]

Updated with projected accolades.

QB: Cam Ward { Top 10 QB} / Emory/ Reese
RB: Damien Martinez{ Top 10 RB } Fletcher
LT: Rivers { All-ACC } / Bell
OG: Samson/ Mcoy
C: Carpenter/ rr
OG: Cooper{ 2nd team all ACC? } /Mcoy
RT: FM { All - American } / Kinsler
X: Sam Brown { 3rd team all ACC? } / Horton
Y: George {2nd team All ACC}/ JoJo
Slot: Restrepo {Top 10 WR} / Ray - Ray

DE: Bain { All American} / (Transfer?)
NT: CJ Clark/ (Transfer?)
DT: Barrow/ Cook
DE: Meisdor {2nd team All ACC? }/ Alston
WLB: Wes { 3rd team All ACC?} /( Pickett?)
MLB: Kiko {1st team All ACC} / Popo
SLB: Alderman/ Pruitt
STAR: ( Transfer?) / Patterson
BCB: Dyoni/ (Transfer or Stafford?)
S: ( Transfer ?) / Harris
FS: Powell { 3rd team ACC?} / Patterson
FCB: Porter { 2nd team All ACC}/ D Brown

 

[TheEye]

Updated with projected accolades.

QB: Cam Ward { Top 10 QB} / Emory/ Reese
RB: Damien Martinez{ Top 10 RB } Fletcher
LT: Rivers { All-ACC } / Bell
OG: Samson/ Mcoy
C: Carpenter/ rr
OG: Cooper{ 2nd team all ACC? } /Mcoy
RT: FM { All - American } / Kinsler
X: Sam Brown { 3rd team all ACC? } / Horton
Y: George {2nd team All ACC}/ JoJo
Slot: Restrepo {Top 10 WR} / Ray - Ray

DE: Bain { All American} / (Transfer?)
NT: CJ Clark/ (Transfer?)
DT: Barrow/ Cook
DE: Meisdor {2nd team All ACC? }/ Alston
WLB: Wes { 3rd team All ACC?} /( Pickett?)
MLB: Kiko {1st team All ACC} / Popo
SLB: Alderman/ Pruitt
STAR: ( Transfer?) / Patterson
BCB: Dyoni/ (Transfer or Stafford?)
S: ( Transfer ?) / Harris
FS: Powell { 3rd team ACC?} / Patterson
FCB: Porter { 2nd team All ACC}/ D Brown

Looking good!