"Bad Eyes"

[ageezy]

Everyone gets caught in guys athletic prowess but sleep on the most important thing knowing assignment. The best teams have the smartest football players. Miami back in the day always had hard workers and high IQ players . Athletic ability is useless if you’re a dumb player . That’s where evaluating comes in.

i've started to pump the breaks a bit as i'm not sold on the level of coaching ... directing players on which keys to read, whats your assignment, etc, etc

 

[Noliaboi]

South Florida players?

South Florida football players are incredibly talented and possess unmatched athletic ability. However, I believe some—not all—might lack the same level of assignment/discipline compared to players from other regions. This isn’t a knock on their football IQ or athleticism; when a few South Florida players are mixed in with talent from other areas, they excel. But when you look at the overall base and how SFLA is our base, there seems to be a difference. South Florida produces absolute dawgs on the field, and it’s hands down the best football region in the world. That said, it’s been mentioned even on this board that coaching in South Florida doesn’t always measure up to the standards seen in places like Texas, Georgia, and California. It’s strictly football discipline and not an athletic issue as I already know South Florida has the most NFL players than other states.

That’s the only common denominator. The school President has changed, the AD has changed, HCs have changed, Coordinators have changed. What hasn’t changed? Our base of where 70-80% of our players come from.

 

[TruCane81]

South Florida football players are incredibly talented and possess unmatched athletic ability. However, I believe some—not all—might lack the same level of assignment/discipline compared to players from other regions. This isn’t a knock on their football IQ or athleticism; when a few South Florida players are mixed in with talent from other areas, they excel. But when you look at the overall base and how SFLA is our base, there seems to be a difference. South Florida produces absolute dawgs on the field, and it’s hands down the best football region in the world. That said, it’s been mentioned even on this board that coaching in South Florida doesn’t always measure up to the standards seen in places like Texas, Georgia, and California. It’s strictly football discipline and not an athletic issue as I already know South Florida has the most NFL players than other states.

That’s the only common denominator. The school President has changed, the AD has changed, HCs have changed, Coordinators have changed. What hasn’t changed? Our base of where 70-80% of our players come from.

But we have seen flashes of it working. Look how the defense jumped from Dno to Diaz. From Steele to first year Guidry.

**** most of the guys playing on defense are NOT from South Florida.

We have mostly a coaching problem. The guys we have while not the best talent, should be able to perform at at least an average level.

We always focus on player talent and coaching knowledge. The ghost in the machine that is not mentioned nearly enough is CHEMISTRY.

Coaching is more than just knowing on paper what to tell the guys. There is a metaphysical component that is overlooked to the detriment of countless teams.

These guys have to make split second decisions. Any breakdown in the process will cause catastrophic failure that makes no sense on paper.

There are whispers that there is dissension in the defensive staff. Remember how bad it got when the offensive staff wasn’t a cohesive unit?

This patching together strangers and micromanaging the defensive staff is biting Mario in the ***. We will never get the players on the same page if we can’t do the same with the coaches.

 

[CANEMC]

Our boys may need seeing-eye dogs or at the very least contacts.

We needed Lasix and then bifocals post surgery. Harris was playing with his eyes closed.

 

[Noliaboi]

But we have seen flashes of it working. Look how the defense jumped from Dno to Diaz. From Steele to first year Guidry.

**** most of the guys playing on defense are NOT from South Florida.

We have mostly a coaching problem. The guys we have while not the best talent, should be able to perform at at least an average level.

We always focus on player talent and coaching knowledge. The ghost in the machine that is not mentioned nearly enough is CHEMISTRY.

Coaching is more than just knowing on paper what to tell the guys. There is a metaphysical component that is overlooked to the detriment of countless teams.

These guys have to make split second decisions. Any breakdown in the process will cause catastrophic failure that makes no sense on paper.

There are whispers that there is dissension in the defensive staff. Remember how bad it got when the offensive staff wasn’t a cohesive unit?

This patching together strangers and micromanaging the defensive staff is biting Mario in the ***. We will never get the players on the same page if we can’t do the same with the coaches.

I see your points and agree that coaching, chemistry, and system cohesion are critical factors in a team’s success. But to expand on my original post, I think the one constant that hasn’t changed over the years is where we recruit the majority of our players, South Florida.

These players are some of the most talented in the world, no question. But the issue comes down to being “raw.” South Florida produces incredible athletes who excel on natural talent and competitiveness, but they often come from programs where discipline, advanced coaching, and football fundamentals aren’t as emphasized as in places like Texas, Georgia, or California. The lack of refinement can make it harder to build a consistently disciplined team at the college level, especially when those players make up the majority of the roster.

That’s not to say the talent isn’t there. It absolutely is. But when you combine raw athletes with inconsistent coaching we have had over the years, it creates a tough cycle. Without the foundation of structure and discipline built at the high school level, it falls entirely on our college coaching staff to develop those players. And if our coaching staff itself isn’t cohesive, as you pointed out with the chemistry issues, it only amplifies the struggle.

Until we figure out how to maximize raw talent from South Florida and pair it with the right coaching structure, discipline, and team chemistry, I think we’ll continue to see the same issues. It’s not just about who we recruit; it’s about how those recruits are developed and coached once they’re here.

 

[CaneIsAble52]

This was a much longer conversation with Saban. I'll find it somewhere to post. Was very good.

Think he had a very similar conversation on hbo few years back. Saban and belichick talking about not signing dumb players, at either level.

 

[Coach Macho]

How many times did we hear that from Guidry???? He did nothing to improve the problem.

Saw this clip on Game Day this morning

Say this to my kids every day at practice.

 

[Coach Macho]

That's a big part of it. Local kids for most part don't get great coaching and then we don't help matters having clowns like Guidry.

Majority of the kids on our putrid defense aren't even local though.

 

[Damiencane86]

Majority of the kids on our putrid defense aren't even local though.

At Western High ? Interesting

 

[Coach Macho]

The coaching in South Florida is indeed dog for the most part. Kids aren't being developed for the next level. Their overall knowledge of scheme is very limited.

However...

This should determine HOW you recruit and what you're looking for at certain positions. For example, playing CB generally is not rocket science, and studies show that athletic traits are a high measuring tool for future success. Same thing for DE's and DT's. You just need plus athletes. They're not intangible positions. So their level of high school coaching may not be as important, they just gotta be "dawgs".

But if I'm recruiting LB's or Safeties... I'm not taking kids unless they're well coached and/or have high IQ... especially at LB. Of all the positions on defense where rankings and measurables are the least accurate barometer for success, it's Linebacker. Recruiting services can't measure intangibles. When recruiting a linebacker, you really need to sit him down and find out about his knowledge of the game.

Furthermore, when you're recruiting Safeties you need to consider scheme fit.
It blows my mind how Miami can watch Zaquan Patterson's high school film and see him playing IN THE BOX ON 90% OF HIS SNAPS then get him to Green Tree and ask him to play up-top. Taking an elite box Safety who's a certified smacker and asking him to do something he's literally NEVER done dating back to little league. Wild! And you wonder why he gets smoked on Saturdays. Square peg vs round hole is what we've been doing with Patterson, Harris and Powell if we're being honest.

I get kids from different HS programs and/or poorly coached optimist teams EVERY YEAR. We have to erase their bad habits, start from square one and coach them up to our standard of doing things. Why...by week 5...do I have 15-18 year olds playing 5+ different coverages and 5+ different fronts... but we can't get 18-22 year olds (with unlimited resources) to lineup properly in week 13?
If there's ever a situation where my kids are making too many errors, I scale it back. You should always have something that you "master" in, and for us that's Cover-3. So in the event that the kids aren't quite executing our more complex material, then we know at least we can lean on our Cover-3 stuff. (to get lined-up fast and reduce mental errors and coverage busts)

With sound technique, good communication and high effort... you can line-up in 4-2-5 Cover-3 all **** game and field a competent defense. (Seattle Seahawks ran two **** coverages during their legion of boom era)

Defensive football is about... alignment, assignment, effort.
Looking like a Chinese fire drill in week 10+ tells me that the kids still don't know WTF they're doing.

 

[canes461]

Everyone gets caught in guys athletic prowess but sleep on the most important thing knowing assignment. The best teams have the smartest football players. Miami back in the day always had hard workers and high IQ players . Athletic ability is useless if you’re a dumb player . That’s where evaluating comes in.

Nailed it.

 

[Roe 15th00]

South Florida football players are incredibly talented and possess unmatched athletic ability. However, I believe some—not all—might lack the same level of assignment/discipline compared to players from other regions. This isn’t a knock on their football IQ or athleticism; when a few South Florida players are mixed in with talent from other areas, they excel. But when you look at the overall base and how SFLA is our base, there seems to be a difference. South Florida produces absolute dawgs on the field, and it’s hands down the best football region in the world. That said, it’s been mentioned even on this board that coaching in South Florida doesn’t always measure up to the standards seen in places like Texas, Georgia, and California. It’s strictly football discipline and not an athletic issue as I already know South Florida has the most NFL players than other states.

That’s the only common denominator. The school President has changed, the AD has changed, HCs have changed, Coordinators have changed. What hasn’t changed? Our base of where 70-80% of our players come from.

Got to recruit the right ones

 

[Noliaboi]

The coaching in South Florida is indeed dog for the most part. Kids aren't being developed for the next level. Their overall knowledge of scheme is very limited.

However...

This should determine HOW you recruit and what you're looking for at certain positions. For example, playing CB generally is not rocket science, and studies show that athletic traits are a high measuring tool for future success. Same thing for DE's and DT's. You just need plus athletes. They're not intangible positions. So their level of high school coaching may not be as important, they just gotta be "dawgs".

But if I'm recruiting LB's or Safeties... I'm not taking kids unless they're well coached and/or have high IQ... especially at LB. Of all the positions on defense where rankings and measurables are the least accurate barometer for success, it's Linebacker. Recruiting services can't measure intangibles. When recruiting a linebacker, you really need to sit him down and find out about his knowledge of the game.

Furthermore, when you're recruiting Safeties you need to consider scheme fit.
It blows my mind how Miami can watch Zaquan Patterson's high school film and see him playing IN THE BOX ON 90% OF HIS SNAPS then get him to Green Tree and ask him to play up-top. Taking an elite box Safety who's a certified smacker and asking him to do something he's literally NEVER done dating back to little league. Wild! And you wonder why he gets smoked on Saturdays. Square peg vs round hole is what we've been doing with Patterson, Harris and Powell if we're being honest.

I get kids from different HS programs and/or poorly coached optimist teams EVERY YEAR. We have to erase their bad habits, start from square one and coach them up to our standard of doing things. Why...by week 5...do I have 15-18 year olds playing 5+ different coverages and 5+ different fronts... but we can't get 18-22 year olds (with unlimited resources) to lineup properly in week 13?
If there's ever a situation where my kids are making too many errors, I scale it back. You should always have something that you "master" in, and for us that's Cover-3. So in the event that the kids aren't quite executing our more complex material, then we know at least we can lean on our Cover-3 stuff. (to get lined-up fast and reduce mental errors and coverage busts)

With sound technique, good communication and high effort... you can line-up in 4-2-5 Cover-3 all **** game and field a competent defense. (Seattle Seahawks ran two **** coverages during their legion of boom era)

Defensive football is about... alignment, assignment, effort.
Looking like a Chinese fire drill in week 10+ tells me that the kids still don't know WTF they're doing.

Spot on!! Good hearing it from someone who actually knows these kids better than a lot of us on this board.

I also believe this is why we have had a few kids go on to the NFL and do better there than they did here at the collegiate level. We’re getting flawed but very talented kids and are not doing well at all as a program of reprogramming/teaching them.

@Coach Macho do you also feel that the kids you coach need a firmer hand on discipline/accountability? Because I feel like that’s another thing we don’t do well as a program that I thought would be different under Mario.

See people like to duplicate Saban but Saban wasn’t allowing the same mistakes over and over from upper class men without taking a seat on the bench. Listen to his former players talk about him.

 

[CaneThang2020]

South Florida football players are incredibly talented and possess unmatched athletic ability. However, I believe some—not all—might lack the same level of assignment/discipline compared to players from other regions. This isn’t a knock on their football IQ or athleticism; when a few South Florida players are mixed in with talent from other areas, they excel. But when you look at the overall base and how SFLA is our base, there seems to be a difference. South Florida produces absolute dawgs on the field, and it’s hands down the best football region in the world. That said, it’s been mentioned even on this board that coaching in South Florida doesn’t always measure up to the standards seen in places like Texas, Georgia, and California. It’s strictly football discipline and not an athletic issue as I already know South Florida has the most NFL players than other states.

That’s the only common denominator. The school President has changed, the AD has changed, HCs have changed, Coordinators have changed. What hasn’t changed? Our base of where 70-80% of our players come from.

The difference in 7-9 wins and 11-13 wins is having the SFla studs like WR Smith, pulling 2 to 3 of the top 4 DBs and sprinkling in elite players from other regions.

Jeremiah Smith on our team makes the difference between going 11-1 or 12-0 vs 10-2 and missing the ACCCG and CFP. Adding the DBs gives us the opportunity to make the CFP and advance out of the 1st round and possibly into the semifinals.

SFLA talent isn’t what’s holding us back - not getting the cream of the crop is what’s holding us back.

 

[poncho0091]

This is how/why I always felt we have a teaching issue more than a talent issue. Even less talented players can just be in the right position and know their assignment which is the first step in football IMO.

I don't remember the last time I felt like we had player development on this team. How many players significantly improved from day 1 to the time they left? Not many.

 

[westcoastcanes]

Defensive football is about... alignment, assignment, effort.
Looking like a Chinese fire drill in week 10+ tells me that the kids still don't know WTF they're doing.

Isolating this because it is the part of the Guidry experiment I am hoping we get some insight on. It has been absolutely mind boggling watching our defensive unit panicking when the offense breaks the huddle or goes in motion.

It seems very hard to believe our guys have never been told assignments and alignments within the scheme. It looks to me like guys that aren’t watching film and aren’t studying playbooks. In no way is this me trying to let the DC off the hook, but I would also question the commitment of the entire defensive side’s preparation aspect that guys have to want to do themselves. Maybe Guidry assumed too much was understood, and needed to spend significantly more time on different things in practice? Maybe his concepts were not intuitive? I just can’t make sense of the lack of preparation that the defensive unit exhibited, and hope to reconcile to some degree is Guidry that bad, are our players that bad, or is it somewhere in the middle.

 

[Speedrush]

The only way to "improve the problem" of guys not knowing what to do is to get different players, which can't happen during the season.

Or you could teach them what to do until they know what to do.

 

[GOCANES05]

15 years later....I am still complaining about the fear of playing against a running qb because I know no one on the defense is prepared.

Part of the problem players not talking ownership of their responsibilities in raising there game , they play with no confidence they don’t win before playing the game.

X won before playing as single game his confidence and field presence was heads above any player coverage practicaly uncoverable.

Why players didn’t embrace this is a mystery and why we are where we are today .

Just my perception of what’s seen.

 

[Bender]

With sound technique, good communication and high effort... you can line-up in 4-2-5 Cover-3 all **** game and field a competent defense. (Seattle Seahawks ran two **** coverages during their legion of boom era)

NFL in total runs three coverages, maybe four at most... 2, 3, 4 and 6, all with match principles and they all run those four coverages from single-high or two-high. It's not overly complicated, but it allows smart defensive players to fly around and make plays because the defense has been simplified to the point where the dressing pre-snap is the weird part and not what it develops into afterwards.

 

[Ironmanfootball]

this is 100% correct. I never had a defensive coach say anything different. Its a pillar (pause) of defensive football

If Pillar made you pause you might think about wang too much