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Barry Jackson in depth about the defense/D'onofrio

Problem2

Problem2

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Great read IMO, whether you like D'onofrio or not

When UM defensive coordinator Mark D’Onofrio was asked at a Canes recruiting party what he plans to do differently next season, he had four words.
“Get after the quarterback!”

Applause naturally followed. There will be even more applause if, well, it actually happens.

UM spring practice begins next Saturday, and there will be no greater defensive priority than figuring out how to improve a pass rush that produced a meager 13 sacks in 12 games.

Also high on D’Onofrio’s list: Upgrading a run defense that improved in November, when Curtis Porter returned, but still finished 112th of 120 Bowl Subdivision schools.

D’Onofrio has the trust of Al Golden and until last year, a record of fielding generally stout defenses. But last season produced mostly angst: Miami allowed 30.5 points and 487 yards per game, and D’Onofrio faced a torrent of fan criticism.

“It’s something I have to ignore,” he said of fan backlash. “I have to put trust in my training. I’ve called over 85 games. First year I came here, we were in the top 20 in scoring defense. The year before at Temple, we were in the top 20 in scoring defense.”

Last year, he had a young group (Brandon McGee was the only senior) and had to overcome injury issues (Porter missed the first eight games), suspensions (Eddie Johnson, Gionni Paul) and the early NFL departures of Olivier Vernon and Marcus Forston.
Despite those impediments, some questioned his philosophy.

One scout said he had no issue with D’Onofrio’s approach, but another scout said he would like to have seen more blitzes, creative pressure packages, and more use of man-to-man coverage (especially bump and run) and less zone.

McGee defended D’Onofrio: “It’s a good system if it’s executed. All Coach D can do is the make the calls. We had mental breakdowns, guys not getting deep enough in coverage.”
D’Onofrio blitzed some, but not a ton, because he didn’t want to put his young secondary at risk and “you have to figure out the risk/reward. It comes down to putting guys in situations they’re ready for….

“I don’t know if the casual fan understands the depth of what we’re doing. There’s not a coverage we don’t have. We pressure a lot of different ways; I probably ran five different safety pressures last year. I’ve never been so stubborn that I say, ‘This is what we do.’ It’s about the players and what can they do well. I never get boxed in and say, ‘This is our scheme.’

“If you’ve got corners that can play press and play it well and the situation dictates it, that’s great. Press man is tremendous and we run it. [But] you can’t press every down because it doesn’t make sense. If the receivers are going to run your corners off and they have their back turned to the ball and the run pops, you’re playing with two less guys… At the end of the game, we’ve got to be able to make plays.”

One thing D’Onofrio wants to do differently: Play fewer players. He said UM used 25 to 27 a game on defense last season. “We have to get to the point where it’s not quite that many. If it’s 18 or 19, there can’t be that much of a dropoff from the first 11.”
Here’s how he plans to address other issues:

### Pass rush: UM doesn’t want to put all the pressure on Anthony Chickillo, who faced frequent double teams and saw his sacks drop from five to four. But more is obviously needed.
“Everyone wanted him to play like a senior, like he’s supposed to all of a sudden have 10 sacks as a sophomore,” D’Onofrio said. “That’s not realistic. He continued to improve.”

Equally important is getting more pass rush from the other end spot. Here’s the conundrum: Shayon Green led UM with 67 tackles but had no sacks. D’Onofrio conceded “it will be awful, awful hard to knock him out of the [lineup]” because of his “toughness, leadership, the way he plays.” But unless Green improves as a pass-rusher, that also means conceding that you're not going to get much of that from one of your starting ends.

So the pressure will again fall on the young ends: promising Tyriq McCord, who had 3.5 sacks, and Jelani Hamilton, who played sparingly in five games while rounding back into form from an ACL injury in high school.

“Jelani is getting stronger, starting to blow up,” D’Onofrio said. “I’m looking forward to seeing him in the spring.” There’s also hope that Olsen Pierre (1.5 sacks) can produce more pressure from a tackle spot.

And D’Onofrio expects immediate pass rush contributions from newcomers Al-Quadin Muhammed (12 sacks last season) and junior college transfers Devante Bond (17 sacks) and Ufomba Kamalu (7.5 sacks). “Those guys can get to the quarterback – that’s their expertise,” D’Onofrio said.

### Stopping the run: It all starts with Porter, who must stay healthy. He and Pierre formed a capable tackle duo in November, and having “Jimmy Gaines healthy at mike linebacker helped a lot, too,” D’Onofrio said.

But behind Porter and Pierre, UM needs growth from Luther Robinson (“he really played well for us the second half of the year,” D’Onofrio said), Jalen Grimble, DeQuan Ivery, Earl Moore and Corey King. D’Onofrio said Kamalu may end up playing tackle, too.

Besides needing to get stronger physically, “the group has to hold each other accountable that it’s not OK for a guy to be out of their gap and freelance,” D’Onofrio said. “It’s not just the coach out there going crazy, but a teammate that gets himself angry at another teammate.”
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http://miamiherald.typepad.com/sports-buzz/#storylink=cpy
 
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Good stuff.

Some have already written him off, some have been willing to cut him some slack.

Maybe naive but I've been in the "if Golden believes in him I will stick it out" crowd.

That said, no excuses this year.
 
JHallCanes said:
Good stuff.

Some have already written him off, some have been willing to cut him some slack.

Maybe naive but I've been in the "if Golden believes in him I will stick it out" crowd.

That said, no excuses this year.
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Give me a top 50 defense and we are winning 10 games, at least
 
Problem2 said:
JHallCanes said:
Good stuff.

Some have already written him off, some have been willing to cut him some slack.

Maybe naive but I've been in the "if Golden believes in him I will stick it out" crowd.

That said, no excuses this year.
Click to expand...

Give me a top 50 defense and we are winning 10 games, at least
Click to expand...

The health of a few guys is critical and the line is a big question mark, but I really like our secondary. Guys like Finnie and Paul would have been great for depth and could have both been starters, and EJ is up in the air but the defense should still be a **** of a lot better.

Is Finnie officially gone?
 
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Okay so here is the thing Donfrio wants to use less players on Defense but just moved a senior dyron dye and a junior in david perry to DE. So what does he plan on doing with them, plus all the others. Not to mention what happen to if a kid can play we will play him. On the dline you need to be able to play 10 deep (1st &2nd strings plus two pass rushing specialist) so then that means what everyone in back seven plays the whole game, I think not they need subbing also it in order to be fresh in the 4th qtr.

Lets see what he cooks up this year.

Go Canes
 
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Paranos said:
Okay so here is the thing Donfrio wants to use less players on Defense but just moved a senior dyron dye and a junior in david perry to DE. So what does he plan on doing with them, plus all the others. Not to mention what happen to if a kid can play we will play him. On the dline you need to be able to play 10 deep (1st &2nd strings plus two pass rushing specialist) so then that means what everyone in back seven plays the whole game, I think not they need subbing also it mj
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JMO but that's a nice way of saying "guys need to step up and be clear cut starters" rather than having a group that doesn't really bring anything different to the table.
 
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Weren't people complaining last year that we kept subbing in for our "best" guys after a couple of series? Think cutting down on the rotation would be seen as a good thing.
 
JHallCanes said:
Good stuff.

Some have already written him off, some have been willing to cut him some slack.

Maybe naive but I've been in the "if Golden believes in him I will stick it out" crowd.

That said, no excuses this year.
Click to expand...

Sadly, the reality is that there were Shanntard apologists who wrote Corch D off halfway through his first game against Maryland. And those loud, retarded grunting voices swayed a lot of weak followers to join the cacophony of idiocy. They wanted so badly to cling to Shanntard as a defensive genius, who didn't get a fair shot because of the racist white fans, that Corch D was their scapegoat no matter what.
 
"D’Onofrio has the trust of Al Golden and until last year, a record of fielding generally stout defenses. "

"Last year, he had a young group (Brandon McGee was the only senior) and had to overcome injury issues (Porter missed the first eight games), suspensions (Eddie Johnson, Gionni Paul) and the early NFL departures of Olivier Vernon and Marcus Forston."- Forgot to mention Ray Ray Armstrong got the boot and VT was finally exposed for being the JAG he is.

In summary, Coach D usually fields a stout D when he isn't dealing with young pups which consisted of 22 true Sophomores in the defensive two deep. This defense is going to be leaps and bounds better than last year. Coach D is the goods...
 
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I give him till 2 more years when Howard and those guys are JRs and this class is Soph. That will also hopefully give him a season of recruiting without this NCAA crap. After that year if we are still not getting better he will have to go.
 
SoFlaSmitty said:
I give him till 2 more years when Howard and those guys are JRs and this class is Soph. That will also hopefully give him a season of recruiting without this NCAA crap. After that year if we are still not getting better he will have to go.
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+1

Top 40 defense this year and then the following year the defense should be downright scary good.
 
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When he was at Temple, they had to run an extremely complex system. And it results in a top 20 scoring D. But at Temple, kids they played a ton of seniors, and kids weren't leaving early left and right.

The point Im making is his system is too complex to run unless you are fielding a heavily senior laden team. IMO they need to do LESS, not more blitzes and coverages.

You completely lose your speed and athleticism advantage when you have kids thinking too much.

The defense itself is fine, and would be cool in the NFL. It is ineffective with a bunch of college kids the majority of whom come from coaching by ****hole south Florida coaches.
 
GoldenShowers said:
When he was at Temple, they had to run an extremely complex system. And it results in a top 20 scoring D. But at Temple, kids they played a ton of seniors, and kids weren't leaving early left and right.

The point Im making is his system is too complex to run unless you are fielding a heavily senior laden team. IMO they need to do LESS, not more blitzes and coverages.

You completely lose your speed and athleticism advantage when you have kids thinking too much.

The defense itself is fine, and would be cool in the NFL. It is ineffective with a bunch of college kids the majority of whom come from coaching by ****hole south Florida coaches.
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Essentially you want Coach D to dumb down the playbook but yet Golden preaches high football IQ? Our fans claim Coach D doesn't know what he's doing but this scheme would be good in the NFL?

Once Coach D has a developed roster and his scheme is fully implemented CFB is focked. That is all...
 
Again follow what I said before you get your panties in a bunch.

The scheme itself is completely fine. And it works well when you have a bunch of professionals running it. And with a bunch of 5th year seniors you can even get to the 18th scoring D in the nation.

But Miami has never been a school with a ton of 5th year seniors playing, and while it's nice to have high IQ football kids, the kids that comprise most of our team come from areas notorious for horrendous football coaching.

I have never said Donofrio doesn't know what he's doing. In fact go to CI and look up multiple threads where I essentially taught the scheme to the "No D" whiners.

The issue is the execution of the scheme is not happening and we are losing our speed advantage as a result. Dumb it down and let the athletes play fast. Jimmy Johnson invented this concept. FSU used it to the tune of the number 2 D in football last year. Randy Shannon, may he rot in ****, had a half dozens seasons of elite D behind that philosophy.
 
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