forums

Miami steals DB Coach Will Harris from Gators

View as article
WeBallinBoyz said:
Florida’s pass defense last year:

- Yards allowed: 81st
- Coverage grade per PFF as a unit: 111th
- Zero safeties in the top 300 for overall defense...for context, despite how much y’all hated Powell, he was 139th. So OOF.

Top two safeties were as follows:

- Trikweze Bridges (314th out of 912 safeties); more than half his snaps came at wide CB

- Bryce Thornton (356 out of 912 safeties); decent in coverage but nothing spectacular (67.5, 410th/912). Excellent rushing the passer numbers primarily in blitz packages, mostly played free safety.

Sharif Denson was S3; finished with a 56.5 coverage grade, bottom 150 in the country at his position.

Castell was S4; coverage grade of 58.9, 649th. Regressed considerably from his 2023 numbers.

Can someone explain to me why this is a good hire, other than “Mario stuffed Billy in a locker”? Genuinely asking, thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Those guys probably ranked better than what we had!
 

Advertisement
ECE38FEE-80EF-477C-9798-B7FC56E1C216.jpeg
 
Advertisement
Hopefully, this is a good hire. I know less about him than I did Etheridge. I want a coach who can develop. I hope that's him. I can't credit anyone on their recruiting finish last cycle, just NIL money. Funny that everyone still thinks Billy gets fired. Anyway, we have our D staff finally, let's pray they jell and this D improves, a lot. Go Canes!
 
Advertisement
DTP said:
Florida was 43rd in pass efficiency defense last year against FBS opponents.

Miami was 51st.

Anyone with eyes who watched both teams could tell you which team padded numbers against weak early season opponents and which team improved as the season went on and opponents got tougher.

Florida’s allowed passer rating in 2023 was 149.5 it dropped to 126.2 in 2024. Remember this defense played against Cam Ward, Jackson Dart, Garrett Nussmier and Carson Beck.
Click to expand...

Without both starting cb from Game 7 on.
 
602Cane321 said:
Kendrick is legitimately UF. Tries to be a tough guy then gets bodied shortly there after. Drake set streaming records with his new album lmfao
Click to expand...

Since you brought it up

Imagine cheerleading about stream records?

KL bit the man’s head off. Pusha embarrassed him. **** Common merk’d him with one bar
 
Last edited:
DrNovaCane said:
From a coaching staff perspective; especially with a totally revamped defensive staff, "ON PAPER" this is one of the better staffs UM has had (top to bottom) in a longggggg time!

Filled with teachers and recruiters...

Add in the infusion of secondary talent and possibilities of Spring portal window to add a few more pieces; I'm excited for this upcoming season tbh.
Click to expand...
season 8 episode 6 GIF by SpongeBob SquarePants

me too
 
skeeter said:
Take a look at the schedule they of offenses they faced…Including the 2h of the season when they were without their top 2 corners.

Miami, Ole Miss, Tex, LSU passing offenses…GA takes a lot of flack, but that's still Carson Beck

Thornton missed time as well, they were kinda makeshift moving guys around all year. The consensus form their fanbase was he did very well holding it together especially after the injuries.
Click to expand...
This is a good point, so thank you for bringing that up. Wanted to respond to you first, then I’ll get to the others lol.

LSU, us of course, and Ole Miss were definitely in that boat. Texas was solid (they got eviscerated that game).

But A&M, Tennessee, FSU, Miss St, Georgia, Kentucky, UCF, Samford…bleh. All mid or bad passing offenses.

Fwiw, I wasn’t necessarily saying it’s a bad hire, I just wanted someone to explain why it was a good one using actual evidence.
 
Advertisement
CanesFan20 said:
I am not so sure using PFF grades to determine if an assistant coach hiring is good or not is a wise idea. It was clear as day the UF pass defense improved significantly as the year went on.

Nico 16-26 170 yards 1INT, Tennessee scored only 23 point in a game that went to OT

Kentucky Scored 20 and Vandagriff was 12/26 160 yards 1TD 2INTs

Carson Beck was 25/40 300 yards 2TDs 3INTs

Nussmier was 27/47 260 yards 1TD while LSU scored 16 points

Jaxon Dart 24/41 320 yards 2TDs 2INTs , Ole Miss only scored 17

Bowl Game against Tulane, Ty Thompson was 11/29 130 yards 1TD 3INTs
Click to expand...
You’re right that PFF doesn’t grade the coach - it just grades the players. Although I would argue that UF’s CBs were the strength of their secondary and not their safeties. Hopefully he can have more of an impact specifically focusing on the backend now.

Looking more into it now that I have had time, I do see that UF improved from 2023 to 2024 in passing yards allowed per attempt (61st at 7.3 yards per attempt) and passing yards per game (highlighted in my previous post at 81st overall). They were ranked 125th and 87th respectively in those two categories before he arrived, so while it’s not amazing improvement, it’s improvement.

Now I’m not going to fault you for cherry picking QB stats because half of the guys above aren’t good QBs imo, but like I told skeeter, the LSU, UGA and Ole Miss performances were very good. Dart and Nuss in particular looked lost in those games and were forcing balls - granted Dart was dealing with three missing OL, but no excuses because it was a game Ole Miss had to win and a game in which they were significantly more talented.

Appreciate the response 👍🏻
 
Advertisement
WeBallinBoyz said:
You’re right that PFF doesn’t grade the coach - it just grades the players. Although I would argue that UF’s CBs were the strength of their secondary and not their safeties. Hopefully he can have more of an impact specifically focusing on the backend now.

Looking more into it now that I have had time, I do see that UF improved from 2023 to 2024 in passing yards allowed per attempt (61st at 7.3 yards per attempt) and passing yards per game (highlighted in my previous post at 81st overall). They were ranked 125th and 87th respectively in those two categories before he arrived, so while it’s not amazing improvement, it’s improvement.

Now I’m not going to fault you for cherry picking QB stats because half of the guys above aren’t good QBs imo, but like I told skeeter, the LSU, UGA and Ole Miss performances were very good. Dart and Nuss in particular looked lost in those games and were forcing balls - granted Dart was dealing with three missing OL, but no excuses because it was a game Ole Miss had to win and a game in which they were significantly more talented.

Appreciate the response 👍🏻
Click to expand...
Jordan Castell had a great freshman year and then last year, under Harris, he wasn’t particularly good. I don’t know if it’s Harris or other factors. Their board seems to think he was a decent coach and recruiter though they spent big $$$ on their high school class so I guess we’ll see.
 
Gator friends stating he was pushed out.

“Was demoted on our team. We hired him to be our db coach. He failed and got demoted to corners coach. Then he and our DC didn’t get along because of it. Then we hired two new coaches and gave him notice.”
 
Advertisement
Back
Top