The Blueprint (Defense)

[datcaneguy]

Let this sink in. “The University of Miami lacks depth at corner back” a university at the center of one of the most fertile recruiting grounds in the nation.

 

[Dwinstitles]

Surtain was not recruited by Banda, Surtain Jr played for Rumph in HS.

Banda is a Safeties coach, he shouldn't have the responsibility of covering for another coaches inability to recruit their position. But aside from that, Banda has redeemed whatever misses he had in previous classes by landing prospects like Tae Williams, Jalen Harrell, Kam Kinchens & James Williams.

No matter how hard yall try, the fact is Rumph has not done his job at a respectable level. Blame Diaz, Blame Banda, Blame God, what cannot be denied by anyone is that the CB's Coach of the Miami Hurricanes has not done a good job recruiting CB's, if your solution to that problem is to have a whole other position coach handle the recruiting of CB's coach, then what is the purpose of having a CB's coach in the first place?

Does Rumph receive criticism he doesn't always deserve? Yes. But that doesn't mean he deserves no criticism at all.

Preach

Anyone defending him is fried. I remember him getting credit for Jackson and them boys....I was just thinking to myself what happens when he doesn't have good cbs......years later we are here discussing his trashness

 

[86Gang]

You really going to give Manny credit for 53/55/56?? I'm just talking recruit evaluation.

Half bc they still had to seal the deal. The system made them good. That’s why I give Manny so much credit. I always think about how good Denzel, Quan, and Grace would have been in Manny system. Smh

 

[Dwinstitles]

Idk about that, I doubt he'd a hold a grudge for that long, I mean he went to Auburn & had a solid career, Idk what exactly he would need to be still be mad at. But money is the grand equalizer...

Offer him a good contract & I'm sure if he did have any kind of vendetta he'd be able to put it aside.

T Rob here wouldn't even be fair and that's the way it should be
And yes money makes Miami hurricane fans play for the sec. Money changes minds

 

[Calinative]

Surtain was not recruited by Banda, Surtain Jr played for Rumph in HS.

Banda is a Safeties coach, he shouldn't have the responsibility of covering for another coaches inability to recruit their position. But aside from that, Banda has redeemed whatever misses he had in previous classes by landing prospects like Tae Williams, Jalen Harrell, Kam Kinchens & James Williams.

No matter how hard yall try, the fact is Rumph has not done his job at a respectable level. Blame Diaz, Blame Banda, Blame God, what cannot be denied by anyone is that the CB's Coach of the Miami Hurricanes has not done a good job recruiting CB's, if your solution to that problem is to have a whole other position coach handle the recruiting of CB's coach, then what is the purpose of having a CB's coach in the first place?

Does Rumph receive criticism he doesn't always deserve? Yes. But that doesn't mean he deserves no criticism at all.

Then the insiders need to get their stories straight. Because everyone was saying Rumph is so bad that Banda was recruiting Surtain and Campbell and that Rumph wasn't allowed to. Same **** with Jason Marshall. I'm not just making this ish up.

Again I also didn't say Rumph deserves no criticism. I already said its time to move on. Id love to bring in a elite cb coach. But its simple, if he gets sidelined in recruitment by Diaz, then why is he being blamed so heavily for the misses? It just doesnt add up. I mean look what @dsddcane says about Rumph and ****, which I'm more inclined to believe. People just want one guy to blame rather than realize the problem we are seeing at Cb is the representative of a larger problem.

 

[BigWindyCane1]

Recruiting is an inexact science. Fans don’t have the answers, but we can try to identify trends both nationally and at Miami. Below is one attempt to collect these trends by position and see how they apply to the Canes. The offensive list is here.

DT

THE TRENDS: Defensive tackle is the ultimate bag position. There are only so many humans with the requisite size, athleticism and attitude walking the Earth. Most live in the South, and they are easy to identify. This leads to massive bidding wars. Over the past two years, seven of the eight (88%) first round DTs were blue-chip prospects from the South. Christian Wilkins (a blue chipper from Connecticut) was the only exception.

HOW DOES MIAMI STACK UP: For a program that lacks cash and cache, Miami is doing pretty well. Manny has landed the three local must-haves in Leonard Taylor, Nesta Silvera and Elijah Roberts. He’s also been creative in building up the unit’s athleticism, landing a former hooper (Jared Harrison-Hunte) and three guys with exceptional testing numbers (Jason Blissett, Jalar Holley and Quentin Williams). There is some lack of size beyond Jon Ford and Jordan Miller, but that is OK in this system.

DE

THE TRENDS: Pass rusher has quietly become the premier position in South Florida. The Bosa Brothers, Brian Burns and Josh Uche followed Jason Pierre-Paul, Olivier Vernon and Jabaal Sheard, all of whom have over 50 sacks in the pros. If a local player has sufficient length (preferably 6’4 and above) and change-of-direction, he should be a Cane. Manny’s system requires less physicality from the position than Golden’s system, so the primary criteria needs to be the ability to get in the backfield and disrupt.

HOW DOES MIAMI STACK UP: Very well. This may be Manny’s best position. We’ve consistently been among the national leaders in sacks with a steady stream of South Florida kids: Greg Rousseau, Chad Thomas, Joe Jackson and Jon Garvin. This year, Jabari Ishmael and Pat Payton both meet the criteria of long pass rushers with enough change of direction to play off-the-ball if necessary.

Miami has the most DEs in the NFL of any college and needs to sell that nationally. As Miami increases its national reach, we need to be sticklers about motor and hand usage. Those are differentiators when you are evaluating elite rush talents.

LB

THE TRENDS: This is a hard position to peg. I watched the HUDLs for the first round picks of the past three drafts and the LBs projected to go in the Top 50 this year. There were:

• Four RB/LBs (Patrick Queen, Devin White, Roquan Smith and Dylan Moses)
• Four converted QBs (Tremaine Edmunds, Leighton Vander Esch, Chazz Surratt and Zaven Collins)
• Three high school edge rushers (Micah Parsons, Kenneth Murray and Rashaan Evans)
• Three traditional LBs (Jordyn Brooks, Devin Bush and Nick Bolton)
• Two WR/S (Isaiah Simmons and Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah)

The one common theme is that they all had long TD runs on their clips, whether they were on offense, defense or special teams. You need to run at this position. The average testing profile coming out was bigger than expected: 6’2, 224, 4.70 forty, 4.39 shuttle and 34.1 VJ.

South Florida has been weak at LB for the past decade or so. The truly elite names (Lavonte David, Ryan Shazier, Devin Bush and Anthony Walker) all ended up in the Big 10 for some reason.

HOW DOES MIAMI STACK UP: This position has been a struggle. Miami hasn’t landed a great local LB since Denzel Perryman in 2011, and the unit is currently in disarray. It’s hard to compare our current commits since they don’t have testing numbers. However, you can see comps for Chase Smith (as a WR/DB) and Tyler Johnson (as a twitched-up rusher) in some recent first rounders. Sam Brooks has an almost identical testing and position profile to Kenneth Murray, but he’s been playing with an injured foot all year and looks like a shell of himself. One comparison for Corey Flagg could be Missouri’s Nick Bolton, who has similar testing numbers and was a hyper-productive three star in Texas.

S

THE TRENDS: Locally, the trend is clear: Miami needs to win blue-chip battles. It has won four of those since 2012: Deon Bush, Jamal Carter, Jaquan Johnson and Gurvan Hall. The jury is out on Hall, but the other three made the NFL. However, Miami has lost more battles than it has won lately. Both of Alabama’s starting safeties are from South Florida, as are starters on Georgia and UF.

Nationally, there has been a recent trend toward sleepers. In 2019, only 1 of the 12 safeties drafted in the first four rounds was a blue chipper (former Miami commit Chauncey-Gardner Johnson). In 2020, only 3 of the 12 safeties drafted in the first four rounds was a blue chipper. They are all different sizes and come from all over the country, but the consistent theme is that they also played offense. Despite Coach D’Onofrio’s famous proclamation that he wanted “safeties who play safety,” it appears the NFL disagrees.

HOW DOES MIAMI STACK UP: The 2021 class is a huge step forward. James Williams and Kamren Kinchens are the exact kids Miami has been losing to the SEC. The 2019 class had Avantae Williams (who also played RB) and three local kids who only played safety. However, it is more common for local kids to only play on one side of the ball due to the depth of skill position talent.

CB

THE TRENDS: This position is an arms race. Fifteen of the 20 first rounders since 2016 have been blue chippers. The majority of the 29 DBs drafted in the first four rounds of the ‘19-20 drafts were blue chippers, as well. Teams like Ohio State and LSU dominate. This position is starting to mirror WR in many ways—you need a premium recruiter.

Urban Meyer has a great eye for CBs and says his first priority by far is man-coverage ability. Camp footage is particularly important for CBs, as they compete against comparable talent on every snap. Many of Urban's signees also played offense. In terms of sleeper trends, there have been three recent first rounders from North Carolina (Jaire Alexander, Mike Hughes, soon-to-be Caleb Fairley) who played both ways and flew under the recruiting radar. That may be a trend to keep an eye on. South Florida also produced two 3* first rounders (DeAndre Baker and Damon Arnette), although they did not play both ways due to the local depth at the position.

HOW DOES MIAMI STACK UP: Miami needs to perform better in big-time battles. If you gave us Bama’s corners (Pat Surtain, Jr. and Josh Jobe), we’d have the deepest group in the nation. I don’t want to make this another Mike Rumph thread, but even those of us who have been patient are starting to see the writing on the wall.

In this class, I'd like to see us pick up at least one player with big-time physical upside. It's good to build our floor with quality local cover guys. Shannon and Golden didn't do that and it killed our depth. But we also need someone to emerge as a frontline size/speed guy.

Another great article! Keep it up!

 

[Coach Macho]

Just an FYI...

That's 4th & 17 play versus UNC wasn't on our CB's, it was on our Safety and mainly our DC for calling that stupid a$$ coverage.
A CB wasn't covering that deep-out that UNC threw for the 1st down, it was the Strong Safety and Striker.

 

[Coach Macho]

LB is always gonna be a tough position to recruit down here if you're not willing to take undersized guys. (i.e. Sean Spence, Lavonte David, Devin Bush, Hypolite, etc)

We simply don't have a lot of 6'1" 220lb kids playing LB down here. Those type of kids tend to play the edge in South Florida. (i.e. Ryan Shazier)
I've got 2 traditional Linebackers playing the edge for me right now, as a matter of fact.
One is around 6'3" 210lb and the other is around 6'1" 215lb.
Even Gemon Eaford was an edge guy when he was here. In my 3 seasons at Deerfield we haven't had one single true DE, they've all been LB's.
True Defensive Ends are hard to come by on the high school level so coaches often stick "college linebackers" on the edge. Unless you're STA or Heritage, it's hard to have REAL Defensive Ends on your roster every year.

I actually think I may have the next prototype LB from South Florida in Jayvant Brown. Kid is already around 6'1" 210lbs as a 10th grader and he's an athletic freak. Plays LB and RB. He's going to be a big time recruit. Let's hope Macho doesn't ***** him up. LOL
Hopefully Miami jumps on board soon.

A few years ago I had a conversation with the Pitt Linebacker coach while he was recruiting the Tampa area. We talked about the LB position in the state of Florida, particularly South Florida. His words were somewhere along the line of...
"I love those kids down there! Those undersized kids that run all over the field, hunt everything down, strike ball carriers! I call'em Dade County Linebackers. They're just too small to take unfortunately. I can't bring a bunch of 5'10"-5'11" kids back to Pitt, I'll get fired."
We need to be creative and use good evaluation when recruiting the LB position.

CB we should never struggle to recruit. It's embarrassing actually. They grow on trees down here. Unfortunately it's a money position and the elite ones ain't coming here yet so we need to be more willing to recruit the smaller, pesky guys. I feel like our coaches (and sometimes our fans) struggle to come to grasps with WHO WE ARE right now and WHERE WE'RE AT. We're not the elite Miami of old that can afford to be so **** picky. We're not in that position right now. We're fvckin...Duke practically. LOL (well maybe not that bad) Virginia Tech? Now if we can win-out and finish highly ranked then perhaps that perception will start to change.
Point being, we can't recruit with this "we're Miami" attitude. Nobody gives a fvck about that right now because we haven't won **** in forever. We need to be recruiting and developing like a program that's trying to COME UP not a program that's already elite and can afford to be picky. Those local kids that go to Louisville, Boston College, Pitt, Oklahoma, Utah, etc...WE NEED TO BE LOOKING AT THOSE KIDS TOO. Sometimes we ignore those kids because "we're Miami" and they're "too small". But then they go to college and ball the fvck out while we're left here with Larry Hope and Nate Dortch.

Until we can afford to sign more big fish we need to do a much better job of evaluating the lower ranked ones that can contribute here and compete in the ACC. We have NOT done a good job of that for years and we've watched wayyyy too many local 3-stars go to other programs and ball out. (I'm even watching some of them in the NFL)

 

[Calvin]

They let their hate for a Man show more than the facts. Show me a game where the Corners lost the game for us... He only mentioned one. Now show me the games where we got gashed, and our Linebackers who played here for 4yrs couldn't take the right angles to make the tackle. Show me why we haven't set the edge in forever. Show me why our Linebackers look bad in coverage we literally get killed by the TEs. Show me why we're relying on our CBs to get off blocks and make tackles lol. Again where is our LBS... Against good teams no where to be found. Let's pull up a real team like Wisconsin film. That's Manny Defense in a nutshell against good teams. A gimmick.

ROFL, UH OH, another real True Miami player exist, Great to see you! This man just broke it down for all the new fake bandwagon UM people on this board these days. Man, alot of these ****'s in here are pathetic, in 18 when we had#1 pass defense alot of these imbeciles said "name one top qb or passing offense we faced" when the Lsu stats were brought out, crickets, we held Lsu & joe burrow to less passing yards than pretty much all those other s.e.c. schools with Jhavonte dean in the line-up giving up about half of the passing yards. This year, after the Clemson game, the question was asked, was trevor lawrence and clemson a good enuff qb and passing offense, dj ivey scored that touchdown and you can tell the haters were mad, didn't even mention it, he gets the game winning pick against NC St. crickets again, to many fake ****'s in here, they still mad from that G-tech game where they still think that special teams bomb was ivey's fault, the **** coaching staff phucked up and showed those tendecies all year. In the meantime we got coach diaz running his trap to the media about "the team learning how to win" bullshat, whenever a new headcoach starts talking like that, the cluelessness is still shining bright, shows he doesn't understand yet!

 

[Calvin]

Just an FYI...

That's 4th & 17 play versus UNC wasn't on our CB's, it was on our Safety and mainly our DC for calling that stupid a$$ coverage.
A CB wasn't covering that deep-out that UNC threw for the 1st down, it was the Strong Safety and Striker.

But actually he sent the "striker" in on a blitz, played press-man on the weak/same side he sent the blitz in on, it was just a stupid play-call, than pre-snap our defenders we're already aligned wrong. Also, having quarterman and pickney dropping back into pass coverage after hovering around the line of scrimmage was asanine, knowing they already don't have the foot-speed to get back that far, that defensive play-call was doomed from the get go. It was just a basic 3 man route, nothing fancy, we got the players, baker is in over his head.

 

[Calvin]

No disrespect to your comment but I can’t imagine a kid saying “ he can’t get off of a block because of the defense being played” there are block destruction drills that I’m sure they rep every week on practice. No excuse.

It's not about the drills, when you have your db's playing off their back-foot to many times in a game with receivers knowing what coverages or look they're getting, advantage offense. Asking guys to consistently be in bail techniques and than come back and try and crash thru an on-coming blocking receiver is asanine, the defensive play-calling keeps putting our db's at a disadvantage under blake-baker, with that being said, our db's have done a real good job in run support under the circumstances.

In essence, blake baker is wearing his own db's down and doesn't understand WTF he's doing. You can look in blake baker's eyes that he's not confident and doesn't know WTF he's doing.

Wisconsin in the orange bowl the CBs did every throw they were in perfect position but never turned thier head

Ok, all db's go thru that from time to time, those Wisconsin games had a whole lot of other problems, wasn't our corners, but at the same time, like now, Wisconsin just picked on the linebackers and called a bunch of delayed offensive type plays in 17, and if the blatant penalties we're called we would've still had won that game, 2018, no need in talking bout that game, not to many players cared! But 17 was a hard fought game, rosier had one of the best seasons a qb has had at UM period, his running ability and his reads on the read option were top notch. Stop trying to blame our corners, our secondaries have not been the problem since coach rumph and coach banda has been here.

 

[TheOriginalCane]

lol i know youre kidding, but were going to run mannys scheme. also, we cant afford champ

I'm not kidding, and we can afford to do whatever we want.

 

[TheOriginalCane]

They keep blaming coach rumph, when our corners havent cost us games since coach rumph has been here. Not sure what all the misinformation and lies about coach rumph keep coming from, he's not the d-co, our corners stay ready and fight all game long!

Too much logic, stats, and facts.

 

[DMoney]

DMoney, you have identified some very good trend info for LB/CB. I know there was some talk about Ed Reed playing a role in film analysis and recruiting evals. Since Manny has "never played the game", is there any chance that these trends, and the process of talent ID, will be assisted by Ed and/or other former players? It's one thing for Manny to have a defensive "scheme", something that he likes to do as far as his approach to the game, but sometimes any good coach needs another person and/or perspective to monitor something(s) that is not within his skillset.

I'd love to see Ed help us to find the SoFla players with LB/CB skills and demeanor, even if it involves position changes.

He’s already involved from what I understand.

However, I will say that former players aren’t always the best evaluators. Too often they put undue influence on their own playing careers. Notice how several of our corners are similar to Rumph (just not as talented).

 

[hoops156]

Then the insiders need to get their stories straight. Because everyone was saying Rumph is so bad that Banda was recruiting Surtain and Campbell and that Rumph wasn't allowed to. Same **** with Jason Marshall. I'm not just making this ish up.

Again I also didn't say Rumph deserves no criticism. I already said its time to move on. Id love to bring in a elite cb coach. But its simple, if he gets sidelined in recruitment by Diaz, then why is he being blamed so heavily for the misses? It just doesnt add up. I mean look what @dsddcane says about Rumph and ****, which I'm more inclined to believe. People just want one guy to blame rather than realize the problem we are seeing at Cb is the representative of a larger problem.

A. rumph gets sidelined Bc he can’t recruit he’s proven that. He sucks as a recruiter amd isn’t as good as a db coach

 

[TheOriginalCane]

He’s already involved from what I understand.

However, I will say that former players aren’t always the best evaluators. Too often they put undue influence on their own playing careers. Notice how several of our corners are similar to Rumph (just not as talented).

Gotcha. I am not expecting Ed to make safeties play like him (though that would be awesome), but more along the lines of identifying the trends that you highlighted. This is something I would have expected Highsmith to do, as I was very much in favor of bringing in Alonzo for these kinds of high-level trendspotting and analysis.

There's "micro" (where a position coach sees some of his own traits in a recruit and then focuses on that recruit to the exclusion of others) and there's "macro" (where someone can take a high-level approach like you did and convert it into particular recruiting and position-change actions).

Division of labor. I don't expect that every coach will be able to see the big picture. I'm not saying that Ed Reed is the greatest genius to ever hit college football, but more that his standing and respect might allow him to express and execute on some steps that any one position coach might not have the juice to get done on his own.

 

[305407cane]

If we evaluated and just signed the best players from south Florida regardless of measurable we’d be fine. Bandy and couch are two of our best in recent years and they’re both small. Yeah mj28 was big fast and a good player for us but that doesn’t change what our strategy should be. We should sign the best players regardless. **** rashad wildgoose is boys with frierson and he’d probably be the best players in our secondary. Big ten teams actively avoid him. Illinois was moving their best receiver all over the place to get away from him. And goose followed him and shut him down for the most part. And not taking divaad Wilson cause of a beef? Nah man that’s beta mentality

Also how we recruit is as much a problem as who we recruit. Samuel and jaden Davis should have been canes. I’m not saying they’re Richard Sherman but we’d be better with them here.

And then maybe when we start elevating our play over a longer sample size then we can land a Campbell Stevenson or Marshall. You all love to bring up bags but at the end of the day those schools have first round corners on their resume in the last couple years. (DeAndre baker, Henderson, etc).

 

[SinisterCane]

They keep blaming coach rumph, when our corners havent cost us games since coach rumph has been here. Not sure what all the misinformation and lies about coach rumph keep coming from, he's not the d-co, our corners stay ready and fight all game long!

WR's and Upper classmen LB's play is **** level

 

[SinisterCane]

Then the insiders need to get their stories straight. Because everyone was saying Rumph is so bad that Banda was recruiting Surtain and Campbell and that Rumph wasn't allowed to. Same **** with Jason Marshall. I'm not just making this ish up.

Again I also didn't say Rumph deserves no criticism. I already said its time to move on. Id love to bring in a elite cb coach. But its simple, if he gets sidelined in recruitment by Diaz, then why is he being blamed so heavily for the misses? It just doesnt add up. I mean look what @dsddcane says about Rumph and ****, which I'm more inclined to believe. People just want one guy to blame rather than realize the problem we are seeing at Cb is the representative of a larger problem.

Fire both Rumph and Panda and get real DB coach

 

[Ethnicsands]

Recruiting is an inexact science. Fans don’t have the answers, but we can try to identify trends both nationally and at Miami. Below is one attempt to collect these trends by position and see how they apply to the Canes. The offensive list is here.

DT

THE TRENDS: Defensive tackle is the ultimate bag position. There are only so many humans with the requisite size, athleticism and attitude walking the Earth. Most live in the South, and they are easy to identify. This leads to massive bidding wars. Over the past two years, seven of the eight (88%) first round DTs were blue-chip prospects from the South. Christian Wilkins (a blue chipper from Connecticut) was the only exception.

HOW DOES MIAMI STACK UP: For a program that lacks cash and cache, Miami is doing pretty well. Manny has landed the three local must-haves in Leonard Taylor, Nesta Silvera and Elijah Roberts. He’s also been creative in building up the unit’s athleticism, landing a former hooper (Jared Harrison-Hunte) and three guys with exceptional testing numbers (Jason Blissett, Jalar Holley and Quentin Williams). There is some lack of size beyond Jon Ford and Jordan Miller, but that is OK in this system.

DE

THE TRENDS: Pass rusher has quietly become the premier position in South Florida. The Bosa Brothers, Brian Burns and Josh Uche followed Jason Pierre-Paul, Olivier Vernon and Jabaal Sheard, all of whom have over 50 sacks in the pros. If a local player has sufficient length (preferably 6’4 and above) and change-of-direction, he should be a Cane. Manny’s system requires less physicality from the position than Golden’s system, so the primary criteria needs to be the ability to get in the backfield and disrupt.

HOW DOES MIAMI STACK UP: Very well. This may be Manny’s best position. We’ve consistently been among the national leaders in sacks with a steady stream of South Florida kids: Greg Rousseau, Chad Thomas, Joe Jackson and Jon Garvin. This year, Jabari Ishmael and Pat Payton both meet the criteria of long pass rushers with enough change of direction to play off-the-ball if necessary.

Miami has the most DEs in the NFL of any college and needs to sell that nationally. As Miami increases its national reach, we need to be sticklers about motor and hand usage. Those are differentiators when you are evaluating elite rush talents.

LB

THE TRENDS: This is a hard position to peg. I watched the HUDLs for the first round picks of the past three drafts and the LBs projected to go in the Top 50 this year. There were:

• Four RB/LBs (Patrick Queen, Devin White, Roquan Smith and Dylan Moses)
• Four converted QBs (Tremaine Edmunds, Leighton Vander Esch, Chazz Surratt and Zaven Collins)
• Three high school edge rushers (Micah Parsons, Kenneth Murray and Rashaan Evans)
• Three traditional LBs (Jordyn Brooks, Devin Bush and Nick Bolton)
• Two WR/S (Isaiah Simmons and Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah)

The one common theme is that they all had long TD runs on their clips, whether they were on offense, defense or special teams. You need to run at this position. The average testing profile coming out was bigger than expected: 6’2, 224, 4.70 forty, 4.39 shuttle and 34.1 VJ.

South Florida has been weak at LB for the past decade or so. The truly elite names (Lavonte David, Ryan Shazier, Devin Bush and Anthony Walker) all ended up in the Big 10 for some reason.

HOW DOES MIAMI STACK UP: This position has been a struggle. Miami hasn’t landed a great local LB since Denzel Perryman in 2011, and the unit is currently in disarray. It’s hard to compare our current commits since they don’t have testing numbers. However, you can see comps for Chase Smith (as a WR/DB) and Tyler Johnson (as a twitched-up rusher) in some recent first rounders. Sam Brooks has an almost identical testing and position profile to Kenneth Murray, but he’s been playing with an injured foot all year and looks like a shell of himself. One comparison for Corey Flagg could be Missouri’s Nick Bolton, who has similar testing numbers and was a hyper-productive three star in Texas.

S

THE TRENDS: Locally, the trend is clear: Miami needs to win blue-chip battles. It has won four of those since 2012: Deon Bush, Jamal Carter, Jaquan Johnson and Gurvan Hall. The jury is out on Hall, but the other three made the NFL. However, Miami has lost more battles than it has won lately. Both of Alabama’s starting safeties are from South Florida, as are starters on Georgia and UF.

Nationally, there has been a recent trend toward sleepers. In 2019, only 1 of the 12 safeties drafted in the first four rounds was a blue chipper (former Miami commit Chauncey-Gardner Johnson). In 2020, only 3 of the 12 safeties drafted in the first four rounds was a blue chipper. They are all different sizes and come from all over the country, but the consistent theme is that they also played offense. Despite Coach D’Onofrio’s famous proclamation that he wanted “safeties who play safety,” it appears the NFL disagrees.

HOW DOES MIAMI STACK UP: The 2021 class is a huge step forward. James Williams and Kamren Kinchens are the exact kids Miami has been losing to the SEC. The 2019 class had Avantae Williams (who also played RB) and three local kids who only played safety. However, it is more common for local kids to only play on one side of the ball due to the depth of skill position talent.

CB

THE TRENDS: This position is an arms race. Fifteen of the 20 first rounders since 2016 have been blue chippers. The majority of the 29 DBs drafted in the first four rounds of the ‘19-20 drafts were blue chippers, as well. Teams like Ohio State and LSU dominate. This position is starting to mirror WR in many ways—you need a premium recruiter.

Urban Meyer has a great eye for CBs and says his first priority by far is man-coverage ability. Camp footage is particularly important for CBs, as they compete against comparable talent on every snap. Many of Urban's signees also played offense. In terms of sleeper trends, there have been three recent first rounders from North Carolina (Jaire Alexander, Mike Hughes, soon-to-be Caleb Fairley) who played both ways and flew under the recruiting radar. That may be a trend to keep an eye on. South Florida also produced two 3* first rounders (DeAndre Baker and Damon Arnette), although they did not play both ways due to the local depth at the position.

HOW DOES MIAMI STACK UP: Miami needs to perform better in big-time battles. If you gave us Bama’s corners (Pat Surtain, Jr. and Josh Jobe), we’d have the deepest group in the nation. I don’t want to make this another Mike Rumph thread, but even those of us who have been patient are starting to see the writing on the wall.

In this class, I'd like to see us pick up at least one player with big-time physical upside. It's good to build our floor with quality local cover guys. Shannon and Golden didn't do that and it killed our depth. But we also need someone to emerge as a frontline size/speed guy.

Good stuff, D$.

We've done reasonable well evaluating DEs and Safeties over time, and signed talented kids. Not the areas I see as glaring deficiencies.

We've done 'okay' at DT evals -- just not as good at selling (recruiting) the top kids ... but maybe we're improving there now. We've certainly come a ways since the days of Josh Holmes and Luqman Abdullah. I agree that the very top kids here are often SEC bag kids. But if we eval well, we can do okay here (and have), at at least have the unit as a stable contributor on D. Disruptive kids are harder to get. Winning will change the dynamic for the top kids. I don't see a big issue with our evals here. Sure, at the margin. But not fundamental.

At CB, we just haven't recruited well. That's the big issue. Harder to comment on evals. We just don't win recruiting battles here and have even lost kids to programs we should never lose kids to.

LB is all evals. We don't know what we're looking for and it shows. This is reinforced by D$'s point that many good kids at this spot are projections from other positions when you're recruiting. We need to change who and how we evaluate this position.