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The struggle at defensive back

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This might just be the way of the world now.

In the last 5 drafts we've had 15 players drafted. 9 we recruited out of high school, 6 were transfers.

It's not like we've been doing great at any position group (TE & DL would be the best)

But of course just getting SFL players like Tyrique Stevenson & Jaden Harris out of HS vs transferring home would be ideal.
 
tdjones34 said:
he locked up Coleman for like 28 yards in 1st start, looked very good vs UF
not saying hes done enough, but hes looked good
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I agree. I saw enough of Damari Brown to feel very encouraged. We need to recruit and develop more players like Damari and OJ because we always need depth.
 
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The same people that think brown isnt an NFL talent(barring injuries), are the same people that constantly trashed Ivey and said he wasn’t going enough to make it to the NFL. It’s the same group of people that called for Kitchens’s head all season last year
 
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DMoney said:
Good point. WR might be worse. The last receiver we signed who made the NFL was Braxton Berrios, Class of 2014.

But that one has turned around lately. Still no first rounder, but Restrepo, George and Horton are part of a very good group.
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Maybe good by no where near very good. When you need a play who can you reliably feed? X been getting blanketed. Horton is sluggish with his size and is more of a box out use your body type of wr. No one in this wr core scares defenses and no one can consistently get open vs man coverage. We have a wr core that thrives attacking space in zone coverage...teams have figured that out and started to play more man. Results not so impressive as Cam holds the ball and waits for some one to uncover over and over.
 
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It so bizarre. Every power 4 team seems to have at least one solid DB from the Miami area, EXCEPT Miami.

Part of the problem was prioritizing "elite" prospects well beyond the point where it was apparent we were going to finish 3 or 4th, at best. Then predictably, we were too late jumping in on kids already committed to UL, Pitt, MSU, Ole Miss. USCa, etc.

DB is the most apparent currently, but this has been a problem across several staffs are all South FL money positions-- CB, S, WR, RB, DE, and LB.

Coaches felt that if their Plan A thru D targets were top 200 players they were doing their job. While that's partly true, it overlooks our real bread and butter, which is south FL kids who outperform their star rankings in college.

There are literally so many kids down here who lack some elite measurable, that they just get slapped as a 3 star and the services move on, but the kids on field production is out of hand. Those are the kids we're supposed to be signing too.
 
DMoney said:
Before I get into it, let me start with a disclaimer: this not a thread about Guidry's coaching, nor is it an excuse for him. Our defense has many issues that go beyond talent. But I wanted to focus on this specific problem, since it's plagued us for almost a decade now.

The last time Miami played great pass defense was from 2016-2018. We finished 12th, 20th and 4th nationally in pass efficiency defense over those three seasons. There are a lot of reasons why those groups played well, but one of them jumped off the page. Here are our starters from that era and the amount of games they played in the NFL:

Adrian Colbert- 41 games
Corn Elder- 35 games
Rayshawn Jenkins- 115 games (and counting)
Jamal Carter- 29 games
Jaquan Johnson- 60 games
Sheldrick Redwine- 34 games
Dee Delaney- 52 games
Mike Jackson- 48 games (and counting)

It's not complicated- we had some talent. Pretty much every DB starter from that period played multiple NFL seasons. It seems the sweet spot was Al Golden's recruits playing in Manny Diaz's scheme (two more Golden DBs, Artie Burns and Deon Bush, were drafted the previous year).

Now look at the drought that followed. From 2016-2022 (seven recruiting cycles), these are the only DBs we signed out of high school who were drafted as defensive backs:

DJ Ivey
Kam Kinchens

That's it. Two in seven years. If you include James Williams, who was drafted as a LB, it becomes three. And even though the problem goes well beyond local misses, this is an era where South Florida DBs got drafted in droves:

Patrick Surtain (1)
CJ Henderson (1)
Kaiir Elam (1)
Tyson Campbell (2)
Asante Samuel (2)
Trayvon Mullen (2)
Jordan Battle (3)
Marco Wilson (4)
Jarvis Brownlee (5)
Josh Metellus (6)
Rachad Wildgoose (6)
Faion Hicks (7)
James Wiggins (7)

When I look at the current group, OJ Frederique is the only guy that I feel good about as a future NFL talent. Maybe Damari Brown if he comes back strong. But this is a problem that has plagued us for a long time and has only gotten worse in past nine years. Mario's first full class (2023) was notably lacking in defensive backs, so it's not just a Manny issue.

We need to land multiple NFL defensive backs in the Class of 2025, and the Portal will have to make up for some misses. Miami is not Miami without a great secondary.

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Great points about DB recruiting, draft & overall talent. Unfortunately, it’s a discussion for another day. The issues right now aren’t just DBs. They’re as simple as the defense getting lined up - DL & LB - not getting out flanked, containment & tackling. It’s not a talent question limited to a specific position group.
 
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BigDikDaddyFromCincinnati said:
I'm curious. How do you know Damari is an NFL talent? He hasn't seen much PT since he's been here; certainly not enough to make a statement like that. Are you at Greentree regularly?
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The Legend of Damari Brown around here is hysterical.

He had 14 to tackles last year, zero int's and zero passes defended. I hope he turns into an All-American for us, but based on his play to date he's an unknown.
 
DMoney said:
Before I get into it, let me start with a disclaimer: this not a thread about Guidry's coaching, nor is it an excuse for him. Our defense has many issues that go beyond talent. But I wanted to focus on this specific problem, since it's plagued us for almost a decade now.

The last time Miami played great pass defense was from 2016-2018. We finished 12th, 20th and 4th nationally in pass efficiency defense over those three seasons. There are a lot of reasons why those groups played well, but one of them jumped off the page. Here are our starters from that era and the amount of games they played in the NFL:

Adrian Colbert- 41 games
Corn Elder- 35 games
Rayshawn Jenkins- 115 games (and counting)
Jamal Carter- 29 games
Jaquan Johnson- 60 games
Sheldrick Redwine- 34 games
Dee Delaney- 52 games
Mike Jackson- 48 games (and counting)

It's not complicated- we had some talent. Pretty much every DB starter from that period played multiple NFL seasons. It seems the sweet spot was Al Golden's recruits playing in Manny Diaz's scheme (two more Golden DBs, Artie Burns and Deon Bush, were drafted the previous year).

Now look at the drought that followed. From 2016-2022 (seven recruiting cycles), these are the only DBs we signed out of high school who were drafted as defensive backs:

DJ Ivey
Kam Kinchens

That's it. Two in seven years. If you include James Williams, who was drafted as a LB, it becomes three. And even though the problem goes well beyond local misses, this is an era where South Florida DBs got drafted in droves:

Patrick Surtain (1)
CJ Henderson (1)
Kaiir Elam (1)
Tyson Campbell (2)
Asante Samuel (2)
Trayvon Mullen (2)
Jordan Battle (3)
Marco Wilson (4)
Jarvis Brownlee (5)
Josh Metellus (6)
Rachad Wildgoose (6)
Faion Hicks (7)
James Wiggins (7)

When I look at the current group, OJ Frederique is the only guy that I feel good about as a future NFL talent. Maybe Damari Brown if he comes back strong. But this is a problem that has plagued us for a long time and has only gotten worse in past nine years. Mario's first full class (2023) was notably lacking in defensive backs, so it's not just a Manny issue.

We need to land multiple NFL defensive backs in the Class of 2025, and the Portal will have to make up for some misses. Miami is not Miami without a great secondary.

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That having NFL talent in the back end would improve our play isn't an interesting point to me. Of course it would. A water is wet type of observation.

But we don't have NFL talent, let alone 1st, 2nd or 3rd team All-ACC talent notwithstanding Mario's purported roster building skills (with the possible exception of OJ).

You've eliminated it as a point of discussion in this thread but to me the only interesting discussion given our play on defense is why teams with arguably even less talent in the back four are playing meaningfully better defense than us.

If we're not going to add future NFL talent to the roster, as has been the case since Mario's been here, what do we do? Just accept that our defense will be terrible? Or figure out what SMU, UVA, UNC, VT, etc, etc are doing on defense with non-NFL talent that we don't seem capable of doing. This is the only interesting discussion about our defensive problems, at least to me.
 
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