Upon Further Review: Manny Diaz as DC

[The Franchise]

Anyone else doubt that if the 2020 Florida gaytors had Manny’s defense with Willis, they’re in the CFB Playoffs this year?

Football doesn't work that way. Our fans bent on analyzing stats spent the end of 2019 talking about how all we needed was a good offense because Manure's D was championship level. Well, we got the good offense, and the results stayed about the same. We won some dog fights with ****** ACC teams, got beat the fck down by the 2 best ACC teams and then lost to a terrible version of OK State.

 

[Lance Roffers]

Lance is a mountain of a man, but what he showed us was that Manure has been excellent for the most part giving up YPP. That’s it. Nothing more. Nothing less. There are guys who see that stat as the end all be all in football, and there are those who don’t.

It’s been a great discussion topic that he put on here. Some guys don’t want to discuss. Then don’t.

Pretty much.

 

[AllAboutTheU]

Football doesn't work that way. Our fans bent on analyzing stats spent the end of 2019 talking about how all we needed was a good offense because Manure's D was championship level. Well, we got the good offense, and the results stayed about the same. We won some dog fights with ****** ACC teams, got beat the fck down by the 2 best ACC teams and then lost to a terrible version of OK State.

Football doesn't work that way and the defense clearly took a step back last year. Eye test and statistically.

 

[The Franchise]

Football doesn't work that way and the defense clearly took a step back last year. Eye test and statistically.

Correct. And I warned before the 2020 season that our D would take a step back when everyone was saying all we needed was a better O because Manure's D was championship level.

Most of the time, when you tweak your offense to be more high-octane and uptempo the defense will suffer. The top programs are able to adjust and still win games. The mediocre teams can't put it all together or have the defense bail out the offense or visa versa when one side is struggling.

Look at the top teams. They're not shutting everyone out every week. But they're also not getting gutted on D and then not responding on offense or visa versa.

 

[RVACane]

Football doesn't work that way and the defense clearly took a step back last year. Eye test and statistically.

Yeah, it didn’t stay the same. It wasn’t the same level of defense we had previously. This year’s UM defense doesn’t get the gaytors into the playoffs.

 

[theibisrules]

I'm waiting to find out who the next moron head coach will be.

 

[Antcane]

I feel like I've really seen a car roll uphill. I don't want to hear about "science" telling me it's really rolling downhill with all those fancy altitude analytics. I know what I saw.

Sugarloaf Mountain in Lake County is the same way.

 

[CanesNation26]

Lance, I'm interested to hear more of your thoughts on why you think YPP is a useful metric to measure Miami's defensive performance under Manny. I know sports stats guy think YPP, as you said, does a good job at capturing overall performance and success, but I question its applicability to Manny's style of defense.

My eyes tell me that Manny does a better than average job at fielding a D that creates a lot of negative plays, which can definitely skew the YPP stat. My eyes are also telling me that our D played a lot of off-ball zone coverage (or gave significant cushion in man) and allowed QBs to dink and dunk down the field. Both would tend to make our YPP appear better than our actual defensive performance.

Just so other posters can follow along. A tfl on first down for -2 yards followed by a 6 yard gain and another 6 yard gain would average out to around 3.33 ypp, which looks great on paper, but ultimately we still gave up the first down. Iterate that over a whole season and YPP maybe doesn't do a great job at capturing whether the opposing offense is sustaining drives and scoring points.

You're someone who's much more versed in the world of sports stats, but I would speculate that a stat that takes into account scoring defense (defined here as points per drive) and adjusts for a whole host of variables like level of competition and field position might not be as favorable to Manny as the YPP stat. Of course, as you pointed out in the original post, that requires a lot more work and is not as easily calculable.

Thoughts?

 

[AllAboutTheU]

Correct. And I warned before the 2020 season that our D would take a step back when everyone was saying all we needed was a better O because Manure's D was championship level.

Most of the time, when you tweak your offense to be more high-octane and uptempo the defense will suffer. The top programs are able to adjust and still win games. The mediocre teams can't put it all together or have the defense bail out the offense or visa versa when one side is struggling.

Look at the top teams. They're not shutting everyone out every week. But they're also not getting gutted on D and then not responding on offense or visa versa.

Yea, I agree with that mostly. Most of our issues this year weren’t the result of having a high octane offense either though. We had putrid LB, gap integrity issues, pretty average interior play, inconsistent safety play and a corner back room below the talent level that a Miami team should be at. I think that these are all Manny problems given he’s been the captain of the defensive ship for years now, but I think the numbers also account for that.

 

[Fawk_U Haters]

When Diaz was DC there was one game where his scheme and gameplan was a huge letdown. 2017 ACCCG I posted a preview breakdown in advance of the game and I legitimately thought the defense would have a lot of success. Clemson offense had a journeyman OLine, Kelly Bryant at QB, Fr Etienne and a JAG upperclassman splitting the backfield, and at WR they had all gadget and slot types. Clemson had a very predictable, limited offense with short passing and the same 2-3 QB run schemes on short yardage and red zone. Diaz called a very passive, soft spot drop zone kind of game, Clemson had some early success, got some lucky breaks and snowballed.

Since Baker arrived as DC pretty much every game has followed that blueprint (passive, soft, tons of zone).

Everyone saw with their "eyes" something was different, but you nailed it with your analysis.

People may hate Manny's blitzes or whatever, but when he was here the games he called worked except for the 1 glaring example.

What Baker did was more DNO than Manny

 

[JD08]

Sugarloaf Mountain in Lake County is the same way.

And Spook Hill.

 

[The Franchise]

Everyone saw with their "eyes" something was different, but you nailed it with your analysis.

People may hate Manny's blitzes or whatever, but when he was here the games he called worked except for the 1 glaring example.

What Baker did was more DNO than Manny

He had a lot more problems than that one game. No one's perfect, and he's a pretty good DC overall. But there are clunkers all over his resume.

 

[Lance Roffers]

Lance, I'm interested to hear more of your thoughts on why you think YPP is a useful metric to measure Miami's defensive performance under Manny. I know sports stats guy think YPP, as you said, does a good job at capturing overall performance and success, but I question its applicability to Manny's style of defense.

My eyes tell me that Manny does a better than average job at fielding a D that creates a lot of negative plays, which can definitely skew the YPP stat. My eyes are also telling me that our D played a lot of off-ball zone coverage (or gave significant cushion in man) and allowed QBs to dink and dunk down the field. Both would tend to make our YPP appear better than our actual defensive performance.

Just so other posters can follow along. A tfl on first down for -2 yards followed by a 6 yard gain and another 6 yard gain would average out to around 3.33 ypp, which looks great on paper, but ultimately we still gave up the first down. Iterate that over a whole season and YPP maybe doesn't do a great job at capturing whether the opposing offense is sustaining drives and scoring points.

You're someone who's much more versed in the world of sports stats, but I would speculate that a stat that takes into account scoring defense (defined here as points per drive) and adjusts for a whole host of variables like level of competition and field position might not be as favorable to Manny as the YPP stat. Of course, as you pointed out in the original post, that requires a lot more work and is not as easily calculable.

Thoughts?

How would the same variables not apply to everyone else as well?

TFL are good. Limiting explosive plays is a good thing. The defense you described in your post would be one of the best defenses in football. Why? Forcing a team to convert 3rd & 6 over and over is what you’re looking to do. Forcing a team to never drop a pass. Never get a holding penalty, never mishandle a snap, never slip.

That’s what you’re looking to do on defense.

I created a metric that looks back at where a team gets the ball and assigns points to that field position. Then looks at turnovers created and has a value etc. Do that for both offense and defense (adding any special teams TD’s) and you get what a score “should’ve” been and then can gauge luck or sequencing variance etc.

Miami did pretty well in that as well.

What fans should understand is defense is hard. No one shuts down opponents anymore. It relies on a ton of variance and luck. I’ll run the numbers in what I define as “big games or good teams” sometime soon, but it’s hard to wrap your head around the fact that stopping an offense often relies on luck or the offense ******** up.

One of the biggest plays in the history of Miami defensive football was a lucky play. The Ed Reed return against Boston College. A tipped pass and ball sticking in a DL hands. Difference between winning and losing could’ve been as simple as the ball bouncing our way.

 

[CrooKs]

Grab the 2017 list slurpy! You know the one all you slurpers like to point to as the “but but but we were ranked #2” smoke and mirrors season as Mannys defense got eviscerated by any QB with a pulse or ones making their first ******* start! If it’s wasn’t for literally 2 offensive MIRACLES were 8 and 5 that year with Mannys defense not being able to stop anyone. Smh while you at it take a look at the 2016 season to sporto!

Manny has coached about 37 games here as a DC and the opposing team has threw for over 300 yard 5 times. Just sayin.

 

[The Franchise]

Manny has coached about 37 games here as a DC and the opposing team has threw for over 300 yard 5 times. Just sayin.

Good point. Sam Howell only threw for 223 yards on us this year. We held him under his season average, and only one team held him to less (Notre Dame). In the stat world, that's a win Miami.

 

[CrooKs]

Good point. Sam Howell only threw for 223 yards on us this year. We held him under his season average, and only one team held him to less (Notre Dame). In the stat world, that's a win Miami.

I knew you would see the light!

 

[Lance Roffers]

Good point. Sam Howell only threw for 223 yards on us this year. We held him under his season average, and only one team held him to less (Notre Dame). In the stat world, that's a win Miami.

I know what you’re saying, and I absolutely agree that misinterpreted stats can lead to more damage.

I also agree with those saying that there are so many moving parts in football that there is simply never going to be one star that clearly evaluates it all.

What we do is the best we can with what we have. Coach Diaz has a defense that has some serious flaws in my mind. They all do. It’s defense.

What I’m really trying to show is I would expect the team to better defensively under Diaz than they were under Baker. I’m trying to show that Diaz will most likely not be the cause of Miami winning, either. The point of showing standard deviation performance was to show that rarely do his defenses absolutely dominate an opponent, either.

Most of the time they merely hold them under their norms. It’s one phase of football. A phase much less important than offense. It’s still important, and each marginal improvement is a marginal improvement for the whole as well.

How it’s interpreted is up to the consumer (each reader). Some will say, “better than Baker is like being skinniest kid at fat camp.” Others will say it’s a step in the right direction.

If it was a situation without another side to consider it wouldn’t be a debate. Like, no one says, “hurting kids is a good thing” so it’s not a debate.

I chose to see it as an incremental improvement while still having reservations about the ultimate ceiling. Which I write my criticisms of the team quite often.

 

[PortvilleCane]

I know what you’re saying, and I absolutely agree that misinterpreted stats can lead to more damage.

I also agree with those saying that there are so many moving parts in football that there is simply never going to be one star that clearly evaluates it all.

What we do is the best we can with what we have. Coach Diaz has a defense that has some serious flaws in my mind. They all do. It’s defense.

What I’m really trying to show is I would expect the team to better defensively under Diaz than they were under Baker. I’m trying to show that Diaz will most likely not be the cause of Miami winning, either. The point of showing standard deviation performance was to show that rarely do his defenses absolutely dominate an opponent, either.

Most of the time they merely hold them under their norms. It’s one phase of football. A phase much less important than offense. It’s still important, and each marginal improvement is a marginal improvement for the whole as well.

How it’s interpreted is up to the consumer (each reader). Some will say, “better than Baker is like being skinniest kid at fat camp.” Others will say it’s a step in the right direction.

If it was a situation without another side to consider it wouldn’t be a debate. Like, no one says, “hurting kids is a good thing” so it’s not a debate.

I chose to see it as an incremental improvement while still having reservations about the ultimate ceiling. Which I write my criticisms of the team quite often.

 

[PortvilleCane]

Watching the Hurricanes the last 20 years has taught me that the most important statistic in football is 3rd down conversion on D and O. We have sucked at both and will suffer as fans until until both groups improve play on 3rd down. This Statistic doesn't lie. No nuance or gray areas.

 

[Lance Roffers]

Watching the Hurricanes the last 20 years has taught me that the most important statistic in football is 3rd down conversion on D and O. We have sucked at both and will suffer as fans until until both groups improve play on 3rd down. This Statistic doesn't lie. No nuance or gray areas.

It lies dramatically. The best third down for an offense? The one it doesn’t face.

Is a defense good because it gives up a bunch of first downs before it even reaches third down? Of course not. Is a defense great if it allows 0-3 on third down in a game? What if it was giving up giant chunks of yardage on 1st or 2nd down and never even getting to a 3rd down? What if it was giving up consistent 3rd & 1’s? You aren’t stopping those often.

This fascination with third down statistics is baffling to me. You’re reducing your sample. You’re increasing your variance. You’re decreasing your stickiness. You’re actually introducing the need for more context.

Yards Per Play does a far better job of profiling a defense than 3rd down data does.