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Upon Further Review: Manny Diaz as DC

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Lance Roffers said:
I accounted for talent by taking into account how those same teams fared against other peer institutions and calculating the difference. The fact is: Baker did a poor job.
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Excellent research. I’m curious where Randy Shannon’s defenses would rank using this system?
 
Lance Roffers said:
I accounted for talent by taking into account how those same teams fared against other peer institutions and calculating the difference. The fact is: Baker did a poor job.
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Nice job Lance. I’m curious where Randy Shannon’s defenses would rank using this system?
 
Great analysis and big THANK YOU

One question (not sure if feasible). In Manny's 3 years as DC what i found most impressive were his 2nd half adjustments. At times, the D would get punched in the mouth early in the game but would be much stiffer in the 2nd half. I assume you cant but anyway to look at the data for just 2nd half of games?

Ultimately the whole game matters of course but 2nd half adjustments are a sign of a **** good coach imo
 
Lance Roffers said:
I did it tie to the opponents offensive performance against other peers.

TOP has shown to be completely useless. R^2 under .10

if Clemson’s offense is performing well, that would impact Venables negatively because we know that teams pass more when they’re trailing and most every team has higher YPP when passing.

YPP is best for this review in my mind because it scales it on a per play basis and accounts for tempo and situations better.

It doesn’t account for fact that Clemson has more talent than anyone they play most every game. You do see a degradation of performance from Venables against SEC. Typically big games or playoff games.
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Agree with all above. Let me try and better state my question:

did you see a correlation of Venables (or any of DC performance) with how their own offense performed in same game as well?

Based on say Clemson's or Miami's score in a given contest, did it reveal anything to you about how the Venables/Diaz/et al defense fared?
 
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canes_aaron said:
The concern is when we play offenses with a pulse
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The defense does better against bad offenses and worse against good offenses? Tell me more, Captain Obvious.

It sure was amazing to see how teams with top defenses and good DCs like Bama, UGA, Ohio St, Clemson, and ND consistently shut down top offenses all year. Oh wait...
 
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canes_aaron said:
The concern is when we play offenses with a pulse
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Signed every defense in America. Defense is entirely dependent on the offense.

The point of isolating performance of an offense against other peer offenses, and removing the game against the DC so as not to double count the data, was to show how your defense did in comparison to each offense.

Holding an offense that averages 5 YPP to 4.9 is not as impressive as holding a team that averages 6 YPP to 4.9 etc.

The offenses with a pulse were included in not just the YPP totals, or the Win Percentage, or the Difference (all charts shown), but in how a defense fared compared to that offenses standard deviation against norms.

I mentioned that Manny was honestly quite consistent in beating the offenses norms, but rarely went above 1 standard deviation of that offense.

In layman’s terms, this means he wasn’t relying on feasting against bad offenses to run up his numbers. He also didn’t disintegrate those bad offenses, he was simply consistent in beating everyone.

I’ll look into Lu’s questions to get more data in how my sample set fared against great offenses or big games. I have the data for the most part already saved and can just parse it differently.
 
Lance Roffers said:
Signed every defense in America. Defense is entirely dependent on the offense.

The point of isolating performance of an offense against other peer offenses, and removing the game against the DC so as not to double count the data, was to show how your defense did in comparison to each offense.

Holding an offense that averages 5 YPP to 4.9 is not as impressive as holding a team that averages 6 YPP to 4.9 etc.

The offenses with a pulse were included in not just the YPP totals, or the Win Percentage, or the Difference (all charts shown), but in how a defense fared compared to that offenses standard deviation against norms.

I mentioned that Manny was honestly quite consistent in beating the offenses norms, but rarely went above 1 standard deviation of that offense.

In layman’s terms, this means he wasn’t relying on feasting against bad offenses to run up his numbers. He also didn’t disintegrate those bad offenses, he was simply consistent in beating everyone.

I’ll look into Lu’s questions to get more data in how my sample set fared against great offenses or big games. I have the data for the most part already saved and can just parse it differently.
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There it is right there.

Close thread
 
Jedi Master Cane said:
Here's something I'd like to know.

Can anyone name a COLLEGE coordinator, who was fired as a COLLEGE coordinator, and went on to become a quality COLLEGE head coach?

Maybe an example exists, I can't think of any.
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So what you are insinuating is that a coach can’t learn from failure and improve?
 
LuCane said:
Not sure why you'd answer to people calling Manny an "average or even poor" DC. As a DC, he was above average and it's hard to argue anything beneath that level.

Currently, despite the fact he's not our DC, but rather our HC/DC, the real debate seems to be around whether he is above average or elite, and how that relates to the execution of his defensive philosophy. And, for that, I think you'll need more than YPP.

I don't question your conclusion based on the narrow scope you selected. But, the methodology tells me there may be a separate discussion/analysis to have. See, part of the problem we've watched unfold is Diaz's philosophy is designed to be good in that YPP metric (btw, I think it's a good indicator, too, but often needs more context).

He coordinates for negative plays to get an offense off schedule. Those negative plays come at a risk, which as a DC he often did a good job of mitigating. The result is a nice YPP metric. However, the philosophy is vulnerable, as we saw in multiple instances or when he (or Baker) is missing a piece. That said, his most impressive year was when he combined a strong YPP with elite 3rd down %. I thought he was on his way to really evolving his defense at that point, and then we saw a disjointed philosophy the last two years. Sure, it was "Baker," but it was Manny's defense and he said himself he was in on everything.

I think the more important question is if his philosophy, when executed as it has been in the past, is solid enough for us to win bigger games consistently. I would be curious to see an analysis of how he performed in "big games" (however way you want to define that) vs how other coordinators/philosophies performed in "big games." Say, Top 25 teams. If there are common Top 25 opponents, all the better.

All of the above is moot if he tinkers with his philosophy and allows Jess Simpson, Shoop, and T-Rob to offer different perspectives to come up with a more controlled version of the negative play madness, and one that has the appropriate coverage behind it. For instance, we played a ton more zone behind the madness these past two years under Baker, resulting in obvious vulnerabilities.
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Excellent take, agree YPP is a great metric but we were fundamentally flawed the last 2 years, you could see from pre-snap that we weren’t aligned correctly and then got gashed. The zone behind all of that was maddening because it just gave up way too many easy completions.
 
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This is all really interesting. Thanks Lance, for doing all the legwork here. I’m often curious about these numbers but I’m honestly too lazy to do the research.
 
Rellyrell said:
Good stuff my friend; however, I don’t think fans had a problem w/ Diaz’s **** numbers (i.e TFLs, Sacks, YPP); I would be more interested to see where Diaz’s defense ranked in T.O.P, YPG, and 3rd down efficiency compared to his peers. It felt like we bled a slow death often w/ his defense: 3 ypc, and giving up a 3rd & 4 or a 3rd & 5, keeping the defense on the field. If I’m not mistaken, that was the biggest issue.
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We had the #1 ranked 3rd down defense in 2018 his last season as DC
 
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NicKane said:
Dude if you need me to remind you about the 17 and 18 seasons then it ain’t worth my breath. Try google if you want to put your “manny is the greatest DC ever” agenda to the side. Smh if you played the game at the college level, especially on defense you would be able to see the lack of fundamentals and principles in his scheme a mile away! Why do you think games like BYU/UNC happened and happened against the same scheme? 🙄
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The 18 season where we had the number 1 3rd down defense?
 
Ethnicsands said:
I think this analysis is pretty generous to manny and potentially unfair to baker.

Stats lack context on their own. Plenty of things changed other than the DCs. Manny’s famed ‘18 defense had jaquan, redwine and jackson in the secondary, and shaq and pinckney at lb. All recruited by Golden/dorito, moreover. Manny’s weak recruiting as dc/lb coach left a depleted back 7 for baker to work with.

Manny also was free to be himself as DC because Richt ceded the D to him. Baker, however, was stuck trying to run ‘manny’s d’ reporting to manny, who clearly didn’t disengage and let baker be himself but hold him accountable. Manny meddled and didn’t manage, it’s pretty clear.

In any case, manny’s d philosophy really needs good LBs and DBs to cover when the DL gets caught upfield. Manny did no one any favors as DC stocking the cabinet for his successor.

I don’t know if baker would be better away from manny. My guess is he would be better, but not sure whether that means good or just okay.
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***Caution: LONG POST***

I think we keep emphasizing the ‘18 season & we’re forgetting the ‘16 & ‘17 seasons.

So did some research:
Miami was as follows in ‘18:
-1st in Def Pass Efficiency
-1st in 3rd Down Defense
-23rd in 4th Down Defense
-5th in 1st Down Defense
-1st in Passing Yards Allowed
-42nd in Rushing Yards Allowed
-18th in Scoring Defense
-1st in TFLs
-4th in Total Defense
-55th in RZ Defense

Truly outstanding....until u look at the teams we faced & their offensive rankings.

I’m only going to use P5 schools on this:

-LSU - (pre Joe Brady & when Joe Burrow was considered a scrub):
-68th in Total Offense
-66th in Passing Offense
-57th in 3rd Down Efficiency
-27th in RZ Offense
-100th in TFLs allowed
-59th in Rushing Offense
-37th in Scoring Offense

-UNC:
-77th in Scoring Offense
-44th in Rushing Offense
-42nd in TFLs allowed
-78th in RZ Offense
-111th in 3rd Down Efficiency
-47th in Passing Offense
-31st in Total Offense

-FSU:
-102nd in Total Offense
-28th in Passing Offense
-126th in Rushing Offense
-126th in 3rd Down Efficiency
-109th in RZ Offense
-126th in TFLs allowed
-112th in Scoring Offense

-UVA:
-69th in Scoring Offense
-81st in Total Offense
-86th in Passing Offense
-60th in Rushing Offense
-6th in 3rd Down Efficiency
-49th in TFLs Allowed
-126th in RZ Offense

-BC:
-96th in RZ Offense
-79th in TFLs Allowed
-67th in Total Offense
-81st in Passing Offense
-48th in Rushing Offense
-114th in 3rd Down Efficiency
-38th in Scoring Offense

-Duke:
-63rd in Scoring Offense
-56th in RZ Offense
-44th in TFLs allowed
-65th in Total Offense
-52nd in Passing Offense
-77th in Rushing Offense
-37th in 3rd Down Efficiency

-GT:
-26th in 3rd Down Efficiency
-1st in Rushing Offense
-126th in Passing Offense
-61st in Total Offense
-29th in TFLs Allowed
-101st in RZ Offense
-33rd in Scoring Offense

-VT:
-60th in Scoring Offense
-63rd in TFLs Allowed
-82nd in 3rd Down Efficiency
-39th in Total Offense
-11th in RZ Offense
-40th in Passing Offense
-57th in Rushing Offense

-Pitt:
-18th in Rushing Offense
-93rd in Scoring Offense
-120th in Passing Offense
-87th in TFLs Allowed
-97th in Total Offense
-96th in 3rd Down Efficiency
-79th in RZ Offense

-Wisc:
-41st in RZ Offense
-61st in Scoring Offense
-50th in 3rd Down Efficiency
-6th in Rushing Offense
-118th in Passing Offense
-6th in TFLs Allowed
-36th in Total Offense



So right off the back, our ‘18-19 season was filled w/ inept offenses.
Our opponents avg:
-65th in Total Offense
-72nd in RZ Offense
-63rd in TFLs allowed
-76th in Passing Offense
-45th in Rushing Offense
-71st in 3rd Down Efficiency
-64th in Scoring Offense

The combined record of our opponents matched this fact as these 10 teams went 68 - 59.

Imo, 2018 was a nice crescendo for Diaz:
-Played against pedestrian Offenses
-Had an absolute monster at DT that wrecked havoc up the middle
-Solid LBs
-Very Good Secondary

I won’t knock Diaz on the ‘18 season b/c ur opponents r ur opponents. However, we faced teams that worked right into our schematic hands; teams that couldn’t stay on the field b/c they allowed TFLs & were often one dimensional. On the other hand, when we faced a good rushing team, or teams that could stay on the field, we got gashed, not for huge chunks, but steady body blows.

I don’t like YPP stats; just like I don’t like Total Defense stats. D’No used Total Defense to justify why his system worked. Here, YPP is being used. U have to look at the whole pic. Our 3rd % went up b/c majority of our opponents for ‘18 sucked in that category compared to the ‘16 & ‘17 season. In ‘19 we went right back to having an inability to getting off the field.

Diaz is a good DC. What I didn’t have the time to do is compare how his contemporaries fared against their schedule of P5 schools & where they ranked offensively. Just doing a quick glance at Clemson’s ‘18 schedule & it was much, much more difficult than our’s w/ more offensively efficient teams. So what Brent was able to do that season is not on the same playing field.

All things r not equal. Just b/c it’s P5 don’t mean it’s the same quality of opponent.
 
ghost2 said:
This is a great breakdown. I think the concern most of us have isn't Manny as DC, but Manny as head coach AND DC. I'd love to see a breakdown of head coaches who also call plays (preferably on defense) and their relative success rates.
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doesnt dan mullet call plays?
 
Appreciate the article Lance but I've mentioned this before so here goes again - I know what I see when I watch the games and numbers don't tell the whole story... Situational circumstance has a lot to do with it as well... YPP is fine and all that but if it comes down to 3rd and 8 or 3rd and 15 or 4th and 17( Yes I'm using that) and you keep giving those plays up when it matters most then YPP really doesn't carry the same weight...
We all want the D to get better.. I just hope Manny is willing to evolve his scheme by listening to the new coaches and maximizing what they can potentially bring to the table...
 
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