Manny Diaz Grade after 2 weeks...
- Thread starter dawgstudent
- Start date
Can you say mistakes such as fumbles and poor punting? Can't put all or alot of the blame on the defense.
I think B to B+ is fair. its not like we had any film going in to the LSU game, which i am sure, hurt to some degree, but that being said, we knew what they were going to do. i was a little surprised by the lack of blitzing, but there werent a bunch of obvious passing opportunities, but as much as they were gashing us in the first half, i would have preferred to see the interior of the line mix some things up with slants and stunts along with some run blitzing. We are going to hold them under their average (presumably), so a pretty good showing with a few bail-outs from the refs. market had some very bad moments in the passing game that were later negated. im ready for a change there.
C- and that's being generous. USM we gave up way too many yards. We knew exactly what LSU was going to do and got pushed around early. His "adjustment" was walking up guys in the box and LSU going extremely conservative with a lead only throwing 13x. Not to mention 2 TDs getting called back. I don't think Manny brought any kind of genius coaching adjustment in that game. The way Manny can get that grade up is by not getting torched by the spread teams on the schedule.
ETA- We're giving up 5.32 yards per play which is 11th in the SEC. Can't go overboard with stats after 2 weeks but that's no good.
ETA- We're giving up 5.32 yards per play which is 11th in the SEC. Can't go overboard with stats after 2 weeks but that's no good.
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C. The numbers don't lie
Through two games...
9th in the conference in Total Defense
11th in rushing defense
12th in forced turnovers
14th in opponents' completion %
I'll agree with those stating that not all of this has been entirely the defense's fault, but there's still not much there that would lead me to give him anything better than a C. Aside from making a few good adjustments here and there, there's nothing you can point to and say "man, our defense is really good at doing _____"
Through two games...
9th in the conference in Total Defense
11th in rushing defense
12th in forced turnovers
14th in opponents' completion %
I'll agree with those stating that not all of this has been entirely the defense's fault, but there's still not much there that would lead me to give him anything better than a C. Aside from making a few good adjustments here and there, there's nothing you can point to and say "man, our defense is really good at doing _____"
A-: special teams gave them two opportunities that started on our end of field (48 and 47 yard drives to score in Q1, or close to that length). They only had a long scoring drive once. Fournette will run on a lot of people. We could do better on containing the outside. We miss Matt Wells' speed...
Manny boy gets a B for grit and halftime adjustments. We lost P. Smith, M. Wells, Eulls, B Mac and PJ Jones. Something is going to give.
Manny gets an F for his post game presser which shed some light as to why we played so poorly early and he gets a B for his usual in game adjustments. I would give his in game adjustments an A but Les goes conservative. That equates to a D for me.
Mullen shouldn't let him be interviewed in the future.
Mullen shouldn't let him be interviewed in the future.
Manny gets a grade of F
.....for plagiarism. That was Dan Mullen's work with his name on it.
.....for plagiarism. That was Dan Mullen's work with his name on it.
Hey, i'm not impressed either, but penalties count. We helped them out with a couple also.
Solid B because scoring has been held in check......Def stats need to get better though or we will have issues. Hard to do after 2 games but lsu for 21 was good.
B+ to A-. I liked what I saw in the second half of the LSU game. The media pundits are slobbering all over Fornette like he had the best rushing game in the history of football. Well when you run the ball on 95% of your plays with 9 offensive linemen in the game, yea id say you'd better have some positive rushing statistics, not to mention our offense did nothing to help out for an entire half. There were plenty of times though when our D-Line blew through their O-line and penetrated the backfield to stop the run for a loss. Everyone knew LSU was gonna do what they did and i feel like Manny had them ready enough for it. We just offensively did nothing to help until too late, once again. Something we obviously have to improve on is defending the passing game. We didn't get much pressure at all when LSU did drop back to pass, and our corners/LBs couldn't keep up with their receivers as a result. You cant expect them to be glued to the receiver for too long when the QB has all day to pass. I trust Manny to improve, we've seen him do it before. Don't forget the Gatorbowl vs Michigan when Denard Robinson was one of the hottest college QB's in the nation and Rich Rod was blowing up the scoreboard with him that season. We virtually shut them down in that game. And also the Florida game where Manny and the D basically single handedly won that game for us, AT the Swamp. I think Florida had 7 points? I have faith in this guy. I think we're going to be pleased with him.
I can buy that they're a little skewed right now. What I can't ignore, however, is that we're in the bottom third of the conference in virtually every major defensive statistic aside from passing yards.
If folks want to give him a B, though, they can give him a B. For me, he's got more to prove but for the record, I think he will. If we can clean up the garbage(lining up offsides on 3rd down, onside kick, Cooke's crappy punting), all those defensive rankings that I quoted will suddenly look a lot better. The defense has done a lot of things right during the first 2 games, and they are certainly not our primary problem.
If folks want to give him a B, though, they can give him a B. For me, he's got more to prove but for the record, I think he will. If we can clean up the garbage(lining up offsides on 3rd down, onside kick, Cooke's crappy punting), all those defensive rankings that I quoted will suddenly look a lot better. The defense has done a lot of things right during the first 2 games, and they are certainly not our primary problem.
"Cooke's crappy punting for the 1st two games or just the LSU game? I think he averaged 46 yards per punt against USM, one downed at the 5 or so and the other should have been downed inside the 5. He could not have done any better against USM unless they were both downed at the 1 yard line. People tend to look at numbers only and not the entire concept. Against LSU all of the punters suffered....supposedly the wind out of the NW was hanging the balls up. Punters have to learn to "drive" those punts when punting against the wind. However, if those punts are not fair caught, it could mean more return yards. Maybe this weekend we'll see better results.
I don't remember an onside kick. Just before halftime, coach called for a "squibb" kick, trying to keep the ball out of the deep returner's hands. I don't remember an onside kick.
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And yet we're 6th in the SEC in points given up.Using stats this early is asinine.
Manny is a good DC. I would give him B+. You have to have players that are good enough to make plays. We don't have that many, other than Jones, Jefferson, 2 lB's, and Redmond. Shame redshirts Thomas and Hoyett are apparently not yet good enough to play.
B. I like manny and think he's doing a serviceable but he's not a program changer. We had the chance to hire O for d coordinator and imo if u want to take your program to the next level, u make that hire no question. We would be better defensively right now not to mention recruiting.
Just the LSU game and more specifically, the first quarter. He had two in a row that set LSU up with outstanding field position, so those were two examples of really tough spots that the defense got thrown into.
The onside kick that I mentioned was referring to the USM game and while it wasn't a "mistake" per se, it was an example of not executing on our part which then put the defense in a position of having to get right back out onto the field. Basically, all I'm pointing out is that while I'm not 100% sold on Diaz and the defense quite yet, they haven't been always put into the best position to succeed during these first two games at times.
The onside kick that I mentioned was referring to the USM game and while it wasn't a "mistake" per se, it was an example of not executing on our part which then put the defense in a position of having to get right back out onto the field. Basically, all I'm pointing out is that while I'm not 100% sold on Diaz and the defense quite yet, they haven't been always put into the best position to succeed during these first two games at times.
That's where I'm at. USM threw on us easily. We didn't stop LSU's passing game. They just quit throwing.
Well, i dont think Mullen is the type of personality to bring in an Orgeron. Pretty sure he prefers Yes men, as opposed to an Alpha Dog like that. Not that Manny is one of those, but they have worked together before so theres some comfort there. So I wouldnt say we "had the chance to hire O". Id say there was Zero chance of that happening with Dan. Just a guess.
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I don't know if it would been a great DC hire. In all of his years he has never been a DC at any stop. That's too big of a question mark. Great recruiter but you don't hire a DC just because he is a great recruiter. LSU didn't think so either.
Take a look around the landscape, defenses are struggling all over the place as defensive coordinators are scrambling to keep up with modern schemes. We are young on defense in areas and lost most of our wall up front. That is one reason why Fournette ran so well against us. The other reason is that the dude is a war horse. He's the most NFL ready back in the game.
Who is a "program changer?" Manny has left 3 of his last 4 stops better than what he found them. But O is a program changer, just not as a HC, not as a DC, not at any position where you have to think. He's a motivator and recruiter. That's it. He's a luxury. Just not a good ROI.
When did Les go conservative? You must have missed Les' halftime interview. Les was asked how State shut them down on offense.
He talked about how players had to get used to competing with a team the caliber of LSU and it took them a while during the game to settle down. Basically made comments that came across like we weren't up to heir level and had to get our players to realize they could compete with them. It just struck me as a mentality that I assumed had gone away a while back, esp with the success last year. I don't think there's any place for that mentality now but I will say we absolutely played like he described in the first qtr plus. This told me we were poorly coached/prepared this week and I think it shed some light on how our coaches view the team and how we approach certain games if we don't think we an math up.
2 Questions: 1. how long do you think the coaches/players had been preparing for the LSU game? 2. did you read the thread that this game played out like the Bama game last year?
Just because you're not afraid to play LSu doesn't mean the players aren't nervous. Merlin said in various interviews the biggest adjustment at halftime was to get the players to breathe and relax.
Just because you're not afraid to play LSu doesn't mean the players aren't nervous. Merlin said in various interviews the biggest adjustment at halftime was to get the players to breathe and relax.
B for being two games into a new stint. Some of these guys here act like he never left and should roll right back in. I really liked the adjustments and intensity outside of the TD for LSU.