Clay Jennings gonzo

You are really going to say that his one month at the end of recruiting period, where 90% of the top recruits had already committed, should have been visible on the field his first year?

I’m not sure what is more worrisome, that you think SMU wasn’t a good passing team or that the Tech game was the defense’s fault.

1 Like

Tech game was the offenses fault they had 5 friggin turnovers that day.

4 Likes

amik robertson the cb that picked la tech over us a week before signing day was named a freshmen all-american…when clay was hired, we had 3 touted cbs committed…he could have tried to salvage one…there were also numerous cbs available when he came that were heavily interested in UH (like the 2 lost to latech and utsa) we couldnt land any

we are starting a wr and d2 walkon transfer at cb…any somewhat skilled cb would have seen the field at UH last season

also smu wasnt a good passing team, im not saying they were bad , but they were built of the run…similar to usf, if you took away the run, the passing game and play action built from it collapses.

you wont credit the dbs with the failures of another group, but will credit them to the success off others. the Dline and lbs played amazing vs tech…but are we going to act like the 60yd pass from tech wasnt from a blow tackle from a DB? or the 70yd td pass was from blow coverage from the DBs. the tech game was lost on turnovers/the offense…but the the dbs didnt play well…
we are ranked 120th in the nation in passing yards allows

2 Likes

Don’t forget that in the Tech game, they scored on a long pass play because the UH defense was not ready and looking for a call from the sideline. Guess we forgot that they run a fast scheme. We tried to substitute and virtually all the players were looking to the sideline for a call.

That one I actually blame on CMA as he should have called a aTO !!!

2 Likes

The call came in late but Davis was on slot and let him go…could have been prevented but blew coverage.
It was either Quarters or Zone Matching.I think Zone Match
Winchester has the #1 Wr and he stays on top as looks like vertical but Wr runs hitch.
Davis on #2(slot)Coutee and initially goes vertical with him.If both Wr stay vertical each DB plays them man.
When #1 pulls up…Davis unexpectedly runs to him. He should only take #1 if he crosses hard to inside ,then he should let vertical #2 go and Winchester takes him(#2)…he didn’t go inside…he just ran a stop on sideline.
Winchester chased it down once he saw Davis blew it. But he wasn’t prepared to take that vertical because he knew Davis had(or should have)it.That coverage is designed to let them have the hitch with #1 worst case.

2 Likes

ucf played memphis twice, why are we pretending only the second game existed?..memphis scored 13 versus ucf the first time…7 of those 13 came when ucf put its bench players in at 40-7… and navy kept them to 30

and ucf’s defense also gave up 42 to usf and 26 points the first half points to fcs austin peay…im not using their defense as a bench mark for anything we should aspire to be…their offense? sure…give me the #1 offense in the nation like they have and ill 100% accpet their defensive output aswell not until then… but they had good defense and elite level offense…

also 100% off us would have been mad if memphis had scored 35 offensive points on us every other drive. your justification for why we would have thought it was alright happened weeks AFTER our game…

1 Like

Not pretending 1st memphis/UCF game not exist. I mentioned it.UCF D played well obviously. I asked why they got lit up 2nd time and couldn’t shut them down again.

UCF held Memphis scoreless in 2nd and 3rd quarters…UH held them scoreless 1st and 2nd qtrs. They were only held scoreless in 2 other quarters for season.6 total

On the other side, they scored 14 or more points in a quarter, including KO returns, 21 times. Twice vs UH obviously. Scored 24 in 2nd quarter vs UCF in AAC Champ game.

So holding them scoreless for a half is arguably more impressive than giving up 35 is embarrassing

So…Memphis has shown on at least several occasions…twice vs UH last 2 years and 2nd game UCF…that they can explode after being shutdown.
2016 UH gives up 34 in 1st half…shuts them out for 23 minutes…allows 14 points in last 7 mins
2017 UH shut them out for 30 mins…gives up 35 in next 30 mins.
2017 UCF shuts them down first meeting…cant stop them 2nd time.

They averaged 45.7 points…42.4 offensive points…as bad as UH played 2nd half we still allowed 7 less than they average on offense.

they scored 48 UCLA
44 So Ill
70 UConn
56 Tulane
41 Tulsa
66 SMU
70 ECU
55 UCF…48 regulation
And scored 48 vs UH 2016

We are talking about several different things now. I started by saying that D didn’t change scheme in 2nd half vs Memphis and gave examples to back it up.

We are now somehow comparing UH defense to UCF. I brought them up to show that the conference champ and team many here believe should be National Champion…was scorched by Memphis…by yards and points. A point of comparison showing what they did against a really good team. Im talking about UH defense as an independent unit and your telling me UCF defense getting lit up by USF and UCF is ok because their offense is great. And you would be ok with UH defense doing same if UH offense was #1. ok

They scored 55 or more 5 times. This is why I said if UH gave up 35 points spread out as opposed to in 5 straight drives, it would have arguably been viewed a “good” performance…relative to what they averaged and how many times they scored much more vs others.

2 Likes

Hopefully his replacement can have the cornerbacks playing at an elite level and bring back that Jackboyz attitude. Those Juniors have to step up! One or two of Patrick Rosette, Ka’darian smith and Javian Smith have to have a breakout year and claim a starting spot. Or hopefully Myres and Winchester improve massively. I am not concerned about the safeties. Davis and Anderson will make plays!

1 Like

Don’t sleep on DJ Small. He moved up the depth chart quick as a true freshman before getting injured.

Really interested in Zaire Taylor, the incoming freshman, as well. He was shutting down some pretty good receivers in the high school playoffs this year.

4 Likes

Didn’t see much of Small but I am interested in seeing what Taylor can do. He’s already said he’s coming for the starting spot so he’s got the right attitude. I just think it’d be a shame if neither 3 cb’s from the 2016 class pan out. I hope they can be great.

1 Like

True, we need depth at the position.

1 Like

Kind of hope we go after Jess Loepp to be the safeties coach. He had been the DB coach at SMU since 2014 and was at Tulsa from 2009 until he moved to SMU. He was at Rice as a grad assistant when CMA was the OC there.

He’s a solid recruiter and was SMUs recruiting coordinator the last three years and at Tulsa before that. Scout named him the AAC recruiter of the year in 2016 for helping SMU land the 2nd best class in the conference (behind UH). Guy knows Texas and Houston.

As far as I know, he hasn’t been hired as of yet and Morris didn’t take him to Arkansas with him as he instead went after the former Aggie DB coach.

1 Like

Demetrice Martin would be another great option…he was ucla’s db coach for the last 7 years, Washington 3 years before that.
chip kelly didn’t retain him.
Elite recruiters (ucla had the best db recruit in the entire west coast last season, had 4 4star db recruits before being fired. a couple decommitted after and specifically said him not being retained was why)

uclas pass d was just okay last season, probably why he wasn’t retained but was arguably the best in the nation last year. and is traditionally very good

he is also social media savy…still not picked up

2 Likes

Spot on again Manster54 with all of your above post. I am sure at this point you feel like you are taking crazy pills from repeatedly explaining the same thing.

If people would read your previous post and go back and review game footage everything that you’re saying is not only spot on but it is clearly apparent. And looking macroscopic, the defense wasn’t exciting like it was under Orlando, but it was efficient as far as not giving up a lot of points with the few exception games.

I think that CMD did a good job considering the lack of depth we had at certain areas. I also think that because of this there was only so many adjustments that he could make within the game. That advantage goes to the opposition once they make their adjustments. Some teams couldn’t make that adjustment and therefore we were able to hold him to fewer points, but teams like Memphis who have shown to make many adjustments will be able to put up a lot of points. That and the fact that Memphis put up a lot of points on everyone.

Again, CMD didn’t look flashy like Orlando, but as you’ve shown many many times he put up pretty good numbers that are similar or even better than Orlando. There is no doubt that we can improve in several areas, but the witchhunt to fire our defensive coordinator is absolutely ridiculous. I can’t even remember how many times people said if it wasn’t for the defense we would’ve lost that game. In fact I heard that pretty much almost every game we won.

So hopefully CMA gets another good hire for the DB and S coaching positions like he did for OC. That alone should help progression in our areas of weakness in the secondary. Just how KB will obviously help our struggling offense.

4 Likes

We seemed to do well defending the pass inside the red zone. Also, we seemed to have good speed and closed pretty quickly. That 7 yard average may have been less than 5 if we’d had only played 4-5 yards off.

I don’t have a problem with corners playing with cushion as long as the DL and LBs are getting some kind of pressure on the QB. That wasn’t happening as much this year as it was under Orlando. We can’t give the likes of Dane Evans or Riley Ferguson all day to throw and expect our secondary (or any secondary) to shut that down. I don’t know if it was scheme or just the absence of anyone not named Ed Oliver having a presence in the backfield. But nearly every game I was thinking we should lay off the rush and drop more guys back if we’re not going to get pressure with 4 and 5 man rushes.

1 Like

Ricklan Holmes from Tyler John Tyler is a potential candidate for CB or S coach.
We’ve gotten a lot of big time players from that school (Ward, Bowser, Bryson Smith, Dakalen Goodson).
He has been a successful coach at JTHS, and we should keep that pipeline going!

2 Likes

Interesting tweet in response to the news that UH is looking at hiring CB and S coaches. Coach Holmes would be Ricklan Holmes who has been the John Tyler HS Athletic Director and Head Coach since 2012. He’s been a high school coach since leaving Oklahoma State University in 2003 where he was an off-and-on starter at CB.

We have strong ties to John Tyler and Coach Holmes.

https://twitter.com/realjtufan/status/951269209195143168

Edit: @UHCoog2001got me by 5 minutes. :wink:

3 Likes

lol No that’s the proprietary design of CMD.

I hope so. We got to get more aggressive with blitzes to create significant turnovers.