Alright, so you’re either a family member or the guy’s agent. Pulling up his game tape from his tenure at Miami was a little over the top. I’ll ask again, what players have gotten better from the start of the season under his tutelage?? To be fair, Orlando inherited very good players that Gibbs had developed but he helped make them better.
If you wanna analyze 2016 Orlando, his gameplan against Keenan Reynolds the previous year was as good as it gets. I was at the Navy game in Annapolis last year when we were without both starting LB’s (and Wilson) and forced to use some who had little or no playing time. Those replacements on the edge got gashed. And don’t discount how his D shut down the Fla St running game which had been dominant. Bottom line, he’s proven to be an elite coordinator. He helped cover up a limited offense by putting the offense in good positions during his 2 years here.
I’ll give credit to D’Onofrio for stopping the Navy run game. They are very tough to defend. But again, that’s only part of the defense. Handling the pass and creating turnovers are just as important. Both of which were lacking during the year. There was no excuse for letting Tulane control the game when we had 2 weeks of prep time. Somebody was responsible for the poor tackling. We made their qb look like Cam Newton at times.
Terrell Williams had a pretty good year and Khalil Williams was doing pretty well also. Most of the other guys were new starters or got hurt for portions of the year.
Ok…his Miami alignment vs GT is on internet for all to see along with every other game of every team.
I will answer your questions even though you don’t answer mine or just choose to ignore facts. Appears you give CTO a pass for Memphis but CMD not.
Who did he develop? I’m not at practice so i can’t answer that but he coaches LB’s. I would say Hines has had a good year, top 20 nation in tackles. I would say A. Robinson had some good games at LB, forced to start vs Memphis for first time. Hadn’t played much at all prior this year. Godfrey has come long way since beginning of year. He played vs option and also in coverage several games when Kahlil out. Anenih showed ability to pass rush and played in coverage. Joel Williams was used to blitz regularly and had sacks and pressures. Turner played well early in year but seemed little under weight and trouble vs run. Should be better after put on 25 pounds.
So I think you meant 2015 vs Keenan Reynolds…CTO played the same 5-1-1 he played last year. The run numbers were good…HOWEVER…Reynolds was 13/16 passing for 312 yards…Navy had 1203 yards passing for year in 13 games. 25% vs UH.
Reynolds completed 48% vs others…81% vs UH. Also Navy had 4 Touchdown drives of 75 yards or more…if you say perfect gameplan, I would wanna be your DC…easy to please.
Navy last year, he played 5 man front and pressed CBs…Navy WRs didn’t even block them…they ran go routes and CBs had to turn and run with them, taking themselves out of play. No edge was set. So his 2 ILBs and safeties had to play inside out. QB kept off edge or pitched to RB every play. They ran 34 plays in first half…ill repeat…NOT 1 DIVE…for 193 yards. And 20 1st half points. Hines and Adams played LB and had 12 tackles each, Oliver had 11
Regarding Turnovers…did you see stats? Or choosing to ignore them.Double Ints this year 14 tie #22. More To’s per game than last year #43 Takeaways. So how were turnovers lacking? TFL 6.7/gm, #38, Sacks #62 ,2/gm. So TFL and Sacks are down but hardly anemic…
We can go around in circles regarding Tulane. I already posted several pics of containment issues etc. lost sacks due to this. Additionally, CMD used a spy numerous times and Hines and Adams lost him or tackles were missed. Davis sometimes tackles perfectly and sometimes looks like he never played football…whose fault is that? Kahlil couldnt tackle last year and can’t tackle this year…he never wraps…so every coach from 3 different staffs are to blame? He puts head down and doesn’t use arms. I doubt 3 staffs taught him that. More like he gets in game and doesn’t use his training.
D’Onofrio is not as good as Orlando, but the drop off is not on the level you guys are talking about. Orlando is one of the best DCs in the country, but D’Onofrio should be fired after a year even though the numbers are basically the same for UH on D the last two years? That is just crazy. We lost 4 NFL players and our best all-round LB. We didn’t have the talent in the secondary or LB crew as the last couple years.
I think long term he still has a lot to prove as well as the position coaches. Recruiting is going to be important. Offense is still clearly our issue, any big change should be OC. BTW, what DC do you think would come here if we fire a guy after 1 season where he was solid and even had a better scoring D with that much player (talent) turnover?
For the record, I’m not advocating D’Onofrio be fired. That’ll never happen, nor should it. Besides, it’s obvious our problems are on offense. But to make our DC out to look like he was better than our last 2 and then blame it on the players not being able to tackle or lack of talent is what I take issue with. All the analysis that’s being put out here is one-sided. I can take stats and twist them anyway I want to defend my point.
We’ll have to agree to disagree if you think those players are better than they were at the start of the season. On the aforementioned ‘evaluation’, those guys are ‘brutal’ according to Manster. But I don’t think you can fairly evaluate freshmen like Turner and Anenih just because it’s a step up in terms of quality and play from HS. I just want to see our players get better and improve week to week. Personally, I don’t feel the same as others.
The comparisons of Navy 2 years ago to their team this year is not even close. That was as good a Navy squad as there’s been in years. Reynolds was a beast back there. Last year’s game in the rain was miserable and we were beat up. But that season went downhill when all the rumors started.
Alright, I’m done. Hopefully, we can address the offense this offseason and not have to worry about holding teams to less than 20 points again next year. Oops, forgot that we still have a bowl game to analyze later. Fingers crossed it’s not Frisco.
well said…dont disagree at all. I never said DOnofrio was better, I even said how much i think of job Orlando does. There are pluses and minuses to both approaches. AS you mentioned points allowed are good. Just have issue with random statements like “defense left town with Orlando”. Its baseless and numbers prove it. Some here don’t really have use for facts. I don’t have a problem with saying, “i don’t like his style”. Thats a matter of choice. I don’t like everything DOnofrio does, get frustrated by soft coverage at times, but he knows his players better than me or any of us. His job is to help win the game by allowing the other team to score as few points as possible, by whatever means he thinks will be most effective to that end. The inexperience of the corners was the biggest issue. its not their fault, neither Johnson nor Myers were D1 scholarship CBs. Hopefully they improve and learn from this year. Would it have done anyone including them any good to allow them to be repeatedly burned?
Agreed blitzing could be more creative, however, as we saw against Tulane, if players don’t keep rush lanes and keep QB contained, the best design can still fail. The more exotic you get, the more risk that its not executed and results in big play. He was more exotic earlier in year…vs TT we got burned for long run on a run blitz…two unblocked blitzers to same side but took bad angles.
Gonna let it go after this. Never said CMD better than anyone. I poked holes in your statements…like “Donofrio is responsible for why turnover margin is not good”. gave facts.
We can disagree on tackling issue…i don’t see what a coach can do for a player when he’s on the field with a guy that runs 4.4 one on one…you either get him on the ground or don’t. no half speed tackling drills help with that. Dropping your head and not using your arms certainly doesn’t help. If you do it right once, you should be able to do it right again,allowing for mistake here and there. but when you do it perfect and then don’t get a hand on guy next time, i don’t see how coach is at fault.
Not sure what your saying regarding player improvement…I was critical of our CBs…i don’t think its their fault at this point. I don’t blame coaches either. They are inexperienced and the 2 I mentioned were not scholarship CBs…one converted from offense and other walk on. Hopefully they will improve and coaches will develop them further in spring.
So it went from Orlando had best option game plan ever, …to it was the best Navy team ever and it rained, and players were injured? Ok. But I can’t defend Donofrio by saying his corners are , who are both 1st year guys, not good and can’t cover man to man. Im done too.
This right here should be enough for people to understand why our defense just wasn’t as good as its been in the past few years. It’s amazing how blessed we have been with some top notch players who wore HOUSTON across their chests and are now in the League.
Of course it wouldn’t be Coogfans if a poster wasn’t accused of being a relative for simply posting facts backed up by data.
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Watching football with my dad this past week (who played at A&M in te late 50s)… we all have noticed the same thing on MANY college football teams…
1st down, run it up the middle. It’s not just us. AND, most of the time it seems to fail.
Wish a real coach and not just us pretend coaches on here could explain why they do this. These are not dumb people. I wish I knew the rationale.
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There’s an emphasis today on staying “ahead of the chains.” In other words, offenses want to be getting 3-4 yards on 1st down so that they can get to 2nd and 6 or 7 and then 3rd and 3 or 4. An incompletion on 1st and 2nd puts you in a bad spot, according to the logic of this theory. And Catalon, Car, and Birden actually averaged a combined ypc of over 5 yards. You’re right: we’re far from the only team that runs inside on first down, but we throw a lot on 1st as well.
all i know is major needs to pay attention to coach sampson, from last nights win over new orleans which he felt should have been bigger…
Sometimes people don’t like to hear the truth," Sampson said. “That team was better-coached, tougher and more prepared than we were,” Sampson said. “At the end of the day that’s on the coach.”
Even that is a contradiction; how are they more prepared and tougher, but they still lost? That sounds as if we out-talented them and didn’t out-coach them. His argument was, “At the end of the day that’s on the coach”.
