Encouraging: Diaco's track record as a DC

[UConnJim]

Yesterday, I posted Cummings track record as an OC. Today, let's look at Diaco's history as a DC and the numbers are pretty encouraging. In general, the scoring defense improved when he became DC and regressed when he left.

Diaco was co-DC at Central Michigan in 2005, DC at Cincinnati in 2009, and DC at ND from 2010 to 2013. Disco's years are in bold.


Central Michigan

2004: Total Defense: 105, Scoring Defense: 105, Record: 4-7

2005: Total Defense: 74, Scoring Defense: 46, Record: 6-5

2006: Total Defense: 67, Scoring Defense: 58, Record: 10-4


Cincinnati

2008: Total Defense: 31, Scoring Defense: 55, Record: 11-3

2009: Total Defense: 67, Scoring Defense: 44, Record: 12-1

2010: Total Defense: 63, Scoring Defense: 68, Record: 4-8


Notre Dame

2009: Total Defense: 86, Scoring Defense: 63, Record: 6-6

2010: Total Defense: 50, Scoring Defense: 23, Record: 8-5
2011: Total Defense: 30, Scoring Defense: 24, Record: 8-5
2012: Total Defense: 7, Scoring Defense 2, Record: 12-1
2013: Total Defense: 31, Scoring Defense: 27, Record: 9-4

2014: Total Defense: 69, Scoring Defense: 82, Record: 7-5


UConn

2013: Total Defense: 51, Scoring Defense: 85, Record: 3-9
2014: Total defense: 52, Scoring Defense: 85, Record: 2-10

(Note: In 2013, UConn was ranked 70th in turnover margin at -1. In 2014, UConn was ranked 116 in turnover margin at -13. I think this negatively impacted the scoring defense rank in 2014 over 2013.)

 

[Carl Spackler]

Coach Booby's aptitude for coaching and developing a defense is not in question. He's good at it.

What's a problem, and something that it irks me real bad about this season, is that there is a lot of doubt and concern about his ability to identify with, and develop and coach the offensive side of the ball, and integrate all three phases of the game into an effective game plan.

The Army debacle at Yankee stadium will stay with me for a long time. We supposedly spent weeks of practice time, developing a scout team to simulate the triple option, and worked like hell to develop a defense that could hold army, and really, IMNSHO, the defense we came up with, emphasized our strengths on defense, covered up our weaknesses, and did actually manage to make the effective stops late in the game. We got crushed in the first half, but when they needed the stop late, we just had no offense all day long - no offense all season long. Then, supposedly, it's going to take 2 weeks to recover from planning and prepping to play D against the option. Really Coach Booby? Not. Maybe it would have been better to take all that practice time to develop a scout team, and do something instead to improve our own offense?

You don't beat Army, by spending the best part of the month prepping your defense and then trying to recover from it. You build an offensive game plan that can score points and keep their offense off the field, make sure your special teams are prepped well in the kicking games, and on defense you assign 3 men, on every defensive set, to put the QB, the FB, or the pitch man on their ass.

The very most frustrating thing for me going into 2015, with the approach that was taken to this year with this football program, is that all the same questions that existed of a rookie head coach going into 2014, are still in place, and the evidence to date, that the answers are good ones, is not good.

We'll just have to wait and see. It's recruiting time now, and then spring ball, which should be no different looking than 2014 fall ball, so not much to do but wait for next Sept. If we cannot beat Villanova and Army at home to start the season, and the same kinds of things happen that happened this season, especially with game planning, and offense, it's red flag time.

 

[UConnJim]

Carl - Step back for a second. The roster was depleted this year. Against SMU, there were 2 starters on defense that started against Memphis at the end of 2013. (And, there were 4 starters on offense.) Add in that UConn had a -13 turnover ratio (ranked #116 in the country) plus the best QB got hurt and it turned out to be a terrible year.

What we have to look at is what is the track record of the coaches and can they improve the team? Diaco has a very good track record, so I have confidence that the D can be improved. Cummings does not have the same track record, so we have to be concerned. That said, the offensive line improved over the season, probably thanks to Foley who we all know has a good track record. Patterson, the QB coach seems to have a good track record as well. Balis, the strength coach, has a good track record, so strength and conditioning should improve.

Bottom line, Diaco has to decide if Cummings is the right guy to turn around the offense as an even mediocre offense with fewer turnovers will lead to much better results in 2015.

 

[Bonehead]

Coach Booby's aptitude for coaching and developing a defense is not in question. He's good at it.

What's a problem, and something that it irks me real bad about this season, is that there is a lot of doubt and concern about his ability to identify with, and develop and coach the offensive side of the ball, and integrate all three phases of the game into an effective game plan.

The Army debacle at Yankee stadium will stay with me for a long time. We supposedly spent weeks of practice time, developing a scout team to simulate the triple option, and worked like hell to develop a defense that could hold army, and really, IMNSHO, the defense we came up with, emphasized our strengths on defense, covered up our weaknesses, and did actually manage to make the effective stops late in the game. We got crushed in the first half, but when they needed the stop late, we just had no offense all day long - no offense all season long. Then, supposedly, it's going to take 2 weeks to recover from planning and prepping to play D against the option. Really Coach Booby? Not. Maybe it would have been better to take all that practice time to develop a scout team, and do something instead to improve our own offense?

You don't beat Army, by spending the best part of the month prepping your defense and then trying to recover from it. You build an offensive game plan that can score points and keep their offense off the field, make sure your special teams are prepped well in the kicking games, and on defense you assign 3 men, on every defensive set, to put the QB, the FB, or the pitch man on their ass.

The very most frustrating thing for me going into 2015, with the approach that was taken to this year with this football program, is that all the same questions that existed of a rookie head coach going into 2014, are still in place, and the evidence to date, that the answers are good ones, is not good.

We'll just have to wait and see. It's recruiting time now, and then spring ball, which should be no different looking than 2014 fall ball, so not much to do but wait for next Sept. If we cannot beat Villanova and Army at home to start the season, and the same kinds of things happen that happened this season, especially with game planning, and offense, it's red flag time.

Semi wrong - I thought Bob stated we couldnt replicate the triple option??

 

[Carl Spackler]

Carl - Step back for a second. The roster was depleted this year. Against SMU, there were 2 starters on defense that started against Memphis at the end of 2013. (And, there were 4 starters on offense.) Add in that UConn had a -13 turnover ratio (ranked #116 in the country) plus the best QB got hurt and it turned out to be a terrible year.

What we have to look at is what is the track record of the coaches and can they improve the team? Diaco has a very good track record, so I have confidence that the D can be improved. Cummings does not have the same track record, so we have to be concerned. That said, the offensive line improved over the season, probably thanks to Foley who we all know has a good track record. Patterson, the QB coach seems to have a good track record as well. Balis, the strength coach, has a good track record, so strength and conditioning should improve.

Bottom line, Diaco has to decide if Cummings is the right guy to turn around the offense as an even mediocre offense with fewer turnovers will lead to much better results in 2015.

There is no silver lining to losing to SMU, or anything else that happened this season. This was the worst season by results in games since we went to division 1, and it's argueably one of the worst seasons when it comes to actual results on game days in decades. Randy's first 2-9 season, and successive developmental seasons with the transition players from 1-AA to 1A looked better as a football program prepared to play actual games with the intent on winning on game day than this season did. We've had mediocre, middle of the road football at UCONN for a very long time, we've had spurts of significant winning football over the course of several decades, but we haven't looked as bad as we did this season from start to finish anytime that I can recall.

We lost last Saturday to the very worst program in the country, at home. That's where we are.

The only reasonable explanation, other than our entire coaching staff is really over their heads with this job, is that all of 2014 was considered a throw away season and a prolonged training camp/scrimmage. Even if you consider that to be the case, what was happening still generates a lot of head scratching.

Bob Diaco is a fine defensive coach. No doubt. We have several coaches with decent track records. No doubt. What we have now, is an entire coaching staff, that has a lot to prove in 2015.

I do not care about the past at this point, what's there to be learned from, is plain to see. No offense identity or consistency, and very poor game planning to put both individual players and the team as a whole in position to win games. Inconsistent, and often detrimental decision making in games.

I'm really going to do my best to try to curb back on the writing around here. (I can hear the hecklers already), but I will. There really isn't much to say anymore after what's happened this season. I honestly don't trust a word out of Diaco's mouth about the program, everything that's happened, does not match what has been said. We just have to wait and see if it was all worth it next season.

It's not like I don't support the guy, I have no choice but to support him, because aside from everything that's happened on game days, everything else he's done is A-OK with me. Just got to hope that the game day thing, changes next season.

 

[Dogged]

Coach Booby's aptitude for coaching and developing a defense is not in question. He's good at it.

What's a problem, and something that it irks me real bad about this season, is that there is a lot of doubt and concern about his ability to identify with, and develop and coach the offensive side of the ball, and integrate all three phases of the game into an effective game plan.

The Army debacle at Yankee stadium will stay with me for a long time. We supposedly spent weeks of practice time, developing a scout team to simulate the triple option, and worked like hell to develop a defense that could hold army, and really, IMNSHO, the defense we came up with, emphasized our strengths on defense, covered up our weaknesses, and did actually manage to make the effective stops late in the game. We got crushed in the first half, but when they needed the stop late, we just had no offense all day long - no offense all season long. Then, supposedly, it's going to take 2 weeks to recover from planning and prepping to play D against the option. Really Coach Booby? Not. Maybe it would have been better to take all that practice time to develop a scout team, and do something instead to improve our own offense?

You don't beat Army, by spending the best part of the month prepping your defense and then trying to recover from it. You build an offensive game plan that can score points and keep their offense off the field, make sure your special teams are prepped well in the kicking games, and on defense you assign 3 men, on every defensive set, to put the QB, the FB, or the pitch man on their ass.

The very most frustrating thing for me going into 2015, with the approach that was taken to this year with this football program, is that all the same questions that existed of a rookie head coach going into 2014, are still in place, and the evidence to date, that the answers are good ones, is not good.

We'll just have to wait and see. It's recruiting time now, and then spring ball, which should be no different looking than 2014 fall ball, so not much to do but wait for next Sept. If we cannot beat Villanova and Army at home to start the season, and the same kinds of things happen that happened this season, especially with game planning, and offense, it's red flag time.

On a positive note Carl I really appreciate your analysis and believe the Army debacle was the most frustrating game on the schedule.

On a lighter note this sentence is sentence of the year on the Boneyard:

The very most frustrating thing for me going into 2015, with the approach that was taken to this year with this football program, is that all the same questions that existed of a rookie head coach going into 2014, are still in place, and the evidence to date, that the answers are good ones, is not good.

Neither William Faulkner nor the apostle Paul could write a better line.

 

[mdkhusky]

do you realize that we lost our only shot at a qb(who was a large part of the reason we won the last few games last year), lost our best offensive threat in davis for a good portion of the season, lost our best defensive player byron jones for 1/3 of the season( then played with a redshirt sophomore with limited playing time, a redshirt sophomore with none, and a true freshman who started the year at running back), started 2 new and inexperienced OTs(one who just began playing the position), played a significant portion of the season with heavy snap counts from 2 true freshman guards, played a large portion of the season with 2 true freshman running backs who replaced an ineffective junior, pruitt missed most of the season. This is all not to mention other players who graduated or went to the nfl(stephen, smallwood) we were basically entire new team that wasnt good to begin with last year and ended up with no qb, chandler was far better than boyle that should tell you all you need to know. we sucked and our offensive play calling was in no way good but in my opinion alot of players individually improved alot. maybe there was a plan for player development over winning or maybe there wasnt but the only thing that would have changed either way was beating a few crappy teams like army smu and south florida. would that have made anyone truly happy? the big 10 didnt invite rutgers because they were a football powerhouse and they wont invite us because we went 5-7 over 2-10 so i dont understand why people dont give it 1 year. were still short on talent but alot of young guys played alot this year on a team that had very little experience which should help. obviously next year there needs to be changes in game management and either cummings needs to step up or diaco needs to man up and find someone new. and if neither of those things occur then i think it will be time to get angry

 

[J187Money]

Yes. Last year:

Whitmer 0-4
Boyle 0-4
Cochran 3-1

What did people expect when Cochran went down?

 

[ibleedhuskyblue]

Yes. Last year:

Whitmer 0-4
Boyle 0-4
Cochran 3-1

What did people expect when Cochran went down?

I dont think there is any way this can be overstated. Casey was so good last season.

Remember when Manning went down in Indy ? They went from 13 wins to 2. I am in no way comparing Casey to PM, but that position is just so damn important.

 

[Dogged]

do you realize that we lost our only shot at a qb(who was a large part of the reason we won the last few games last year), lost our best offensive threat in davis for a good portion of the season, lost our best defensive player byron jones for 1/3 of the season( then played with a redshirt sophomore with limited playing time, a redshirt sophomore with none, and a true freshman who started the year at running back), started 2 new and inexperienced OTs(one who just began playing the position), played a significant portion of the season with heavy snap counts from 2 true freshman guards, played a large portion of the season with 2 true freshman running backs who replaced an ineffective junior, pruitt missed most of the season. This is all not to mention other players who graduated or went to the nfl(stephen, smallwood) we were basically entire new team that wasnt good to begin with last year and ended up with no qb, chandler was far better than boyle that should tell you all you need to know. we sucked and our offensive play calling was in no way good but in my opinion alot of players individually improved alot. maybe there was a plan for player development over winning or maybe there wasnt but the only thing that would have changed either way was beating a few crappy teams like army smu and south florida. would that have made anyone truly happy? the big 10 didnt invite rutgers because they were a football powerhouse and they wont invite us because we went 5-7 over 2-10 so i dont understand why people dont give it 1 year. were still short on talent but alot of young guys played alot this year on a team that had very little experience which should help. obviously next year there needs to be changes in game management and either cummings needs to step up or diaco needs to man up and find someone new. and if neither of those things occur then i think it will be time to get angry

I totally agree with this post but cannot say I'm happy with the way we played this year. I 'm willing to give Coach BD more time but the way he called the games this year is inexplicable. The recruiting gives me great hope.

 

[Woof 101]

Trying to keep an open mind on this.. Not easy...We have some guys on D that could have pressured the QB much more than we saw this year.
Opposing QBs had vacation time in the backfield. His track record is to contain and keep the score down. I prefer a team with a weak O to let the D do some score board damage.
Army and SMU were defensive train wrecks. Can't blame players for doing what they are told, obvioulsy plan not working and the man in charge changing nothing.
Again I will keep an open mind but my "Bob Bubble" has been deflated quite a bit...

 

[J187Money]

I dont think there is any way this can be overstated. Casey was so good last season.

Remember when Manning went down in Indy ? They went from 13 wins to 2. I am in no way comparing Casey to PM, but that position is just so damn important.

Packers were 1-3-1 without Rodgers last year. Talent matters.

 

[Excalibur]

Having Casey this year would have masked some issues, but the issues would still be there. Getting a few more wins (I think with Casey we beat 3 of SMU, USF, Tulane and Army) would have kept most of the fan base quiet.

 

[Excalibur]

Cthe defense we came up with [Against Army], emphasized our strengths on defense, covered up our weaknesses, and did actually manage to make the effective stops late in the game.

This is demonstrably false. Our strengths on D were our interior line and safety play (in run support). We spent most of the season going with 3 down linemen but went exclusively to 4 against Army. Why? By putting another linemen with his hand in the dirt, and refusing to bring a safety up to help, he crippled our ability to contain the edge and run to the ball.

They got two straight stops at the end of the third and beginning of the 4th quarter. One was a self-inflicted error by Army. Then, needing a stop with 9:00 to go, they let Army eat 5 minutes and score.