Aggressiveness, adjustments will be hallmark of Lance Guidry’s Miami Hurricanes defense … says fall camp about finding guys team can trust
Get ready for an aggressive, blitz-heavy Miami Hurricanes defense that will try to confuse offenses with numerous different looks.
That’s the Lance Guidry D.
He’ll be aggressive and will stack seven defenders in the box. He’s not afraid to leave corners on an island. He also won’t use the extremely heavy rotation on the front seven that saw top Miami players sometimes in for barely half the reps of a game. He confuses offenses by using a variety of looks with the same personnel. At Marshall he used five defensive backs the vast majority of the time, with a linebacker taking the DB’s spot about 30 percent of the game. He typically runs a 4-2-5, with two tackles with their hands in the dirt and stand up ends. Having seven in the box is the norm for his defenses.
As Kam Kinchens told CaneSport on Monday, he only blitzed five times all of last season but expects a lot more action in the opponent’s backfield this time around.
And Guidry said Kinchens’ safety-mate, James Williams, will be lined up at outside linebacker against run-heavy fronts and will also have plenty of blitz/rush responsibilities.
“We’ll be a little more aggressive with how much we blitz, the different guys that are blitzing,” Guidry said. “We’ll blitz corners, ‘backers, safeties, drop different guys in coverage. Just be as multiple as we can, mix up things for the offensive line and quarterbacks as much as you can.”
With Williams, Guidry adds “James will extend a little more than he has. He’ll play what we call boundary safety most of the time, but when they get big personnel he’ll go to some outside backer stuff. We’ll blitz him off the edge, do some different things with him.
“I told him you want to put as much stuff on film as you can for NFL scouts so you don’t get pigeonholed into one spot. So if you play multiple positions it’s going to help you. And he’s bought into that.”
Yes, this is a D that will attack from any direction at any time.
And Guidry’s tactics won’t be letting up throughout the game – there won’t be some of that predictability Miami fans have gotten used to seeing in past Miami defenses.
“You have to know `Okay, they’re not going to do those things we’ve been seeing’ – we are going in blind,” Guidry said. “I go into a game – what are they going to try to do to us? When you get in a game and see it you immediately have to start fixing the problems on the sideline. The most important thing is go back to your base defenses that you run. You can structurally change things and manipulate things off that. But I have to get that fixed before half. Because if I don’t get that fixed before half, in the second half they are going to come back and do the same thing. But if I get it fixed then they’ll probably end up going to what you saw on film – what is their best plays, their best passes, their best runs. And that’s the stuff you worked on. That’s why the third quarter is such a big quarter because I have to have done my job already fixing it or at halftime have to do a good job of fixing it.”
Will the new system make a difference?
Miami … and Guidry … hope so.
He takes over a Miami D that didn’t fare particularly well in 2022, although it was overshadowed by an even worse offense on a 5-7 team. The Canes ranked No. 64 in the nation in total defense (376.5 yards per game), No. 54 in rush defense (142.9 yards), No. 79 in passing yards allowed (233.6) and tied for 66th in scoring defense (26.8 points per game).
So when fall drills begin tomorrow morning, a lot will hinge on the competition and how it all shakes out. Entering Day 1 of fall camp, Guidry declined to say any depth chart situations, saying it’s open competition.
But on the defensive line the team has back standout DT Leonard Taylor and DL Akheem Mesidor, plus DE Jahfari Harvey is a returning starter and second-year DE Nyjalik Kelly will look to push Harvey to start.
True freshman DL Rueben Bain could also factor in with a lot of reps given his huge upside getting after the quarterback.
At DT along with Taylor, Jared Harrison-Hunte is finally healthy and could push to start with Purdue transfer Branson Deen perhaps having a leg up. Another transfer, Anthony Campbell, also hopes to find a role.
Tackle depth is a concern, and there is no really big, physical defensive tackle – there are more a collection of athletic DT’s.
“It’s always good to have a really, really big sucker,” Guidry said. “When you don’t have them, you don’t have them so you have to create ways to make up for that. A lot of times it’s the movement of your defensive line, different techniques you play. We feel we have enough big guys, just not the big, big anchor. It is what it is. I think we have a good front, a lot of depth.”
Bain and Mesidor are mainly ends but could also get reps inside, Guidry said.
“They can rush inside and outside, and we’ll use them that way,” he said of that duo, adding that “I think the D line is the strength of the defense.”
It’s also worth noting that of the defensive true freshman class, Guidry said that Bain is “right now the only one” that would be expected to have a sizable role on this team.
With this thought added: “I’m anxious to see Damari Brown,” Guidry said. “He had a really good summer. He has the physical gifts, and we need him to step up and probably give us some snaps. … Both of the Brown boys (with Davonte) can really do some things.”
At LB the team has Corey Flagg and Bissainthe returning, plus the addition of MLB transfer Francisco Mauigoa and MLB KJ Cloyd from Louisville.
Mauigoa had a standout spring after coming in from Washington State and is expected to start in the middle.
“There is going to be some good competition at linebacker,” Guidry said. “We have a lot of ‘backers that can play.”
In the back end Guidry has as good a safety duo as you’d want in All-American Kam Kinchens and James Williams.
As stated earlier, Williams will move around throughout all levels of the D.
“James can be an outside ‘backer, will focus on safety and outside ‘backer,” Guidry said. “I definitely want to use him to his strengths. It’s going to help us better, but also putting it on film for the NFL scouts so they can evaluate and not say `hey, this is a safety that might be able to play outside ‘backer. It’s a guy that we’ve seen play outside ‘backer and he’s so athletic he can also play back on the hash. Creating that value for himself is going to help him on the next level.”
Guidry also said that in the future Kinchens “can be a great coach if he decides to do that.”
“Kam is a really good player but also a very good leader and very smart,” Guidry said.
A question mark is at cornerback, where the team lost two starters and has back nickel/STAR starter Te’Cory Couch. The hope is that some of last year’s backups will step up or that transfer arrivals Jaden Davis, Davonte Brown, Ja’Dais Richard and Demetrius Freeney (JUCO).
Guidry said that Couch will have competition at STAR/nickel from Davis, Richard and Jaden Harris.
Kinchens indicated it’s likely that Brown and Porter start out as the first-team corners in fall camp, which kicks off tomorrow.
There will, of course, be constant competition.
“We have ones, twos and threes and each day we’ll grade the film and whoever graded out the best and had a productive day will be the starter the next day,” Guidry said. “Coach (Mario) Cristobal approves every depth chart change. … When we get to the game time it’ll be the guys who had the best fall camp, who we really trust and who has made plays.
“If a guy goes down the depth chart and he pouts, then he’s probably going to pout in the game. If he fights to get back on the No. 1s, that’s a guy who is going to respond in a game. So you look at all those little things that create good chemistry.”
Guidry’s used to getting results. His defenses dominated in his coordinator stops at McNeese State, Western Kentucky, and this past year at Marshall, with the lone real hiccup when he was coordinator for one year at Southeastern Louisiana in 2019 and just didn’t have a lot of talent with which to work (that D was one of the nation’s worst the year before he arrived, ranking No. 104 in the nation in total defense).
His Marshall D this past season ranked in the nation’s top 10 in 12 different categories on D including eighth in total defense (294.5 yards) and sixth in scoring defense (16.0).
Those are the kind of numbers he wants to see at Miami.
“If we stay injury-free, I think we have a chance to be a good defense,” Guidry said.
*Guidry praised Oklahoma transfer Jaden Davis as a corner and nickel/STAR, and he’ll compete at the latter spot with returning starter Te’Cory Couch as well as Ja’Dais Richard and Jaden Harris.
“(Davis’) intelligence level – you can tell he’s played a lot of football,” Guidry said. “Disguising things when you haven’t even asked them to disguise them yet. That was good to see.”
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