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Introduction

In Part 1 of our introduction to Manny Diaz, we used basic and advanced metrics to outline what immediate statistical impact he’s delivered in Year 1 as defensive coordinator throughout various stops in his coaching career.

Today, we’re gonna put Diaz’s body of work under a different microscope lens and compare how his teams have performed vs. past Penn State defenses and FBS defenses, at large. Coach Diaz has served as Defensive Coordinator or Head Coach in FBS since 2010 (2010 and 2015 Mississippi State, 2011-2013 Texas, 2014 Louisiana Tech, 2016-2021 Miami) and has commanded groups that have been above average in virtually every category in every year. But how did he stack up against Penn State – a program that has some incredible defenses and legendary players in the last decade-plus? How much should we temper our expectations (or not)?

Let’s find out…

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Introduction

Now that Penn State’s first spring practice is officially in the books, the bitter, lingering aftertaste of the way up then way down 2021 season has been chased by our first shot of hope. This year, a key ingredient mixed in the collective Kool-Aid we all seem to guzzle around mid-March is the hire of new defensive coordinator Manny Diaz – The Father of the Turnover Chain and the former DC and Head Coach of Miami. Manny Diaz comes to Penn State with an impressive pedigree as a defensive coordinator that includes various stops at places like Middle Tennessee (2006-2009), Mississippi State – twice (2010 and 2015), Texas (2011-2013), Louisiana Tech (2014), and Miami (2016-2018 as DC; 2019-2021 as Head Coach).

Diaz’s lengthy resume got us wondering, “How have Diaz’s Year 1 defenses compared to what the departed DC did the previous season?” Well, we found out.

Because our tracking only dates back to 2009, we’re gonna start our analysis during Diaz’s first of two pit stops at Mississippi State (to FTB’s loyal Blue Raider readership, sorry). As always, we’re going to look at everything – from basic stats to more advanced stats — to determine Diaz’s immediate impact on a defense.

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Sandy Barbour announced this week that she will retire this summer, leaving Penn State with a vacancy at the head of its athletic department at the same time its new president, Neela Bendapudi, is transitioning into the big chair.

Athletic directors – not unlike quarterbacks and head coaches – usually receive disproportionate amounts of blame and credit for failure or success, but it’s still a crucial hire for Bendapudi and the university’s board of trustees, one that could shape the future for one of the country’s largest athletic departments and its prominent and not-so-prominent teams.

Instead of getting into the list of potential candidates, today we’ll look at some of the tasks that will await Barbour’s successor, in rough order of importance.

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Editor’s Note: Every Monday Evening From Now Until the End of Spring Ball, FTB Unpacks All the Interesting/Unique/Quirky Play Calls We Saw During Mike Yurcich’s 1^st Season as the Nittany Lions’ OC

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With 11:25 remaining and Penn State clinging to a precarious 1-point lead over Auburn, life imitated Electronic Arts.

If the design of Brenton Strange’s slow-footed trot to the 2 – arguably the funkiest play in a Barnum & Bailey three-ring Whiteout that had failed fat-man fake punts, phantom Intentional Groundings, and a down that POOF vanished into thin air — looked familiar in the moment, well then there’s a good chance that you, like us, wasted too many days playing EA’s old NCAA Football video game franchise.

Indeed, “If it’s in the game, it’s in the game.”

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If you’re of the belief that Micah Shrewsberry’s first season as Penn State’s head basketball coach, which drew to a close with Friday’s loss to Purdue in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament, was an indication that the Nittany Lions have brighter hoops days ahead, there are plenty of signs you can point to.

You might want to give it just one more year, though.

Though it’s true that Penn State will, once again, not be participating in the NCAA Tournament, or even the NIT, it was still hard to be unimpressed by the body of work Shrewsberry and his new staff put together, particularly with a roster that was, by no fault of their own, rather hastily assembled less than one year ago.

With six returning players – only four of which saw more than two minutes per game last season – and five transfers, Penn State won 14 games, including nine against Big Ten opponents. There were some ugly nights, to be sure – the lopsided loss at UMass in November, the ugly late-season home defeat to Nebraska (that didn’t look QUITE as bad when the Cornhuskers then won at Ohio State and Wisconsin) – and a few games where Shrewsberry wishes he had one or two possessions back. And the offense, which produced 64.6 points per game (dead last in the conference) managed to have at least a few ugly moments most nights.

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Signing Day has come and gone. Spring practice is still two weeks away. In some ways, it’s the slow season for Penn State football, but in others, there is no time of year that isn’t important. Right now, coaches and players are compiling and checking things off various lists – lists of exercises to complete in the weight room for the players, lists of practices to schedule and of recruits to woo for the coaches.

Writers, of course, love lists. And while there’s still a long way to go before we have a true semblance of a two-deep, it’s never too early to type out a list of a few areas that could be scale-tippers for a team that was all-too-often on the razor’s edge between wins and losses in 2021.

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Penn State has few recruiting showcases as effective as an autumn White Out game. One of them takes place in Indianapolis this week.

Eight Nittany Lions will be among the 300-plus NFL prospects at the league’s annual combine, a sneak preview of another NFL Draft that promises to have strong Penn State representation. For all the baffling struggles the Lions have had on the field the last couple of seasons, they have continued to produce – and develop – a significant number of professionals.

This year, that combine list includes Jahan Dotson, the sticky-handed wide receiver who probably would have been a Day 2 pick in the 2021 draft but decided to return for another season to help his team (which was in need of more help than even he could provide) and to continue to develop his own game (which he did). He’ll likely go at the end of Round 1 this spring, even in what is another deep wide receiver group.

It includes Jaquan Brisker, the former Lackawanna College safety who came on strong at the end of 2020 then had a tremendous final season this fall, showing skills in coverage, physicality and instincts as a tackler, and versatility. Another transfer, defensive end Arnold Ebiketie, was a productive player at Temple but turned a lot of heads against stiffer Big Ten competition this fall and, like Brisker, was a key catalyst for a vastly improved Penn State defense. He likely earned himself a jump of numerous spots up the draft board this season. Jordan Stout, tasked with filling the shoes of a punter who is now starting in the league (Blake Gillikin), stands a very good chance of becoming the first Penn State punter selected in the draft since John Bruno in 1987.

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