It’s hard to name more than a few Penn State players or coaches who have had better two-year runs than the departing Manny Diaz, who switched his job title from Nittany Lion defensive coordinator to Duke head coach this week.

Bill O’Brien comes to mind. Saquon Barkley (yes, he was here for three years but his 2016 and 2017 seasons were a considerable step up from his 2015 debut). Joe Moorhead, who directed the offenses in which Barkley flourished. Ki-Jana Carter in 1993-94.

The point is, it was a short but brilliant body of work, and it now leaves James Franklin in the familiar space of equal parts disappointment and opportunity. The odds aren’t great that Penn State will find someone better than Diaz for its next DC. But the same conditions that helped Diaz lead the Nittany Lions to some historic defensive numbers will at least make that possible.

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Introduction

Throughout all the ebbs and flows of James Franklin’s eventful tenure at Penn State, the one constant year after year has been the Nittany Lions steady and strong defense (2020 notwithstanding, cough). No different in 2022. Despite all the off-season upheaval (losing 5 defenders in the NFL Draft, losing folksy-sounding DC Brent Pry to Virginia Tech, and bringing in a complete outsider in Manny Diaz) this year’s Penn State defense did more than maintain the status quo. They set a new standard of excellence.

Dominant but in a different way, Diaz’s defense leaned on arguably the best secondary in program history so that the front seven could unleash absolute chaos at the line of scrimmage.  The result? A savage Saturday symphony of sacks, strips, and swats. Man, it was beautiful, wasn’t it? But don’t just take my word for it…the basic and advanced defensive stats from this season back all of that up. Let’s dive in.

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Introduction

Chips are for cookies. Chips are for dip. Chips are for overheating inside my outdated iPhone the millisecond Apple releases a new iteration (I’m onto your little scheme, Bono).

The object fastened to Penn State defensive coordinator Manny Diaz’s shoulder this season isn’t a chip – it’s a damn boulder. Sedimentary? Igneous? Metamorphic? Who knows, and honestly, who cares. All that matters is that the jilted former head coach (seriously, have you read the details of his ugly estrangement with Miami??!?!) is pulling levers and pushing buttons with an edge capable of cutting diamonds after administrators snatched away Diaz’s dream job and hired an overpaid replacement who Aqib Talib’d his Turnover Chain and tossed it in the trash.

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Lions & Twists & Stunts, Oh My! Billed as an Exotic Break From the Brent Pry Norm, Act One of ‘The Manny Diaz Experience’ Turned Out to be Surprisingly Efficient and Effective, as well.

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BOX SCORE      FTB CHARTING

Thanks for nothing, Fox Sports Graphics Team.

As the rest of you spent this holiday weekend celebrating the American workforce by driving around town in your Japanese-made cars, floating atop your Chinese-made innertubes, and sipping German beer, the infrequently hard-working folks at FTB were vigorously spinning the hamster wheel of creativity, desperate to find the perfect lead for the inaugural ‘Hindsight’ review of the Manny Diaz era.

After racking our brains for literally dozens of seconds, we spent the next hour screwing around on our phones watching some disembodied voice rip open packs of junk wax baseball cards from the 1980s (oddly soothing and satisfying, highly recommend). Then, we snapped back to the task at hand, re-focused for a good minute, and settled on this corny bit where we turned two Manny Diaz defensive formations into Rorschach inkblots and had an imaginary psychward patient guess the down and distance.

There was just one problem…the ‘splotchy’ EFX on Photoshop wasn’t enough to blur out Fox’s superimposed on-field down and distance graphic, thus ruining the bit. Such a shame.

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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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