Has Coach D ever had this much talent on any of his defenses.?

He’s turned around many programs with far less but I am curious if anyone has a sense of what teams he’s coached that had commensurate or better talent? 

Edited February 1, 20214 yr by Vandownbytheriverduck

I am guessing that Oregon will have better talent than Cal had, and as for Texas A&M....I would think so also at the time he was there.  This is what makes it so intriguing, as now he can Zone-Blitz with some darn good talent.  Good question...just my gut feel is all.

I very seriously doubt that the answer is yes. This is one of the draws of Oregon right now. Who would have said it 10 years ago????

When you have elite talent to coach, you find out what kind of a Xs and Os guy you are.

Also, you find out if you can coach elite talent up to greater heights, or can you only coach up good talent to great?

The first thing any coach must do is get buy-in from the players. Having a young team in this regard can be a good thing.

If DeRuyter can get KT and Sewell bought in, the rest of the D will follow super fast! 

13 hours ago, Jon Sousa said:

Also, you find out if you can coach elite talent up to greater heights, or can you only coach up good talent to great?

IMO Oregon has not been known for Coaching Up players that much. It would be nice to see that done more here. 

I don't know. 247 at the bottom of the year-by-year commit page, has a top 25 all-time recruiting rating (since 1999):

Everyone has their busts, but Oregon has done pretty well by their best commits. For comparison, USC has done pretty well, but some major flops, UW/UCLA top 25 is pretty hit-or-miss. Stanford, pretty well. Very recently, Oregon has done right by KT and Sewell (both look to be in place for a wonderful career and about $100 million dollars).

Among the 25 highest rated commits since 1999, based on careers versus expectations, excluding guys who it is too early to evaluate, an eyeball look at it shows "success versus bust" rates of (roughly):

Stanford: 71%

Oregon: 67%

USC: 58%

UCLA: 36%

UW: 32%

Its subjective but applying a pretty loose standard: expectations based on rankings versus career.

Edited February 2, 20214 yr by AnotherOD