re: Manny Diaz Miami DC

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How did he fail so bad at texas?

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1. He had a head coach who wasn't interested in demanding accountability from players or other coaches.
2. He had a head coach that wasn't interested in running the type of physical practices that were necessary in his (Manny's) second year at Texas when the D was pretty young and inexperienced.
3. He had a DB coach that only wanted to coach man-to-man even though Manny's defense (especially his blitzes) required competent zone coaching and development.

I do wonder a bit about his chops as a LB position coach but his prior and subsequent stops haven't seemed to reveal the LB problems we had during his second and third years. Which was our LBs couldn't take on any block with the right shoulder or maintain good gap assignment.

But go look at Adrian Colbert - here's a guy who came to Texas with incredible measurables. Tall, rangy, 200m champ in high school. Then he couldn't get on the field under Strong (yes, I realize Manny was gone at that point) so he transfers to Miami (to be with Manny who had at least partly recruited him I think). The reasons given were that he was too stiff and couldn't change direction as a safety. So all Manny does is turn him into a corner who starts, gets drafted by the 49ers and is now playing a great deal I believe. I'm not sure if that's an indictment of Strong/Bedford or an example of Manny's wizardry but it is what it is.

A lot of Texas fans - especially Brown apologists - are just now coming around to the idea that it might not have been all Manny's fault.