2012 Miami Hurricanes - Orangecrush99's Blog

Orangecrush99's Blog

2012 Miami Hurricanes

Posted on July 19, 2010 at 02:03 PM.

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Miami, FL - Yesterday I previewed the Canes offense, today I will preview the Canes defense and special teams. The defense will return 5 starters from last year's National Championship team. The leader of the defense will be 3-year starter Marcus Forston at defensive tackle. Forston is projected to be the next great Miami defensive tackle taken in the first round of the NFL Draft, joining the likes of Warren Sapp and Cortez Kennedy. Next to Forston will be senior Curtis Porter and at left defensive end will be returning starter Oliver Vernon. At right defensive end it will be either sophomore Tony Bracken or 5-star defensive end Sabbath Al Ghaffar. Al Ghaffar is another member of the 2012 recruiting, and possibly the most highly touted. Standing 6-6ft 240lbs many are comparing him to Julius Peppers and that comparison could be spot on by the athleticism Al Ghaffar possess. If he plays this year it will come down to him adopting to the speed of the game and learning to stick to his assignments.The position hit the hardest this year on defense is linebacker with no returning starters and the players there have little to no experience. Shayon Green, at middle linebacker, is the lone senior of the group and will have to step up this year due to the possibility of having a sophomore Travis Williams and freshmen Blake Hadley at the other two linebacker positions. In the secondary Ray Ray Armstrong, Jamal Reid, and Latwan Anderson return. The other conerback position will be filled by senior Brandon Mcgee, who was the nickelback last year. Replacing him will be sophomore Micheal Hollins. On to special teams the punter and kicker position will be filled by Jake Wieclaw. While for the returner spot it looks like a combination of Zach Moore and Storm Johnson. The defense has been the strength of this team for the past 2 years but, now that all those players have left its now up to the new guys to come in carry the torch. This is what i project the depht chart to look like:

Miami Hurricanes - 2012 Depth Chart - Base 4-3 Defense

	Starter	2nd	3rd	4th
LDE	Olivier Vernon	Tony Bracken
LDT	Marcus Forston	Tavadis Glenn
RDT	Curtis Porter	Delmar Taylor
RDE	Sabbath Al Ghaffar	Tony Bracken
WLB	Travis Williams	Sean Goldstein
MLB	Shayon Green	Sean Goldstein	Kevin Nelson
SLB	Blake Hadley	Sean Goldstein
CB	Latwan Anderson	Micheal Hollins
SS	Jamal Reid	Jason Wagner
FS	Ray Ray Armstrong	JIm Thronton
CB	Brandon Mcgee	Steve Adkins