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Manny Diaz Stays With The Real Talk

Ever since coming to Austin as part of the restructuring of the Texas football staff after the 2010 season, Texas defensive coordinator Manny Diaz has been a fan favorite.

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For a glimpse why, check out this fascinating profile of Diaz from Scout.com's Kevin Flaherty, who talks with him about his defensive philosophy, how he got involved in coaching and the new wave of Moneyball-inspired advanced metrics coming into the game.

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Diaz makes some excellent points about how the inter-connected nature of football, especially on the defensive side, makes judging the merits of players on individual statistics something of a fool's errand. However, in my mind, the money quote comes at the very end:

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"People are starting to not just accept the vague, broad analysis that they get from their local paper or whoever's yelling at them on ESPN," Diaz said. "They can say ' gosh, I can look at a box score. I watched the game just the same as the guy in the press box. Maybe I have something to add, too.'"

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That sentence, more than anything else, sums up why sites like this exist.

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Photographs by jamesbrandon, jdtornow, phlezk, flygraphix, mcdlttx, tomasland, and literalbarrage used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.