Previously: Last year’s profiles. S Damani Dent, S/Nk Zeke Berry, S/HSP Keon Sabb, CB Myles Pollard, CB/Nk Kody Jones, CB Will Johnson, LB Deuce Spurlock, LB Jimmy Rolder, DE/LB Micah Pollard, DE Derrick Moore, DT Mason Graham, DT Kenneth Grant.

Washington, DC, via VT and UCF – 6'2”, 315
THESE ARE ALL 2018 RANKINGS FYI
[via Rivals]		247: 6'0/317        3.55*	3*, 86, NR overall #57 DL, #6 DC
		Rivals: 6'0/315        3.58*	3*, 5.6, NR overall #42 DT, #7 DC
		ESPN: 6'0/321        4.11*	4*, 81, #29 East, #276 ovr #52 DT, #13 IN
		On3:        n/a	did not exist
		Composite:        3.75*	3*, 0.8745, #554 overall #40 DT, #5 DC
		Other Suitors	Vandy, Cuse (ND, Vols)
		YMRMFSPA	Mid-major Mo Hurst
Previously On MGoBlog	Commitment alert by me.
Notes	UCF transfer. UA Game.
Film:
No highlights but here's the entire UCF-Cincy game:

Do we do these for transfers? We get so few of them I can't remember. Cam Goode is a squat, square-shaped swing tackle who's been the third man in UCF's rotation the last few years. His sophomore year he was more of a pass-rusher, but since bulked up into an even player. Also he went through a coaching transition, as Gus Malzahn arrived last year with a new DTs coach from WKU. That coach brought in one of his guys to start over Goode, and used the latter part of last season to develop younger players. Knights Citronaut fans were perplexed by that, and upset about losing Goode.

He has junior eligibility, having sat out a transfer year in 2018 after leaving Virginia Tech, and the COVID shirt for 2020 that made last year technically his second redshirt sophomore season.

Anyway, we never got around to an official Hello post, so this will serve. Unfortunately not much was written about Cam Goode, so this is going to be more of our own scouting, PFF's numbers, and smatterings from people who previewed UCF, with generous use of clips from his games last year against Florida and Cincinnati.

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Story

Goode was a late-riser in the 2018 class, IE the one where when Michigan's only DT recruit was Julius Welschof, but Michigan didn't take a look then, since "is already 313 pounds" seemed to be the one bit of scouting on him. That was good (ha!) enough for an invite to the UA game. Local Virginia Tech held off Rutgers, MSU (then in collapse), Indiana, Virginia, and Syracuse. Penn State and Maryland poked around but didn't end up offering.

Though expected to start immediately on a depleted depth chart, his VT career didn't last its first summer; he transferred at the end of July before his freshman season, with VT releasing him from his NLI unconditionally. It wasn't a secret why, via VT reporter Matej Sis:

It certainly appears that getting in shape was the hardest challenge for Goode, who has been constantly mentioned as an impact freshman with the caveat that he transforms his body at the collegiate level. Having been on campus only a matter of weeks, Goode leaves after the conclusion of the offseason workouts prior to Fall Camp.

Goode was at 331 pounds. Because of the timing, Goode needed an NCAA waiver to be eligible for UCF in 2019, which came at the tail end of spring practice. Between August 2018 and April 2019, he also dropped 40 pounds. Then-UCF line coach Shane Burnham was blunt:

“…when you’re stepping over your tongue, it’s hard to play fast,” Burnham said. “That’s what he was doing last spring, stepping on his tongue every day because he was so gassed. Now he can play and he’s been doing a good job.”

Goode made the DT rotation, mostly as a pass-rusher, as a redshirt freshman, playing at around 285 pounds.

For the shortened COVID year he'd bulked up to 295-300 and started the back end of the season, after a guy ahead of him was part of a group of UCF players who got in legal trouble. It was a very effective campaign, and fans assumed Goode would start from here on out.

But before the 2021 season, Josh Heupel departed, Gus Malzahn took over, and brought in a new staff, including a DL coach from Western Kentucky. WKU transfer Rickey Barber followed, and Goode ended up the permanent Guy #3 in a rotation involving five DTs, four of whom were available at any given moment.

He picked up a few starts again when Barber was hurt, but oddly UCF was starting RS sophomore Keenan Hester over Goode during that period; Hester is larger but and has more upside, but by every metric and the eye test Goode was by far the superior player. This was especially evident when run defense breakdowns by the other DTs staked Cincy to a 21-0 lead; the two drives Goode started were a 4-and-out and 3-and-out. Goode also might have been playing hurt that year:

“All I’m saying is to not look at the stats. I’ve played hurt and it doesn’t matter."

Whether or not that had anything to do with his departure, all of those guys save Barber were coming back, Goode had his degree, and he hit the portal, looking like he was headed to Syracuse (subtext, UCF felt Cuse had tampered), with Vandy also getting a look. Michigan quickly hopped in, and pulled away despite growing interest from Notre Dame and others. A big factor in that was knowing a lot of Michigan's players from the DMV, especially fellow grad transfer Olu Oluwatimi, whom Goode played with since eighth grade.

Scouts see twitch

There's a misconception among a lot of Michigan reporters in that they see "6'2"/315" and assume Goode's a Terrance Taylor type, i.e. a short, squat, doubles-eating run-stopper who'll push his way into the backfield, but never explode into it. First of all he's probably 6'1" or under that. The UCF observers all talk about the opposite:

No. 38 in my #AACTop50:

UCF DT Cam Goode

Explosive (can't emphasize that enough) player who's set to have a monster season pic.twitter.com/EdHDMPcQz4

— Joe Broback (@joebroback) July 27, 2021

UCF line coach Shane Burnham, who had Goode in 2019 and 2020, said he's "always been a twitchy guy, always been a guy that’s had good feet." This was Burnham's take when they found Goode in the first place (video):

Low center of gravity, hard to move. As you watch his tape you'll hardly find anybody with better feet. Just an extremely athletic kid on his lower half.

This is Goode's assessment of himself:

“Someone who is fast and twitchy,” Goode said. “Even though I might be small at my position, I’m someone who also has a big heart.

And what Minter's been telling him his role will be:

The (Michigan) coaches just saw the twitch I had and they said they want to use it. They want to put me in pass rush situations and also being a third down guy being able to get to the quarterback on the inside even though Michigan is known for having that outside threat.”

Among the Michigan folks who looked at Goode's film, Touch the Banner saw more of a first-step than a won't-budge:

I’m a little torn on Goode. On the one hand, I really like his quickness and explosiveness. … Goode can be active and versatile on the defensive line, and I think Michigan can move him around a little bit to create some matchup issues. He’s quick enough and powerful enough to get underneath some guards and centers, and I think he pairs up nicely with someone like Mazi Smith at the nose tackle position.

Magnus, like Don Brown, prefers "quickness and athleticism over pure power and strength," but isn't sold on Goode because his TFLs were largely generated against weaker competition and an unmotivated Florida team in the bowl game.

Ominously for them, Virginia Tech DL coach Charley Wiles thought he was getting a big plugger:

“Well he’s big, you know, he has size and that’s the big thing. Most of the time the guys we do recruit and get need to get a little bigger. They need to get stronger where Cam, that’s the one thing you need to worry about. We’ve been talking to Cam about is don’t come in too big and out of shape. He needs to be fit.

You can see why things didn't work out.

Pass rusher

UCF fans and scouts talk about a guy who gets into the backfield, and circa spring 2020 that's how Goode saw himself:

"Last year I felt like I was too light," Goode said. "I was weighing around 285. Right now I'm 295, 300, between there. I'm focused on also being more physical in the run game. If you stop the run, you can rush the passer. You've got to earn that right. I'm a gifted pass rusher and I pride myself on rushing."

His freshman and sophomore numbers back that up—via PFF, Goode got pressures on 10.3% of his rushes in 2020, and 11.8% in 2019. For comparison, Chris Hinton last year was at 5.2%, Donovan Jeter was 5.6%, and Mazi Smith got pressures on 7.7% of his pass rushes. Mo Hurst's 2017 was an insane 14.4%, whereas stay-at-home Bryan Mone was a career 2.1%, if you're wondering how the distribution lies.

Goode's 2021 pressure rate was only 4.6%: 11 pressures (three of those vs UConn) on 236 pass rushes. Goode's drop-off in production there might have been due to the undisclosed injury he referenced earlier. It also might be explained by role; with 6th round draft pick NT Kalia Davis sidelined after 4.25 games, Goode was playing mostly with Ricky Barber (7.7%) and Keenan Hester (6.9%), probably got to glamour role while Goode played contain back at the line of scrimmage. From the film, injury seems the more likely cause; Goode had active hands and a good first step but if his momentum was arrested he was dead.

Note, however, that UCF's pass-rush in general seemed focused on contain over pressure, their stunts didn't make a lot of sense, and they struggled to produce pressure from the edges.

#54 the NT

Things I do like on Goode's film are his hand usage; he's got an effective rip move that combines with his first step to terrorize linemen who don't have arms long enough to counter it

As relayed from Minter, Michigan's plan is to leave somebody else guarding the escape routes.

“We would like to generate more production on the inside,” defensive line coach Mike Elston said this spring. “Obviously, we’re going to need to. We’ve lost some edge presence and it has to be generated somewhere, so we’re spending time on that.”

Scoring-wise PFF liked Goode as a pass-rusher foremost. Their 2021 preview magazine thought he and Ricky Barber were the best returning pass-rush pair in the AAC:

The Knights have a tandem in Barber and Cam Goode that is set to be a nightmare to defend along the interior. In 2020, Goode owned the fourth-best pass-rush grade among AAC interior defensive linemen at 79.8.

Goode's height and relatively short arms shouldn't make him much of a threat to bat down passes, but he can jump.

Run-stopper?

Goode's deployment shows they trusted him to stop the run, but they weren't very good at it in general; UCF was 98th nationally in sack-adjusted YPC (5.2), and 62nd in adjusted line yards, and 60th in stuff rate to Football Outsiders.

PFF also tracks "stops," which are events where the DT got free of his blocking and led the ending of a rush attempt.

Player	Run Stops	Snaps vs Run	Stops/Snaps
Cam Goode, 2021	13	236	5.5%
Cam Goode, 2020	10	194	5.2%
Cam Goode, 2019	5	102	4.9%
Mazi Smith, 2021	21	271	7.7%
Chris Hinton, 2021	20	261	7.7%
Donovan Jeter, 2021	13	144	9.0%
Mo Hurst, 2017	38	303	12.5%

His ratio of stops to missed tackles was also far worse than any Michigan DT in recent memory. Missed tackles for a DT are a mixed bag because being in position for an opportunity usually means you beat your blocker. However Goode, and the rest of the DL, often seemed to struggle on film with converting wins at the line of scrimmage into TFLs by giving up gap integrity:

If you haven't noticed, I'm pretty down on UCF's DL coaching. Heupel's staff seemed focused on keeping Goode in shape, and Malzahn's was built for recruiting; Goode may be coming in considerably more raw than you'd expect from someone who's already played four years in college.

As with Hurst, the first step was Goode's strongest weapon against the run, giving him a half-yard head start into the backfield that often leads to nowhere for the run to go:

Goode had four forced fumbles last year. That's probably luck; some guys (that Illinois LB is one) have the knack, but Goode was never a fumble-producer before that, and those are low-frequency events with a ton of randomness. If he's picked that up as a skill it would be nice; Michigan's fumble luck has not been kind since 2011.

Etc. Message to Michigan fans:

I play with pride and passion. As long as there is football with 11-on-11 and some referees, we are going to play. It doesn’t matter if we are in the mall, grocery store or wherever. It doesn’t matter because we are going to ball. I’ve been doing this since I was a kid and it’s fun to me. I bring this joy the same since I was a kid all the way to now. I just want to show you guys that I know I’m playing good, but it will be great. I love you guys and thankful for everything you guys are about to see. I’m just amazed by the support and thank you so much.”

Received.

Why mid-major Mo Hurst? I didn't think "Michael Dwumfour: Rutgers Edition" was going to do it, and Dwumfour wasn't viable enough at Michigan to qualify for YMRMFSPA, which is an "if he works out" comparison. The best way to comp Goode, I think, is to take a reasonable facsimile of Mo Hurst from NCAA 2014, and subtract 5 points from every score. Goode shorter guy for the position who wins at the line of scrimmage with a very good (but not insane) first step. He's boxy, low, and lacks the change of direction to upfront wins into crazy Aaron Donald sack totals, but the interruption he causes is extremely effective at interrupting offenses.

Guru Reliability: n/a.

Variance: Low. Already played four years of college, so what you see is what you get. Some variance if he had an injury last year that explains his reduced pass-rushing role, versus a more rush-oriented role at Michigan.

Ceiling: Low. If he's a backup at a decent mid-major after four years he probably won't be more than a rotational guy in years five and six.

General Excitement Level: Moderate. Defensive tackle depth is important; I expect that's what he's going to be, and there are several guys on the roster with a similar role and a lot more upside.

Projection: Bigger role than Whittley last year, but probably not greater than Jeter last year. Goode's experience should allow him to slot in immediately behind starters Kris Jenkins and Mazi Smith. If he shows the kind of pass rushing production that Michigan wasn't getting from its tackles last year, there's a role on end-of-half drives and late lead preservation situations, but he doesn't pop out enough as a pass-rushing DT to me that I think we need to platoon him—if anybody gets that role it's Julius Welschof!

More likely Goode rotates behind the starters and spends the season fending off challenges from Rayshaun Benny, George Rooks, and Mason Graham. With first crack at the lineup and some terrible offensive lines on the docket early in the season, Goode will probably look like an excellent addition in the first few weeks (or if he doesn't: worry). I more than suspect that will tail off, and Benny, if not the other two, will start to siphon snaps as the season progresses.

"Siphon" doesn't mean replaces, however. Tackles rotate a lot, and Michigan isn't replacing all of the snaps from Hinton, Jeter, Speight, and Whittley with just an increased role for Jenkins and freshmen. Let's say 300 snaps are left for Goode, with 55% of them pass-rushing opportunities. He grades out about where Hinton did (okay, not NFL-worthy) and gives Michigan a higher floor at the position than they had without him.