Monday, August 9, 2010

Austin won't try to reinvent the wheel

In the ideal defense that Teryl Austin dreams to put on the field at the University of Florida, the blitz will be used sparingly, needed only for a change of pace because the defensive linemen are spending the entire game in the backfield harassing the opposing quarterback. Having spent most of his coaching career in the National Football League, Austin knows that the more pressure from the defensive line, the less you need the blitz which means more players in position to make plays on the football.


"I think if everyone could do that they would because then you don’t put yourself in stressful situations and you don‘t put yourself in terms of your team in situations where you might not have the right numbers," Austin said Monday morning after the Gators concluded their first full practice with both the freshmen and returning vets together. 
As Florida's new defensive coordinator, Austin isn't bringing a new philosophy to the table or advocating wholesale changes in the way things are done. The Gators won two national championships in the previous five seasons with a dominating defense sculpted by coordinator Charlie Strong, who became Louisville's new head coach after the 2009 season. Obviously, what Strong was doing worked quite well so there is no need to reinvent the wheel.
Instead of turning things upside down, Austin, who coached record-breaking secondaries that got their teams to the Super Bowl in both Seattle and Arizona, will tweak a few things along the way but the philosophy --- get the best players on the field and tailor the defense to what they do best --- will stay the same. 
Because he is back in the college game for the first time since 2002 when he coached the secondary at Michigan, Austin is relying heavily on input from Chuck Heater and Dan McCarney, holdovers from the previous staff, and from new linebackers coach D.J. Durkin, who came to Florida after a successful stint at Stanford. Heater has been a part of two national championships at Florida (2006 and 2008) while McCarney was on the 2008 staff. 
The 2006 team rarely blitzed, getting almost all of its pressure from a front four that held  Ohio State to 83 total yards in Florida's 41-14 national championship win over Ohio State. Ohio State's Heisman Trophy quarterback Troy Smith still hears the footsteps from Derrick Harvey and Jarvis Moss. Florida's 2008 national championship team didn't get near the pass rush from the front four so it needed a variety of zone and corner blitzes to bring the pressure.
Both systems worked well because they were designed to fit the talents of the personnel and that's a philosophy that isn't going to change just because there is a new defensive coordinator. 
"The big thing I didn’t want to do is come in here and say I’m changing everything," Austin said. "Really, at the end of the day it’s what can our guys do and do well. So we kind of merged all that together. No egos in our (defensive) room. The bottom line is we want to do what is best for our team. Because I did it someway somewhere else doesn’t make it right and because they did it someway somewhere doesn’t make it right. The big thing is what’s right for this team this year."
Ideally, he says, what is right is for the pressure to come from the defensive line and he's confident that he will find the right combinations from those 17 scholarship linemen to make it work. 
"It's (pressure) going to come our pass rush," he said. "Our guys are going to get it done."
If the Gators can get it done up front then the secondary and linebackers can be more aggressive. Austin likes to attack and while he would like to get most of the quarterback pressure from his front four, he's not afraid to blitz. He also knows that game situations sometimes require more of a read and react scheme. 
No matter the scheme, however, the Gators will be aggressive. 
"We’re going to be aggressive which doesn’t always mean blitzing," Austin said. "I think sometimes people get the idea that if you’re an aggressive team you’re always a blitzing team. That doesn’t mean that. I think we can be aggressive without blitzing. I think we’ll fall somewhere in between but that will be dictated by the game."
Unlike the NFL whose schemes on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball are often limited by personnel numbers (you can only carry 47 players on an active game day roster), the college game is more wide open due to greater depth (85 scholarship players available. While a majority of NFL teams stick with the West Coast offense, the college game is gravitating toward the spread.
And, as Alabama proved in last year's SEC Championship Game in Atlanta, it's possible to run power formations and switch to the spread without changing personnel. That puts tremendous pressure on defensive coordinators to have players flexible enough to switch from a 4-3, which is better for rushing the passer, to a 3-4, which is better against the spread.
Austin says the Gators will be flexible enough in their schemes to run both a 4-3 and a 3-4 but because of the spread, you might see more 3-4 this year than you're used to.
"I think that’s probably what you’re seeing because you can be a little more flexible in some of things you can do with a 4-3 but at the end of the day you have to make sure you have the right personnel on the field," Austin said. "If they’re spreading you out, they usually have a plan why they’re spreading you out and how they’re spreading you out so you have to have figure that out before you change personnel just to change personnel. I think the 3-4 does give you flexibility because you can match up your balance, their balance and we go and we just play from there."
From a philosophical standpoint, flexibility is critical. From a practical standpoint, it's all about fitting the scheme to the talent of the personnel.
"It all goes back to the same thing: what can our players do, what can they do well, what gives us the best chance to win?" Austin said. "If it is getting into some 3-4 then it’s getting in a 3-4. If it’s staying in a 4-3 and letting our guys hunt off the edge that’s what we’re going to do."
* * * 
If there is one player on the defensive side of the ball who helped himself the most in the offseason, Austin says it is fourth-year junior tackle Jaye Howard. 
"The one guy Coach Mick (strength and conditioning coach Mickey Marotti) talked about a bunch who really had a heckuva summer is Jaye Howard," Austin said. "Jaye Howard, from what I understand in the past, hasn’t been that guy but he really has kind of turned the corner and he is one guy that kept coming up that Mick was saying ‘boy he really had an outstanding summer for him’ in addition to numerous guys but he is one guy that kind of turned the corner that we’re counting on."
* * *
Florida's 2010 defense will be led by a strong group of veterans. The Gators have starters or experienced players at every position except one and that is the corner opposite two-year starter Janoris Jenkins. When spring practice ended, the open corner position was a two-way battle between senior Moses Jenkins, who has distinguished himself as a special teams standout but not as part of the regular defense, and Jeremy Brown, whose back issues have caused him to miss the last two seasons since he early enrolled in January of 2008. Brown is healthy now and ready to compete with Jenkins for the starters job, but Austin warns that several freshmen will also be given a chance to compete for the job.
Janoris Jenkins is secure as one starter, but the second spot will go to whoever proves to be the second best player at the corner position.
"I think Jeremy Brown and Moses Jenkins are involved at that position in addition to any of our freshmen," Austin said. "At the end of the day we know Janoris is one corner. What we’re trying to do is develop our next corner --- if it’s Moses, if it’s Jeremy, if it’s one of the young guys --- and what we’ll do as we get going through the next two weeks will determine who our second best corner is. If it happens to be a guy that’s in the boundary we’ll move him to the field. If it happens to be that guy that’s out there, hey we’re going to move ahead and go full speed but we’re going to put our best players on the field. We owe that to our team."

 
 

















1 comment: