Offseason Part 2

Before we get to the defensive coaches, I wanted to clear up that Alex Hunt did make his official this weekend. He was the last one of the verbals to come up and I was beginning to wonder if he would follow through with his committment. I know John Decker will be doing an interview soon with him, and it will be interesting to see what he has to say. Also, according to Dutra (RB from Center Grove) father, his son has been offered a preferred walk on chance at IU as an athlete. Dutra is small but runs in the low 4.4 to high 4.3 range. Could be an excellent return guy, much like Lance Bennett. Dutra has offers from Ball State, Indiana State, and Western Kentucky, so we'll see what happens. Probably won't know until after signing day.

Also, I have talked with some very close to Trent Mossbrucker, the kicker from Mooresville, IN who has told several he wants to go to IU. He's back and forth as now Iowa's staff has been showing him much more love and telling him to "honor his committment" and he'll develop more as a person away from home, than right next door. Sounds to me like, he'll probably end up a Hawkeye in the end, but we'll see. If anything does happen, it won't be until signing day at the earliest.

Okay, now for the defensive coaches: At the beginning of the season, I made a post on Peegs that I thought that IU's offense was good enough to win 10 games, but it would be up to the defense to get us to a bowl game, and this season, the defense was good enough to allow the team to win 7 games. However, much improvement is needed for the team to go on to the next step.

While there were many rumors before the start of the season, IU stayed with the 4-3 scheme and went very vanilla in terms of mixing up formations. The coaches were very simplistic with their approach, the DTs would hold the line and the DEs would blitz. The LBs would pursue, and the DBs would play a deep zone, thus allowing underneath stuff, but nothing over the top and the safeties would also purse the ball. This scheme works well with fast players that are not afraid of contact, but for IU, I still don't think they have the type of players in certain positions to really make this defense work. Also, we saw the coaches go with experienced guys, instead of more athletic, greener players. I can completely understand those moves, because the coaches were really playing for their coaching lives.

DL/Co Defensive Coordinator Brian George:
Brian is another of the coaches that came with Coach Hep from Miami of Ohio. What I really like about Brian is that he was an OL coach at Miami before he was their DL coach. You can tell that IU's DL, especially this season, really understands what the opposing OL is trying to do, and that's a direct correlation to being taught the tricks of the trade and knowing some moves that will offset an OL guy. This season, IU's DL guys emerged from basically out of nowhere to record 35.5 sacks. Compare that to those same positions having only 10 the year before. Brian has always been known to have DLs that really generate pressure, and the increase of 25.5 sacks from one year to the next is just insane really.

Brian also oversees the running game defense for IU as Co-defensive coordinator. Last season, the IU defense gave up a 2089 rushing yards to opponets for an average of just under 175 yards a game. They also gave up 101 first downs running the ball. The defense as a whole gave up 394 points last season with a whopping 54 TDs and 7 FGs.

Now, this season, the defense gave up 2076 yars rushing to opponets for an average of just under 160 yards a game. Of course you have to add the fact that IU played an extra game this season, so don't be fooled by the stat that IU only gave up 13 yards less than last season. On the scoring front, IU gave up 370 points with 48 TDs and 13 FGs.

So there was improvement from one year to the next, but it has to get better in my opinion. I've always believed that you have to controll the line of scrimmage both offensively and defensively first to win games. In recruiting, IU loaded up with the 7 blocks of limestone on the OL, but didn't really do a lot to the DL until this current class which has seen several verbals that will play DL. I think in another year or two, we'll begin to reap some reward here as far as getting the DL to control the line of scrimmage much, much more.

Cornerbacks/Co Defensive Coordinator Joe Palcic
Another of the assistants that followed Coach Hep over from Miami of Ohio. Joe serves as IU's CB coach as well as the passing defensive coordinator for IU. Joe was a LB at Miami and then became a grad. assistant, before becoming Hep's LB coach, then DB coach. His father, Bob, has been a long time college and NFL assistant for several teams, so Joe has been in and around football for a LONG time.

Last season, IU gave up 2739 yards passing in the 06/07 season with an average of 229 yards/game and 29 TDs in 12 games. This season, the passing defense gave up 3168 yards with an average of 244 yards/game and 21 TDs over 13 games.

Last season, IU gave up more TDs than FGs, but this year, the defense seemed to hold up more in the red zone and give up more FGs and less TDs. What the numbers also show is that IU improved a little bit in the front 7 from one year to the next, but not that much in the passing game. It's a little deceiving I think because teams were behind against IU more and thus had to pass, but with 2 kids that are expected to be NFL draft picks, I think the passing defense really needs to improve for this defense to take the next step.

A lot of people bag on the LBs, and the running game, but it really was the pass defense that didn't show the improvement, which is disappointing, because the DL was creating a ton of pressure and generated all those sacks. For the record, IU generated 42 sacks total, so one can deduct that the pass defense got a ton of help upfront, or it could have been much worse back there. There are a lot of reasons for this I think, but I think scheme wise, IU must be more physical in their CB play, but this season, they really didn't have the personell to do that. I do expect this to change with Phillips starting next season and Jones and Adkins are much more physical players as well, so Joe will have some green kids to work with, but they are players that will allow IU to be more aggressive. As for the safeties, I'll save that for their coach, but across the defensive backfield and our cover LBs, IU has to improve here and that should be a priority this spring and for fall practice.

I should also mention that IU's CBs were able to pick off 11 passes this season and break up 15 passes, which were both increases from the previous season (7 INTs and 14 breakups). However the stat that worries me is the break ups. It shows how non-aggressive the guys were. They played the receivers well and read the eyes of the QB and jumped routes to intercept, but they have to be more aggressive. I'd actually take less INTs and more break ups if it got our players more aggressive. Also, Phillips has shown over the last couple years to post a lot more big plays than Majors. Majors was a lot faster and had much more experience, but he's not even close to as aggressive as Phillips will be.

I should also note that Joe is our main point of contact in the Ohio area as far as recruiting goes. He was very responsible for IU getting into and landing some Cleveland Glennville guys, which is a very good thing.

Linebacker/Special Teams Co Coordianator George Ricumstrict:
Big George was another of the assistants to come from Miami of Ohio. George played at Central Michigan and coached there, as well as t Miami before coming to IU. George started out at CMU as a special teams coach and his teams became very good at blocking kicks as well as returning them for TDs. He immediately impacted IU's special teams in the latter category of kick return average and TDs last season, and got Marcus Thigpen preseason all american honors for several magazines. Though this season wasn't as successful, James Bailey did return a kickoff for a TD and Tracy Porter did very well in punt returns.

The linebackers were under a lot of fan criticism this season, especially the MLB position, and there were some issues in terms of the LBs getting engulfed by blocks and not using the speed to get to the play. When your defense is based on pursuit and gang tackling the ball, your LBs have to be aggressive and make plays. When IU won games, the LBs usually had pretty big games, but the losses, showed that the LBs had to get more bigger, yet faster to really be able to fly around.

IU prefers smaller, faster guys, which is fine, as long as you can get to the ball and tackle it. That will be another point of emphasis for this defense next season. As far as speed goes, IU has that, but they lack tackling technique as well as beating block techniques. Last season, IU's LBs had 247 tackles, 4 sacks, and 1 INT. This season IU's LBs posted 349 tackles, 4.5 sacks, and 2 INTs. I think this shows the improvement of run support that IU had, but the lack of consistancy in pass defense, especially in the middle of the field. IU's LBs are fast. Johnson runs a 4.5, McClurg is a high end 4.5 guy, and Patterson is a 4.6 guy. All are good in run support, but not so much in pass defense, thus you saw IU use the nickle a lot and use an extra DB, instead of LB. For IU to improve the pass defense, they must find OLBs that can defend the run, as well as the pass.

IU could essentially start 3 new LBs next season with Mayberry in the middle and Carrington and Replogle on the outside. I think IU will improve the passing end with the Justin and Tyler, but I don't know if it will be enough. George really has to get both of his units, LBs and Special teams, to improve this spring.

I should also note the George works Michigan pretty exclusively recruiting wise and was big, along with Matt Canada in IU landing Adam Follett this year, along with Cortez Smith from Detroit.

Safeties/Recruiting Coordinator Mike Yeager:
Mike is yet another of the long list of guys that followed Coach Hep from Miami of Ohio to IU. Mike is young, but in his young life he has really become known around the Big Ten as a solid Safety coach and recruiter. He's really had an impact in both areas for IU, and the coordinator is especially key in making sure every stone is turned over so to speak recruiting wise.

As far as safeties go, Mike really did well last season with Will Meyers and Troy Grosfield. They led IU in tackles last year and though they were not fast, they were really the heart and soul of the defense. Fast forward to this year, and Mike had to break in 2 new starters and tutor a WR to start at FS, and in my opinion, he did extremely well. Austin Thomas is a big time SS in the run game. He's limited in passing situations, but run wise, he's a monster. In fact, he's almost like another OLB out there. Polk is a star in the making and rarely made mistakes last year. He played way off the line, but once he got the play diagnosed, he would just fly to ball. Both safety positions I suspect, will be much more aggressive next season, and of course waiting to snatch any extra PT at SS is Mitchell Evans, who is built a lot like Thomas, but is much better in the pass game, but not quite as good in the run. While Thomas led IU in tackles this season (104), the safeties were much improved from the year before, and I expect them to be even better next season.

Director of Football Operations Harold Mauro:
Harold has been around IU for many years. He's the only person I know of that has been a part of all of IU's bowl games as either a player, assistant, or administrator. He was the starting Center on the 1967 Rose Bowl team and was an assistant for the 1979 Holiday Bowl and a Senior AD during Mallory's bowl games in the 90s. This season, he was in his 3rd year as director of fball operations and it's a perfect role for the guy.

As director of fball operations, Harold is responsible for most day-to-day aspects of the program, including travel and budget management. He is involved in every non-coaching aspect of the program. He's also a very neat guy to talk too and can tell you about the good times, as much as the down times this program has seen over the pas few decades.

One coach that IU doesn't have on either side of the ball per se is a quality control coach, though this season, the grad assistants handled that role. A Quality Control Coach is responsible for breaking down opponent's game film. Usually they are a week or two ahead of the team they are playing. They also can enter and analyze data and try to generate tendicies of opponets on what they like to do. Usually, young grad guys do this with hopes of moving on as a position coach, then to coordinator, and then of course to Head Coaching. Grad assistants can change every year, so it was nice to see former grad assistant Kyle Conner move on to coach the TEs and get a permenant gig at IU.

Bottom line is that IU's defense has to improve across the board for IU to move another step forward and get into bigger bowls and more wins.

God Bless!!