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Building a Tommy Tuberville Defense

Posted by dedfischer on January 14th, 2010 under Football

Tommy Tuberville has built an excellent reputation as a defensive gameplanner.  He’s also known as a strong recruiter and solid evaluator of talent. 

We’re located in the state that produces more D-I football players every year than any other.  Enough for TCU to find enough athletes to field a top 10 unit.  While he definitely pulled in some highly regarded talent at Auburn, he also specialized in finding 6’1″, 260-lb, 2-star DTs like Sen’Derrick Marks and turning them into All Americans.  Will Herring was a 6’3″, 205-lb high school linebacker, who Tuberville beat out Middle Tennessee State to get, and now plays for the Seahawks. 

These stories are all over the college football scene in Texas and I’m confident that, if John Goodner can field a top 10 defense in Lubbock with predominantly goat ropers, so can Tuberville.  He’ll fit square pegs in square holes and round pegs in round holes.   Whether we end up playing with mostly 3 or 4 man fronts won’t be determined until the spring at which time Tuberville can assess what we really have.  I would like to believe we have better than TCU talent in some places, but I can’t say for certain:

1.  NG/DE Colby Whitlock - Not really a traditional 3-4 NG, but he’s been requiring a double team in our 4-3 scheme.  I don’t expect anyone on our roster will be able to duplicate his effect, so most likely he stays put in the middle of whatever we do.  I can finally say I feel he’s a true 1st team all conference player and worthy of it.

2.  ILB Brian Duncan - I’m curious to see if Tuberville will keep him on the field for 3 downs.  He may not run like we’re looking for at the position down the road, but we won’t be able to keep his run stuffing ability off the field this year.  Disciplined and physical, but a touch on the slow side.

3.  OLB/ILB Bront Bird - He served best for us in perimeter run defense as an OLB.  You can use one of those guys in a 3-4, but we also might play him on the inside on passing downs to get more speed on the field.  I think Bird is a guy that will really benefit from this hire.

4.  DB Will Ford - He’s the most talented secondary player on our roster as it stands right now, so Tuberville will have him on the field in some capacity. There’s not really anything he doesn’t do well and he has the potential to become a weapon under the new regime.

5. CB Laron Moore - Physical and can run, which serves well for the backside corner position.  We may try to play a little more man coverage with him against right-tendency QBs. 

6.  CB D.J. Johnson - I don’t think Tuberville will like his size for a safety, but he’ll like his quick hips and recovery speed as a potential cover corner.  Really needs to get much stronger as he gets pushed around on hitch screens and running plays in stretches.  Jarvis Phillips might be ready to go and he seems to fit the mold of past Auburn CBs a little better.  I’m guessing we’ll roll with the more physical of the two.

7.  S Cody Davis - Davis was solid for most of the season, but fell apart over the last 3 games.  I’m not sure what to think of him yet, but I know he doesn’t run well for SEC standards.  Or, Big 12 standards for that matter.  I would say this job is up for grabs, but he’s a better player than Mitchem was this season.

8. S Frank Mitchem - It seemed like this position wasn’t an issue until Frank got healthy and received his starting job back.  He looks like he belongs at times filling in run support, but counters with Labrador frisbee instincts in playaction and slow recovery speed.  I predict we see fresh meat at one of the safety positions.

9. NG Myles Wade - I think this guy has a boatload of talent and can be a qualified interior Big 12 player with the dropped weight.  People sure weren’t pushing him around like he was Victor Hunter or anything.  A lot of what we do next year will depend on if he’s a reliable option.

10.  ILB Sam Fehoko - This might be the break Sam needs and he could see the field a lot against teams like OSU and Colorado.

11. S Brett Dewhurst - Hell, I liked him better than the starters.

Bullpen Players -  I have no idea if these guys will be good, so there is more speculation than usual from here on out and a lot of blind optimism.

12.  OLB/DE Aundrey Barr - By all recorded accounts, he’s going to be the best player for this position on our roster.  Can’t say for sure how good that is, but he’ll be the man.  Good high school film.  Good practice reports.  We really need him to be our Brandon Sharpe this year in a bad way.  I think he’ll benefit from the coaching change as his 6’3″, 240-lb frame is more suited for OLB than DE in a 4-3. 

13.  DT/DE Pearlie Graves - Practice reports detail promising signs.  We’ll have to play him at DT and DE, regardless.  Everyone on here will receive a free Tortilla Retort subscription, if he’s a downgrade from Hunter.  I won’t be surprised when I like him better than Rajon Henley.

14.  OLB/ILB Daniel Cobb/Dion Chidozie/Brandon Mahoney – One of these guys will be too good not to find a place on the field.  I have no idea, which guy it will be, but early reports seem to indicate Cobb has made the biggest impression.  He’s a former high school RB/S/PR, so the option of pressing WRs will be hard for Tuberville to pass up, I suspect.  I could also envision them not beating out Bird or Barr until they become trusted as run defenders.  Barr/Bird will most likely start out as our ground defense options.  It wouldn’t surprise me to see us try to add some weight on these guys for the ILB position. 

15. S Terrance Bullitt/CB Jarvis Phillips - Our new coaching staff may like these guys better than our starters, so keep them in mind.  Positive feedback this fall in practice.  Regarding Phillips, the guys from Carter always end up being at the top tier of talent on our roster.  Bullitt probably has a high football IQ and isn’t scared to hit.  If he outruns Mitchem, I bet he plays a significant role going forward.

Crystal Ball Summary

It’s tough to place a permanent label on the front 7 of past Tuberville units and the long-term answer will be dictated by the capabilities of our personnel.  I could ramble on with speculative verbal diarrhea all day, so instead, I’ll take a stab at the big picture philosophical differences I think we’ll see.  I think one of the qualities that attracted Tuberville to Tech is the offense and the tempo of defense it allows you to play. 

We’ll more than likely dare teams to try and throw it over the top of us versus challenging them to stay in front of us and not make mistakes.  If we can diversify our offense with balance, you may see Tuberville take on the strategy of being extremely aggressive with the passing game and defense early in the game to try and jump out to big leads.  Then, start dialing in on the run game once we’ve loosened up the safeties and LBs.  If teams come out with 2-deep safeties and nickel personnel early, you’ll see an increased commitment in our effort to make them appropriately pay for it.  I predict a Tuberville unit will thrive with a 2-TD lead and an offense  that still has a lot of quick-strike firepower regardless of the coach. 

He’ll play to get the ball back and overload running downs to set up 3rd and longs, where colleagues of his have shown a tendency to execute trap reads on QBs to force turnovers.  More of what you’ll become accustomed to is gameplan variety as the season progresses.  Schemes will be based around taking away the 2 or 3 things an offense is good at and forcing them to beat you with role players. 

Take away the run with the minimal requirement of bodies whether it be 3, 4, 6 or 8.  Rush as many players as required to pressure the QB into making quick and wise decisions.  Your first priority is either run or pass on each play and reads focus around simplicity and leverage.  You’re also cheating one way at the snap based on the formation and down & distance, playing the odds your coaching staff has correctly charted the playcalling tendencies of the opponent. 

We’ll revisit the subject after signing day as I imagine all the JUCO guys will play a significant factor.

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26 Responses

  1. Whiskey said:

    January 14th, 2010 at 8:23 pm

    Love the John Goodner reference. In my opinion he was one of the more underrated defensive assitants ever to grace the state of Texas. I was a big fan of his at Baylor and at Tech. I had the pleasure of meeting him on several occasions when he was recruiting kids that played HS football for my Dad. I met a lot of college football coaches growing up and Goodner was one of the few that always took a few minutes to talk football with me as a kid. Good man. My old man still brings him up quite often when he starts talking defense.

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    RRR said:

    January 14th, 2010 at 10:02 pm

    Suddenly can’t wait for the starting defense to line up versus the starting offense in the Spring Game. Just want to see who lines up and what they look like pre-snap and after. I remember how much the Red Raider faithful appreciated defense in the mid-90′s, cowbells ringing on third down, making noise like they truly believed Tech was going to make something happen.

  3. Whiskey said:

    January 15th, 2010 at 12:16 am

    I watch a pretty obscene amount of college football and have for some time which makes my opinion about as meaningful as the next guy on a couch! That said I always keep a close eye on the Big 12 South to include TT. I can’t count the number of times in the Leach era where I thought “Man if those guys had a defense they might be a serious factor….” The defense will improve dramatically under Tuberville, and I actually think Neal Brown is a solid hire as OC. The Raiders will keep scoring points and Tubs will dramatically improve the D. At the end of the day I really think Tech somewhat bumbled their way into the best situation they have ever been in for football. Tubs is a legit Tier 1 coach and the fact that he wanted the job is a testament to Leach. When has Tech ever hired a Tier 1 coach? Never. You guys should be excited. I really think Tubs could pull this thing together in a way that hasn’t even really set in with the Tech faithful yet. He has the coaching acumen to take the team to a new level and the personality to be very successful in Lubbock & get the Tech faithful to buy in. Enjoy it. I really think you are on the brink of something special.

  4. jdeeTTU said:

    January 15th, 2010 at 7:21 am

    I’m stoked! I can’t wait to see a little more pressure, especially from our backs. I got so sick of watching them play 7 yards off. With the passing teams we played this year our int numbers were way low, and I think this reflects on Ruff’s D philosophy. I think we’ll see an immediate turn around over the offseason to what Ruff was slowly working toward implementing in 2015.

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    dedfischer said:

    January 15th, 2010 at 7:29 am

    Whiskey,

    Patterson gets a lot of credit for the 4-2-5, but he got the idea from Goodner during his stint at New Mexico. I also agree with your optimism on Tuberville. We’ve mastered the passing game just like we mastered defense under Spike. This might be the most balanced approach to sustain winning football. Good defense, spread people out, throw it if we need to, and develop some sort of a running game to offset fast defenses. It’s a safer formula to win. I feel Tuberville is the best recruiter we’ve ever hired and, schematically, we made the right choice in case we can’t develop QBs any more. We’ll at least have a salty defense to fall back on, which was kind of the case with Potts this year. Personally, I think Tuberville could gameplan circles around the Air Raid on defense provided equivalent talent. Thanks for stopping by and contributing.

  6. Avatar Image
    kafka said:

    January 15th, 2010 at 6:53 pm

    My guess is that TT gets more daring on D and special teams and more conservative on O. TT is a D coach so he will have a lot more confidence in his D than Leach had in his D.

    On O, TT will focus more on running, play action passing, playing percentages, running clock, minimizing turnovers, and field position (than Leach did). It will be very interesting to see if Tech receivers get open as quickly under TT as under Leach. My guess is no, that the Tech passing gradually becomes a bit less precise than under Leach.

    On D, TT probably goes mostly 3-4 with lots of zone blitzing and multiple, unpredictable looks.

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    kafka said:

    January 15th, 2010 at 6:56 pm

    Should have said “Tech passing game gradually becomes a bit less precise than under Leach.”

  8. Riano said:

    January 16th, 2010 at 9:47 am

    The goat ropers have some hilarious stories about Goodner. Heard his pregame rants were wicked. One of my favorite lines was “fuck the newspapers”.

    Can’t wait to see this defense wreck shit. Willis seems like a great hire.

  9. RolloTamasi said:

    January 16th, 2010 at 10:47 pm

    Was Muffin Man McNeil a bad coordinator? I would think so from descriptions like, “Tuberville will take away what the offense wants and make them beat you with role players.”

    McNeil wasn’t trying to do that? Anyways, he showed good gameplans the last 2 years against the Horns. Maybe his style was perfectly suited to slowing down Texas and no one else but I was impressed with him. My initial fear was that he would be hired as DC at A&M and turn their defense into a competent unit with Von Miller starring as the entire Wrecking crew. If he could play base defense with the linebackers Tech has had in recent years and slow McCoy I think he could do it with the young guys at A&M. At any rate, they didn’t opt for it.

    Freaking Von Miller…why should the rest of us suffer because the NFL is too stupid to throw money at him?

  10. dedfischer said:

    January 17th, 2010 at 8:18 am

    Rollo, I think Ruff did a good job. He by no means played an aggressive style of defense. Ruff was a huge upgrade from what we had around here in the past, but felt his bend-but-don’t-break strategy never really took advantage of our offensive style of play. I’ve got nothing but good things to say about him as a coach.

  11. dedfischer said:

    January 17th, 2010 at 8:19 am

    I’ve also heard that Charlie Sadler and Carlos Mainord were responsible for a lot of the gameplanning aspects.

  12. magnusbleuveigner said:

    January 18th, 2010 at 4:21 pm

    So you bring in a more defensive minded coach, and Fred Harvey (male prostitute), LB, decommits? Doesn’t……..make…….sense.

    It’s not like he’s going to switch to Tenn. right?

  13. dedfischer said:

    January 19th, 2010 at 6:31 am

    I really wasn’t sure what we were planning on doing with a high school DE that projected as a run stuffing LB (5’11″, 230 lbs) against the offenses in this conference. Makes a lot of sense to me. We’ll go for dudes that can run for that position going forward, if I were to guess. I don’t think Harvey was the type of open field player that Tuberville will be targeting at LB. I’m thinking he’ll shoot for smaller, faster guys in the 205-range and take them up to 220-225 unless we can recruit Rolando McLain and Don’ta Hightower. Guys like Keenan Robinson and Emmanuel Acho are more ideal for coverage purposes, and if you can keep them clean, they run well enough to be effective in ground defense. I wouldn’t exactly describe the Big 12 as a power running conference, so fielding LBs over 230 can become counter-productive. These type of athletes have killed our screen/shovel pass game versus the guys opponents were fielding in the early Leach years.

  14. RolloTamasi said:

    January 19th, 2010 at 12:20 pm

    It makes sense to me that a quick strike offense should have a defense that chases the ball and dares teams to beat them deep, initially I thought McNeil’s Cover-2 was a stupid strategy to bring in.
    But is Tuberville for sure sticking with the Spread passing game?

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    RRR said:

    January 19th, 2010 at 12:47 pm

    Rollo, I can’t see Neal Brown getting completely away from Spread Pass, not with his background. But make no mistake, Brown/Tuberville will be more flexible, taking the run if they’ve got it. Check the box score for Troy vs Middle Tenn. St., where Brown ran the ball 49 times.

    The only possible disadvantage here is that part of the Leach philosophy of stubborn adherence to the pass was that reps maximized execution. The argument against this philosophy stands on games such as OU and Ole Miss in 2008 where a Leach Spread failed to execute effectively, even though it was late in the year and they should have been at their most proficient.

    That or Crabtree was hurt.

  16. Avatar Image
    dedfischer said:

    January 19th, 2010 at 3:55 pm

    I would imagine we’ll use the running game to pummel the shit out of DLs like Houston and OSU instead of trying to beat Case Keenum in a QB shootout or Perrish Cox in the 40 yard dash.

  17. Beergut said:

    January 20th, 2010 at 2:48 am

    Tuberville will prize speed over all else on his defense, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a safety moved to OLB, if they can put on the weight.

  18. RolloTamasi said:

    January 20th, 2010 at 3:14 pm

    No one was pounding the shit out of Houston this last year. He had 10 tackles against Alabama who is more advanced at power running now than Tech will ever be.

    The notion of a balanced offense is nice in theory but it seems that finding a really good TE is the underrated key.

    The difference between Texas’ better and worse offenses has been the presence of a TE. When you have one, you can have the kind of versatility that limits how many resources an opponent can dedicate to stopping what you’re best at.

    Texas has spent about 10,000 scholarships trying to find one recently. Perhaps the biggest storyline of Texas’ struggles in 2009 on offense, though seldom focused on, was Blaine Irby’s injury early in 2008.

    Hopefully for you guys Tuberville can find a TE in Texas.

  19. Avatar Image
    dedfischer said:

    January 20th, 2010 at 5:24 pm

    The Houston Cougars, you twit.

  20. RolloTamasi said:

    January 20th, 2010 at 6:26 pm

    Ah, I see. Although in my defense it was commonly written of Houston early in his switch to DT that he would be a spread style tackle more suited to taking on passing offenses than power running games but then he grew into a monster against everyone whom I find strangely absent in draft projections.

    However, clearly your sentence structure juxtaposed Houston with Keenum so I must accept your title with the appropriate humility.

  21. Avatar Image
    dedfischer said:

    January 20th, 2010 at 7:36 pm

    Good then, let’s move on. Lamarr Houston will shoot up draft boards after the Combine. I think he’ll run better than McCoy and will push Suh’s time as well. He could play either DT in a 4-3 or DE in a 3-4. Those guys always move up the draft board. I like him better than I did Tyson Jackson or Ziggy Hood in college.

  22. RolloTamasi said:

    January 20th, 2010 at 7:51 pm

    I suspect he’s higher than Kiper or McShay have him now in the minds of NFL scouts. I didn’t see McCoy do anything against Texas that Houston didn’t do against the Sooner line. Kiper and McShay weren’t on him early so I think he’s avoided their particular attention.

    Unless someone explains to me some differences I’m not sure how Houston is really any less talented or skilled than McCoy.
    Suh on the other hand…when you can shut down somebody’s running game with 6 defensive backs I think that says all that needs to be said, even it was just the Texas running game. OU didn’t shut it down and used more resources.

  23. Avatar Image
    dedfischer said:

    January 20th, 2010 at 8:18 pm

    I’m not as big on McCoy as others. He plays a little high in stretches and can get pushed around in the run game. Now, that I said it, Nate will be over here to chastise me. He’s too good of an athlete to slip very far, but if Lonnie Edwards can push him around, then I imagine NFL guards will to. One thing I consider with a grain of salt about the DL players is how bad the OL play was across the league. I’m not sold on Trent Williams and Russell Okung looks like a right tackle to me. Those are the 2 of the best tackles in college football according to Kiper and McShay, but I don’t believe it. Suh will be ready to play obviously, but McCoy and Houston will require more coaching/polish. Louis Vasquez might be the only NFL guard they have faced in the last 2 years and he handled both of them easily as juniors. Houston got a lot stronger this season, though. Well, I guess Duke Robinson is playing too, but I don’t know how Houston did against him last year.

  24. RolloTamasi said:

    January 20th, 2010 at 8:24 pm

    Russel Okung is still living off a reputation earned with Brandon Pettigrew. Apparently Gundy hired a new OC after looking back at the huge differences in offensive achievement between last year and 2 years ago.
    If he noticed that the difference was no Pettigrew he didn’t make that a part of his public response. Probably because there isn’t another Pettigrew on that squad.
    Something that hasn’t received a lot of attention is that in the year of offensive dominance in the Big 12 many of the teams had dominant TE play. OSU-Pettigrew, OU-Gresham, Missouri-Coffman, Texas-Shipley.
    There were other factors, including better OL play and a few more good quarterbacks but I rate the previous factor pretty high.

  25. dedfischer said:

    January 21st, 2010 at 4:49 am

    I’m with you on the Okung/Pettigrew thing. The athleticism we were being sold just didn’t show up on the field this season without him. He’ll still be a damn good RT and run blocker. If Dwight Freeney can run around Jason Smith for 3 sacks in a game, they’ll damn sure be able to get by Okung at LT.

  26. Franchesca Amill said:

    August 30th, 2011 at 8:04 am

    Currently it sounds like BlogEngine is the top blogging platform out there right now. (from what I’ve read) Is that what you’re using on your blog?

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