Great Defenses
April 17, 2009 10:40 AM | General
April 17, 2009
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| Reed Williams |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Linebacker Reed Williams made an interesting comment after Wednesday’s practice.
Williams believes West Virginia could field one of its best defenses in 2009. He correctly points out the large number of returning starters and the valuable experience several younger players acquired last year. From just a casual perspective, this year’s defense appears to be faster and more athletic than years past.
“We have talent all over the field,” Williams said. “The young guys got a lot of experience and now they are ready to play. They have just got to go out and do it consistently and hopefully we will be at the top at the end of the year.”
Assistant head coach Steve Dunlap believes this year’s defense is improved, but he isn’t quite ready to go there just yet.
“It’s hard to judge how good you are because you play yourself all of the time,” Dunlap said. “It’s a team deal. Everybody is going to have to do their part and you’re going to have to have a little bit of depth - and I think we’re going to get a little bit deeper.”
Of course there are many components to having a great defense. The most obvious one is talent – big, physical guys up front that can force double teams and move the line of scrimmage backwards; linebackers that can run and can get skilled players to the ground in the open field, and a secondary that can lock down receivers and not get beat deep.
“It’s always about players,” Dunlap said. “I think you can mess up a good player by not coaching them well, but if you don’t have good players there isn’t much you can do.”
Great defenses must have experienced and intelligent performers that don’t blow assignments and leave gaps uncovered. Defensive coordinators with players they trust tend to take more chances and play more aggressively – another important component in dominant defensive play.
And great defenses must have offenses that help them by not continually putting them in difficult situations with silly turnovers and bad decisions. That means not throwing deep three times in a row from your own two and punting from the back of the end zone, or going for it on fourth and three at your own 40 early in the game.
Two great West Virginia defenses that immediately come to mind is Dunlap’s 1996 unit that finished the regular season ranked first in the country giving up just 217.5 yards per game, and Art Lewis’ 1954 group that finished sixth in the nation allowing 186.7 yards per game.
Dunlap’s defense in 1996 pitched shutouts against Pitt and Maryland, and gave up only 24 points in its first five games. Eight times the Mountaineers held opponents to 14 points or less. Opponents averaged just 1.9 yards per rush and completed only 45.1 percent of its pass attempts.
“That’s when the zone blitz came into vogue and people didn’t know how to handle it,” Dunlap said.
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| Consensus All-America linebacker Canute Curtis led the nation's No. 1-ranked defense in 1996.
WVU Sports Communications photo |
Dunlap’s 4-3 scheme featured four outstanding players up front in John Thornton, Henry Slay, Bob Baum and Canute Curtis. Thornton and Curtis were NFL-caliber players, with Curtis having one of the greatest seasons of any WVU defensive player with 16 ½ sacks and 11 tackles for losses.
The linebackers that year were very solid with Jason Williams, Elige Longino and Bernard Russ.
“Jason Williams was an unheralded linebacker who was 5-11, 240, but he knew where everybody was supposed to be, he was smart and tough and he could run the show,” Dunlap said. “Good defenses you have to have a few playmakers, for sure, but you have to play as a unit and those guys played smart. You had to beat them because they wouldn’t beat themselves.”
What made Dunlap’s 1996 defense really special was an experienced and talented secondary that featured Vann Washington and Charles Emanuel at safeties, and Mike Logan and Perlo Bastien at corners. Logan had the size and athletic ability to match up with anybody, and Bastien (the only freshman on the defense) had the best year of his career playing with an otherwise all-senior secondary. Washington, Emanuel and Logan were three-year starters.
“That whole defense in general was a junior-senior oriented team. I think we lost seven off that team that were seniors,” Dunlap recalled. “Experience is the best teacher and when you get a group of guys that were really driven and wanted to make themselves better, regardless of what the competition is, that’s when you really become good.”
Many years before Dunlap’s group, Art Lewis’ 1954 Mountaineer defense was built around the best tackle tandem in the country in Sam Huff and Bruce Bosley, along with up-and-coming sophomore guard Chuck Howley. Behind them to clean things up was Joe Marconi. It was probably the best collection of talent ever assembled on a football field at West Virginia University, with all four later making at least one pro bowl appearance.
West Virginia gave up a total of 72 points and 89 first downs in 10 regular season games in 1954, and teams averaged just 2.6 yards per rush and completed only 36.1 percent of its pass attempts. The most points the Mountaineers allowed was 14 in a 19-14 victory at Penn State. The only other teams to score double figures against West Virginia’s defense that year were Pitt (13) and South Carolina (10).
That’s pretty dominant.
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| Bruce Bosely teamed with Sam Huff to give West Virginia the best tackle tandem in the country in 1954.
WVU Sports Communications photo |
So how will this year’s defense stack up against those two? Well, it’s difficult to determine if West Virginia has four pro bowl-caliber players on this year’s defense although common sense says it likely does not.
The present group does not have three three-year starters in the secondary, nor does it have the overall experience of the 1996 group.
The D-line is probably in better shape than at any time since Jeff Casteel began coordinating the WVU defense with Chris Neild and Scooter Berry anchoring the front three. Having watched them up close for three years now, Williams certainly knows how good they are.
“Those are two body guards in front of me all of the time,” Williams said. “Neild is the most unsung hero on this football team. He may be the best football player on the team and luckily I get to play behind him and let him just handle people for me. Then you watch Scoot and look at some of the things he does - he’s a strong, strong man.”
The linebackers are also outstanding with Williams, J.T. Thomas and Pat Lazear giving the Mountaineers a nice blend of size, athleticism and intelligence.
And don’t underestimate West Virginia’s unorthodox 3-3-5 scheme which is a nightmare for teams to block. West Virginia offensive line coach Dave Johnson says in order to block it you must perform the exceptions to the rules.
“You go from the end and work your way back to the beginning blocking this defense,” Dunlap admitted.
Old-timers may remember how much trouble West Virginia used to have with Jerry Claiborne’s wide-tackle six defenses at Virginia Tech and Maryland many years ago, and Pitt’s great Bear defense of the mid-1980s that also gave people headaches – both unusual schemes with talented players recruited specifically for it.
West Virginia’s 3-3-5 alignment today is viewed in a similar light.
“Playing an odd-ball defense is a good thing,” Dunlap noted. “I always believed in having an odd-ball defense. We used to get in the Bear defense at times, and this defense creates problems just because you don’t know where people are coming from.”
Yet it is the secondary that will more than likely determine how well the defense performs in 2009. The backend may be more experienced than last year, but it will have to play much better than it did in 2008 to even come close to duplicating what the 1996 secondary helped that defense accomplish.
Coach Bill Stewart has said throughout the spring that he’s got the best cornerback coach in the country in David Lockwood and he is hopeful that Lockwood can develop a reliable pair of corners to allow West Virginia to bring more pressure.
If the secondary can consistently cover, support the run, deliver some big hits and keep from getting beat deep, then Casteel will once again be able to play the aggressive, downhill style that has made West Virginia so difficult to score on the last four years.
Then, perhaps, we can take another look at how 2009 stacks up to 1996, 1954 and some of West Virginia’s other outstanding defenses.
