Spring Notebook No. 4 – Developing Defensively
March 20, 2019 | Football
Highlights
GREENVILLE, N.C. – ECU was greeted by decidedly un-springlike weather as it stepped onto the fields at the Cliff Moore Practice Facility on Wednesday for the fourth workout of the spring.
While the first official day of spring brought gray skies, a brisk wind, temperatures around 40 and an occasional spit of rain, it was all business for the Pirates as players and coaches continued the process of preparing for the fall.
Defensive coordinator Bob Trott, a coaching veteran of more than 40 years, drew from his experience and found the positives of the adverse conditions.
In each of the last three years when he was on head coach Mike Houston's staff at James Madison, it snowed the Saturday before the spring game. The following fall when it came time to play in the FCS playoffs, the players, he said, "started laughing and saying, heck, this is like spring practice."
JMU, of course, won the national championship in 2016 and was a finalist the next year.
"The other thing, and we talk about this a lot, is we have to develop the attitude that we'll play you anytime, anywhere," Trott said. "We're going to have some cold-weather games, we're going to have some hot games. It's another learning thing, whether it's cold, raining or whatever, we've got to learn to play with that attitude."
Trott, a Kannapolis native and UNC graduate whose first full-time coaching job was as an assistant to Bill Parcells at the Air Force Academy in 1978, developed quite a defense at JMU. His 2017 unit in particular shined with 43 takeaways (31 interceptions) and 51 sacks. At ECU, he's taking over a defense that was last in FBS two years ago, and though it was improved in 2018, still finished 101st out of 129 teams in total defense.
"The challenge here is sort of similar to when we went to JMU," Trott said. "Their offense was very good, but the defense wasn't very good. We started the process and the players responded. I expect a lot of the same things.
"Coach Houston is a defensive coach, so that's a plus that he's an extra set of eyes for us. We have the same philosophy. Anytime you come into a new system you've got to build that trust between the players and the coaches, and it's an everyday thing."
Trott, who also is in charge of the safeties, talks a lot about "the process," and his overarching defensive philosophy is simple. His goal is for the Pirates to be sound, to be smart, and to be aggressive, because those are thing things that cause a team to win.
With more than four decades of experience, including 17 years at the FBS level and nine years in the NFL, Trott has developed an unquestioned expertise. During his three years at JMU, the Dukes collectively ranked in the top 10 of the FCS in turnovers forced (first, 97), interceptions (first, 66), defensive pass efficiency (first, 99.8), scoring defense (second, 15.7), completion percentage (third, 50.4), yards per pass attempt (third, 5.91), sacks (fourth, 111) and total defense (sixth, 296.5).
GREENVILLE, N.C. – ECU was greeted by decidedly un-springlike weather as it stepped onto the fields at the Cliff Moore Practice Facility on Wednesday for the fourth workout of the spring.
While the first official day of spring brought gray skies, a brisk wind, temperatures around 40 and an occasional spit of rain, it was all business for the Pirates as players and coaches continued the process of preparing for the fall.
Defensive coordinator Bob Trott, a coaching veteran of more than 40 years, drew from his experience and found the positives of the adverse conditions.
In each of the last three years when he was on head coach Mike Houston's staff at James Madison, it snowed the Saturday before the spring game. The following fall when it came time to play in the FCS playoffs, the players, he said, "started laughing and saying, heck, this is like spring practice."
JMU, of course, won the national championship in 2016 and was a finalist the next year.
"The other thing, and we talk about this a lot, is we have to develop the attitude that we'll play you anytime, anywhere," Trott said. "We're going to have some cold-weather games, we're going to have some hot games. It's another learning thing, whether it's cold, raining or whatever, we've got to learn to play with that attitude."
Trott, a Kannapolis native and UNC graduate whose first full-time coaching job was as an assistant to Bill Parcells at the Air Force Academy in 1978, developed quite a defense at JMU. His 2017 unit in particular shined with 43 takeaways (31 interceptions) and 51 sacks. At ECU, he's taking over a defense that was last in FBS two years ago, and though it was improved in 2018, still finished 101st out of 129 teams in total defense.
"The challenge here is sort of similar to when we went to JMU," Trott said. "Their offense was very good, but the defense wasn't very good. We started the process and the players responded. I expect a lot of the same things.
"Coach Houston is a defensive coach, so that's a plus that he's an extra set of eyes for us. We have the same philosophy. Anytime you come into a new system you've got to build that trust between the players and the coaches, and it's an everyday thing."
Trott, who also is in charge of the safeties, talks a lot about "the process," and his overarching defensive philosophy is simple. His goal is for the Pirates to be sound, to be smart, and to be aggressive, because those are thing things that cause a team to win.
With more than four decades of experience, including 17 years at the FBS level and nine years in the NFL, Trott has developed an unquestioned expertise. During his three years at JMU, the Dukes collectively ranked in the top 10 of the FCS in turnovers forced (first, 97), interceptions (first, 66), defensive pass efficiency (first, 99.8), scoring defense (second, 15.7), completion percentage (third, 50.4), yards per pass attempt (third, 5.91), sacks (fourth, 111) and total defense (sixth, 296.5).
"This is not the first time I've done this," he said. "There's a process and it's one day at a time. All we really ask of the players is to get better every day. They've responded. I think they're eager to learn everything. But again, there's a process that we do, and it doesn't happen overnight."
Of all the stats from his defenses at JMU, perhaps the most striking is the turnovers forced, an area in which the Pirates struggled in 2018 as they forced just 11.
"We emphasize, what are the things that cause you to win and what are the things that cause you to lose," he said. "Forcing turnovers is a huge factor that cause us to win. It's our job to stop opponents from scoring, it's our job to get the ball for the offense so they can go score points, or to score ourselves. And it's important that the players understand the things that cause you to lose. If you don't get turnovers, you're going to lose games. If you get turnovers, you're going to win games."
And though it's still very early, Trott is seeing positives.
"The players are eager to learn and we're getting better every day," he said. "We've corrected some of the things that happened Day 3. Now we've got to correct some things that happened on Day 4. We put some new stuff in, we saw new stuff. We'll watch the tape and spend some time to fix the things from today, and then move on to the next day."
On the second day in pads, Houston is seeing progress as well.
"The competition at the end was pretty lively," he said. "The guys really got into it and I thought we saw some guys competing at a little bit higher level than maybe we had on Monday. We're learning how to practice. It's still nowhere near what we want or what we expect, but it's better. And that's the thing I talked to them about was the process. We're not going to change our expectations, we're not going to change our standards, and we're not going to change the way we work. We have to all come together every day and push ourselves to make improvement every single day out. If we do that consistently on a daily basis, we'll look up at the end of the spring and we'll be a much better team than we are right now."
- Joe Corley
NOTES:
The Pirates conducted a 25-minute team (11-on-11) segment towards the end of practice Wednesday, which featured plenty of highlights on both sides of the ball … Defensively, DE D'Angelo McKinnie, DB Da'Andre Beverly and DT Alex Turner netted "quick whistle" sacks, while DE Chance Purvis, OLB Warren Saba, DE Damir Faison and LB Delvontae Harris added TFLs during the action … Offensively, RB Hussein Howe (rush) and WR Tyler Snead (reception from QB Holton Ahlers) each turned in TD plays exceeding 50+ yards … In the redzone portion, Ahlers' 15-yard scoring pass to WR Deondre Farrier and RB Darius Pinnix's 11-yard TD run were among the notables … Senior Branden Pena, who started the first four games of the 2018 campaign at right guard before suffering a season-ending injury, has opened spring drills working with the first unit at center (as John Spellacy and Peyton Winstead are both sidelined).
ECU'S 2019 SPRING PRACTICE SCHEDULE
Next Workout: Friday, March 22 (8-10 a.m.)
Remaining Workouts: March 23, March 27, March 29, March 30 (scrimmage), April 1, April 3, April 6 (scrimmage), April 8, April 10, April 13 (Purple-Gold Game, 1:30 p.m.)
Players Mentioned
Quarterback
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Defensive Back
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Tight End
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Inside Receiver
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Inside Linebacker
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Running Back
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Defensive Line
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Offensive Line
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Running Back
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Defensive Line
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Outside Linebacker
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Inside Receiver
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Offensive Line
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Defensive Line
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Offensive Line
/ FootballMonday, September 14
Saturday, September 12
Thursday, September 10
Monday, September 07
