The French Connection

This week we welcome The Key Play writer and analyst Jonathan French. We look at his initial thoughts and feelings around the Sam Siefkes hire and how he's feeling now after doing a month-long dive into the tape. We also look at where the potential pitfalls may be with a defensive scheme shift at this stage of the Brent Pry era.

Episode Transcript

(01:47):
And welcome back to the BoundaryCorner podcast.
Along with my partner, Brian Siegler, I am Curtis Wilson.
We are a part of the College Huddle Network.
And this episode, as always, is brought to you by Doctor Jeremy
Counts down at Counts Family Pharmacy, your friendly
neighborhood pharmacy three O 1 S Main St. in Blacksburg.

(02:07):
Bryan, just me and you tonight. It seems like Tally was a late
tap out for us. Tally was a late tap out.
We might get him at the end here.
We'll see. But we're riding a a duo for
now. About to be a trio in a couple
minutes here. We have a pretty fun guest
tonight. Curtis, you've been busy man.
We I know it's been a couple weeks since we tapped in here.

(02:28):
Busy dude. Everybody's playing baseball.
I got home at almost 10:00 last night from a scrimmage.
The little one start, the middleone starts this week.
We got a game this weekend. We got to practice this weekend.
Look, you showed up. Hey.
You ain't that late. Hell and hot water.
I fucking thought 9:00 I've seennine and thought 9 my time and

(02:52):
then when you like oh Mama was saying I'm like why the fuck
will he be in so Oh fuck. Man Alabama.
Problems, Man, Alabama. Problems.
Well, Tally, he just asked if I'm busy.
I've been at the baseball field all week.
How about you? Well, baseball, we had baseball
this week because it's spring break.
I feel like spring break is worse for me because there's so

(03:12):
much other shit that happens. Kids are trying to go places.
Work has been very busy, which is a good thing.
So when me working from home, I've learned that my sweet spot
is getting on early and staying late.
So it sucks to have to do that, but my sales reflect that it's

(03:32):
beneficial to do that. So I have been, I'm, I'm
supposed to be on by 7:45 in themorning.
I've been getting on at 6:45. And usually when everybody else
gets on, I've already got about $1000 worth of sales for that
day. And like I quota, yeah, I quota
is like 2500 for the day is whatyou really want to be at.

(03:53):
So I've been hanging since, since, you know, the weather's
kind of better. I've been hanging around about
35 to 4000 a day. Hey, there you go.
So you, you you closing about half your your day before people
even show up. Right.
Yeah, and they're pissed. The dudes, they have to go to

(04:14):
the office. I've been mad.
You know, he's getting on. He's getting on at 6:30.
We can't do that, right? Well.
Too bad I'm so sad. Too bad.
You doing business? I'll bet you, Brian, you've been
busy. Man, not quite drinking from the
fire hose quite as much as I waswith the new position, but but

(04:35):
still rocking and rolling. Kind of starting to settle in a
little bit. Had a little fun little happy
hour tonight. Had some dinner, went up to Easy
Burger, got some brews at Ardent.
All my RVA folks are what I'm talking about here so.
Exactly. Great burger.
Great. It was a good trip, got a good
burger, got got a couple beers in me, had some good times with
some some Co workers and headed home and got this thing ready to

(04:59):
roll. We are ready to roll in tonight,
although we lost Ally already intonight.
It's a fun one we are going to be having.
If you have ever read the key play, which probably everybody
out there watching, listening has Frenching from the bench.
That's where it was titled long,long time ago, some of the best

(05:19):
write ups about skiing techniqueand what was going on with the
Hokies. Well, he is joining us and I can
remember, Brian, probably when we started this thing five years
ago, me and you talked like one day we got to have him on and
why not now? So for everybody out there, I'm
going to say this. If you're listening to the
podcast, I'm highly suggesting you go to YouTube.

(05:41):
You can watch it because we're going to have some screenshots
and some things as French pointing us out a few things.
But without further ado from thekey play writer and analyst,
they call him French. French how you doing tonight
man? I'm I am upright and ambulatory.
So that's that's better than I can say for Justin Fuentes

(06:01):
coaching career. So.
I'm going to end with the jokes.Singer right out the gate.
Love that. Sorry, after seeing him at
Kabuki's talking with Vance Vicein the corner instead of talking
to this top running back recruitnever forgave him.
There you go respect on that well branch.
We appreciate you coming on withus tonight and breaking down

(06:22):
this new defenses of Sam Cephas.Y'all know I'm a butcher?
That name so much. Except if you have a you're.
Right there with me. I've misspelled it 40 times
already. If he ever comes on I'm
literally going to have the pronunciation guy to the right.
Yeah, I've got to. I've got to start doing better
than the notes, man. I got.
I got to put everything phonetically in there so that
we're good. That's all I'm going to say.

(06:43):
All joke, but we're going to getinto it tonight.
You've got some things obviouslyto go, But French, give us a
little bit of your background, how you became a Virginia Tech
fan it and when you play, where you play collegiate ball, what
positions give a little bit about yourself to the folks out
there. Sure, I know who you.
Are embarrassing history now I Igrew up in Abington Virginia and

(07:06):
didn't play any kind of organized football other than
flag football until I was a freshman in high school wanted
to be a wide receiver. I was a chubby kid I wasn't
going to get to play wide receivers so I focused on doing
other stuff A colleague of my mom whose son was the starting
quarterback on the varsity when I was a an eighth grader kind of

(07:29):
harangued me into going out for JV and didn't know what I was
doing. I was a just blocking bag
getting flown around. I had no idea how to even take
contact and fortunately had a good experience there running
wing T offense and tore up my ankle right after we we lost to

(07:51):
Gate City in the 95 playoffs team that Jake House right, Chad
Beasley, Josh Shoemaker played basketball at Wake Forest AS69
playing quarterback and like three days later I had an A
hunting accident where I tore upmy ankle.
So I figured that's into sports and I went to Emory and Henry
was close to home. Felt good about being there and

(08:13):
after a year I said Mac and playwith some of those guys.
So I talked to the coach, Fred Self, who was the long time
offensive coordinator and offensive line coach there and
ended up working out in the spring and played.
You know, back then everybody dressed out by actually got to
play in the very first game I ever dressed out, we played

(08:35):
Washington Jefferson. They were ranked 6th in the
country. They came down to Emory and our
tailback Oliver Jordan, who ended up making All American
that year, had a huge game, so good that even a scrub like me
got to play. So I played three years Emory
after missing that first year and was kind of the undersized
guy who knew all the blocking assignments, and they tried to

(08:58):
make me a center. I never could get snapping down,
but God bless centers. And you guys know J.
Cole from Halifax County, I don't know how those guys were
able to do it, but I always struggled particularly with
shotgun snaps. But I played every other
position at one point or the other on offense line.

(09:19):
And most of my last year when I was, you know, getting to play a
little bit more, it was a right guard running I formation
offense. And at the same time, you know,
when I was a kid, Virginia Tech was a non entity in football.
I was right on Tennessee, Virginia State line.
We got Tennessee games. I didn't see a Virginia Tech
game on TV until they beat UVA the year that Sean Moore was

(09:43):
quarterback and UVA had been ranked number one and they had a
game on ESPN. So they were a non entity by the
time 93 comes around and they'restart to get that, you know,
reputation, the, the defense, the special teams, all that,
that, you know, they had an identity that I liked sort of

(10:03):
the underdog. We're going to hit you in the
mouth, we're going to work harder in the weight room type
of stuff. And they built on that and it
was an easy team to root for, especially being close to home.
So that that's really where my fandom came from and ended up
living in after college, living in Northern Virginia for a while

(10:25):
with a bunch of BT grads that brought me more into the fandom
rather than, you know, sort of the analytical watching.
I can, you know, drink fish bowls and watch Marcus Vick flip
off West Virginia fans. And but I was away then when
they moved, like I was away fromanybody at talk sports.

(10:47):
So 2010 comes around and Hokies played Stanford in the bowl
game. And I was really pissed about
how that went. And I had an account on.
I can't even remember the website.
It might have been Gobbler Country.
And I forgot my password. And I went over the Key Play and
wrote up my here's my thoughts about how that Stanford game

(11:08):
went out. And Joe, the editor of the key
play that summer, asked me if I wanted to do film reviews.
He said I'll provide the tape. So all you got to do is tell me
where the clips are and then write, you know, what you think
of the clips. And the whole idea of me doing
it was I got really irritated sitting in a sports bar at a,
you know, in the seats of the game.

(11:29):
And people were like hit that guy and had no or the offensive
line didn't block anybody. And it may have had nothing to
do with the offensive line play getting blown up.
And I just said, OK, I'm arrogant enough that I'll tell
everybody what I think's really happened.
And Lord knows people called me an asshole a bunch of times.
I don't know what I'm talking about.

(11:49):
Sometimes I do sometimes don't don't have any insider
perspective. And somehow that's turned into
doing it for goodness. We're on year 14 of doing it.
So that's pretty much my story. I haven't coached any.
So I I try to come at it from how do I talk about this in a
way that I can get technical enough, but a fan will

(12:10):
understand and I try to stay away from, Yeah, I know, I know
you guys have probably done a little coaching, but there are a
lot of coaches who think that they're curing cancer or they,
they're geniuses and they'll talk above you or talk over your
head the whole time. And the reality is like, dude,
all you're doing is when you sayall that terminology, you just

(12:31):
mean taken on a block with your right shoulder rather than the
left shoulder. You can simplify it, make it
easy. You don't have to.
And Coach Self was a big influence on me because I
learned more from him probably my first week of the first set
of 2A days and Emory than I'd learned but knew about football
for my entire life up to that point.

(12:52):
So I've always, always tried to share things the way he did.
Yeah, I'll go ahead, Brian. Go ahead, Sal.
You're good. I was.
Just going to say I'm going to throw something at you.
This ain't wasn't on a rundown anything, but just listen to
your story, how you got started,and that's pretty cool.
But I'll ask over your years of watching Virginia Tech football,

(13:17):
what's the maddest that you've been watching the game?
Like which game was? I know you can pick any year but
which? Product, yeah, I won well I at.
Least one every year. I can tell you one because I was
so emotionally invested in it, and it wasn't because of what
happened on the field. It was the Boise State game.

(13:40):
And it wasn't that they blew thelead, although they were.
I mean, you watched it in person, it definitely looked
like Boise sort of had the finger on the pulse and how to
manipulate Bud's defense into creating space for them to throw
the ball. But what drove me nuts, it's
first down. Virginia Tech's got the ball in

(14:01):
the last drive and they hand offto I think it was Evans and
there was a fumble and they recovered it.
They got like two or three yardsand there are two plays away.
Get a first down game's probablyover.
And the fellow Hokies fan base people around me start chanting
overrated. And I just was like, you don't

(14:23):
as a former player, like you don't fuck with, don't don't
tempt you don't do thing. You don't tempt the gods because
the gods will strike Thunder down upon you.
And sure enough, they didn't getthe first down and Kelvin Moore
comes down, wins the game. I've never been so angry.
Can I ask, can I ask a question about the third down play

(14:44):
though? What is it?
Third and three, Third and four?It was not a long short.
It was not a long play. Did.
You did you throw things at FedEx Field when Brian Stein
Spring decided to go for a shot with David Wilson, Darren Evans,
Ryan Williams and Tyrod Taylor all in the backfield?
Because I was up to 3:00 in the morning talking to my buddy Biff

(15:07):
in San Diego because we were so fucking pissed.
I guess that might have been Curtis's game too.
And here's. The thing I was so seeing red
because of the chanting, you're now saying that I didn't even
remember that they threw deep onthat play.
I was just, all I could rememberwas the, the, the taunting and

(15:28):
the timing of it and thinking the karma gods are just going to
screw us. I was convinced on 2nd down they
were losing the game because of that.
I'm, I'm weird about that with momentum.
And you know, I went from at, atEmory.
We didn't lose a home game. We had won for years before I
showed up, but we had won something like 56 straight home

(15:51):
games. We believed in winning.
We had games where we played like absolute crap and we would
pull something out we want to get.
I think we blocked a field goal against Washington Nose
Bridgewater late in the game. Like, I was sort of bred to
believe you were going to win. But my high school program
wasn't great. So that kind of creeped back in

(16:11):
when I became a fan and started to believe bad things were going
to happen. I'm a New York Rangers fan
hockey and nothing's good has happened for my team for 30
years now, So I've sort of got accustomed to expecting the
worst. And there was just something
about that moment that trigger like I was I, I stood in my seat
and start pacing back and forth in my little 12 inches of space.

(16:33):
These stupid sons of bitches, don't they?
No, don't. You don't do this.
You don't do it. You sound like you had a
similar. Winning because you're getting
laid or you're not getting laid,then you are.
Leave it alone. Don't, don't tempt it.
Don't push it. Don't push it.
Yeah, it sounds like you had a, you had a similar.

(16:54):
Chanted all you want, send the 4444 folks back to Idaho.
That's the first time they'd ever left, anyway.
Sounds like you had a similar high school and college set up
to me because we lost a lot in high school and then I got to
hand in City and that was that was in the run where Hand in
Sydney was playing some really good football early in the Marty

(17:14):
Fabrett tenure there and. Yeah, I missed the whole coaches
because that was a that was a game where us scrubs always got
to play like half the game was playing.
Oh, yeah. But Coach Wacker was going nuts
for that. God damn it.
Don't you know what they did this.
He had that real bad list. Yeah.
See him getting voted into the Ithink there's a YouTube video of

(17:34):
him getting in the Hall of Fame and he's he's got the list
going. And he he would, he would that
week, boy, he was fired up. See, been the coach of Hampton
Sydney. Exactly.
He and he was he was out for blood.
We were all like this is Patty cake week.
This is, you know, we we weren'tworried about it.
That that was definitely not thesharpest week of practice when
oh, I'm sure. We we had a similar, similar set

(18:00):
up when we were playing Guilford.
I know Guilford kind of turned it around in the last decade or
so and kind of came a pretty good team there, but they were
really down in the early 2000s. You know, Bridgewater was kind
of our our bugaboo when we were there.
You know they were. Coming, Jason.
What? Sarah?
Yeah, coming off. A stag bowl.
That game with a field goal? That was his first game as a
starter. Yeah, they were coming off that

(18:21):
Stag Bowl appearance when I first got there.
You know, they were, they were really good football team.
And you talk about momentum, we had a game in O3 when we played
then we were, I mean, statistically from the NCAA
standpoint, we scored the most points per game across all
divisions that year. And they came into into

(18:43):
FarmVille and Hamilton, Sydney there.
And man, we dominated them in the first half and then like
left points on the field at the half and then flipped it.
And then when when they came outin the second-half, just
completely different team. First they they kicked off to
us, they kicked it short. We kind of miss field that they
jumped on it. They went down and scored and

(19:04):
like, it just felt like the shift in the momentum and we
just never really got our footing back.
And then we got some some tough calls at the end there that kind
of went the wrong way. And you know, that was really
that was the only loss that season.
It was a three-point loss and everybody felt it and it it kept
us out of the playoffs. So it was it was it was it?
Was Momentum's a weird thing, man, And it's the things that

(19:27):
happened. Like I said, you don't, you
don't do anything to mess with it.
So the the some of the penalty stuff like it, it's not always
like the penalties you get or the mistakes.
It's when they happen and you just watching the game and
there's especially guys that play, you just feel it like, Oh,
shit, you get up three scores and you just go, oh, no, no, no,

(19:48):
no, no, no, not the not the time, not the time.
Oh. Man, you would probably be like
us watching a game. You'd probably be, we could
probably all force sit in a roomtogether and watch a game and or
in the stands and we would have similar demeanors so.
Y'all wouldn't have any fun withme.

(20:09):
I'm miserable watching. People would say I look like I'm
getting ready to have a stroke. I don't talk.
I'm like, shouldn't ever bite mytooth.
Well, you got to have the, you got to have the variety because
I'm loud and I don't care. Curtis Curtis is animated.
He's I'm animated. Sit down.
Stand up. Sit down.
Yeah, I'm up and down. Tally is tally.
I guess you. Tally is Tally leans negative.

(20:31):
Yeah, I say you lean negative. The game we watched together.
And Brian, I don't know what youare.
I've watched games. If you use you, you're to me.
You're all over the place. It depends.
It depends on what I'm seeing, man.
Sometimes I can get really into it.
Sometimes I'm sitting there and thinking it through with like,
what the fuck happened? We got to fix that.
And then sometimes I'm like justlike so in my own nerves that

(20:53):
I'm not really even talking about anything so.
The worst is when they're playing poorly and I know I've
got to write about it. So if I say anything nice, then
I'm going to have people saying that I'm, you know, I'm, I'm
just, well, I'm just kissing up or, you know, I'm, I'm not being
objective. And then if I blister everybody
that I'm treating the kids like garbage and there's no, there's

(21:17):
no happy middle ground there. Yeah, there isn't.
I try, I try to be honest about it and I've I've had a lot of
former players and guys who wereplaying at the time would reach
out to me and say, yeah, pretty much got that one.
And some cases didn't. I'm not going to say who it was,
but I had a player texted me themorning of the Purdue game up in

(21:38):
Lafayette. That's one of the one of the
games I travelled to and was telling me, you know, it's like,
you know, we're going to we're going to go after a punt today.
He was involved in the the pump block in that game.
And so we're going to go after one today.
Look for this this so well, I won't reveal who that was, but
you know, some of the players will give me some positive

(21:59):
information. Other ones I heard are not
particularly or four players arenot particularly fond of me.
I can think of a couple of offensive lineman who don't I've
heard don't like me very much. One of them rhymes with Ron T,
the Richmond guy. Yeah.
We, we, we need to talk about that.

(22:19):
It's something that we don't like either.
They're nice guys. Most of the most of the former
players I've met have been wonderfully nice to me.
So even even James Gale, who he and I had a little bit of a
Twitter spat there after the Duke game his last year.
And he came up and asked me whenI was going to find some frozen

(22:41):
fish at the grocery store because that's all I've ever
held up in my pictures. So even he was aces, you know,
he was great. Awesome.
All right, well, let's get into it.
We've been talking 20 minutes already, but we're going to go
in tonight. Sam Siski's defense, French is
currently working on an article for the key play about some
breakdowns on the defense. I know you said it's going to be

(23:02):
a 2 parter, which we definitely look forward to reading.
Obviously with the key play, we like reading their stuff, not
only for French but Shelton, who's usually a part of us.
But Shelton is completely it immersed right now doing work.
So we're not sports, spring sports with that young.
Man, that's going around, man. Yeah, it is.

(23:23):
But let's get into it French. And the first thing I wanted to
kind of break with you is let's talk about position of what
we're going to see from this newdefense.
I want to start with the D line,if there's certain position
names or techniques. But with Sam Siski's defense,
with what you've seen on tape studying, what are we seeing for

(23:44):
defensive line? First things first, it's going
to be 3 down lineman most of thetime.
You're going to see true nose, you're going to see 2.
I believe the new what's called in house 4, I would call it head
up over both of the offensive tackles.
You're going to see 2 edge players.

(24:06):
You can call them linebackers, you can call them that.
I've heard a Jack and spur used as terminology, but it's a
boundary side outside linebackerand a field side outside
linebacker. Most of the time they're going
to be walked up to fly scrimmage.
If the guy's backed off, it's going to be usually the field
side guy because he's kind of lining up like a sort of like

(24:29):
the star does. But sometimes he's splitting the
difference between slot receiverand the edge and you're going to
depending on situationally. When Syphcus, I hope I'm saying
that correctly, was at Watford Wofford, it was a true 3-4.
So there were two inside linebackers.
The Cardinals, when he was there, shifted to the three high

(24:52):
safety look, which I'm sure we're going to talk about a lot,
which meant one linebacker coming off the field.
It was usually an inside backer.He does.
They did show a little bit of nickel where the only time the
nose would come off the field, they go to two, you know, like a
three and a three and A5 technique or two head up
defensive tackles and still having those two edge guys

(25:13):
lining up, you know, standing up, but like defensive ends and
then two backers. But for the most part, it looked
like they were, you know, their base was going to at Arizona was
going to be the three down to edge and one inside backer and
someone we're familiar with because they're white who's at
West Virginia just a couple of years ago.

(25:37):
In terms of technique stuff, thewhole idea behind the defence,
it really is to make the second and third level defenders shine.
And so the interior guys really are trying to eat up blocks.
I think that the hardest position to play is if you're on
the backside of a zone and you're the four technique the

(26:00):
the head up on the backside of aplay.
You want to keep the blockers from getting to the second level
while at the same time not getting washed inside and
creating a cut back lane. And that's not easy to do.
I think that was the weakness ofArizona's defense is that
backside 4 would get washed inside and then the edge guys
weren't really in position to make plays.

(26:22):
Your edge guys, they have to be have positional flexibility.
You want them to be really good pass rushers.
Arizona didn't really have that.They went out and got Mac Wilson
who had a history of being a serviceable, you know, more of a
one-dimensional pass rush oriented linebacker.
But the key with the edge guys, they can are usually going to

(26:46):
force bring back techniques fromthe Bud Foster defense.
They're going to force, which means taking on blocks with
inside shoulder and keeping outside leverage.
So the back has to turn back to the inside most of the time.
And on the backside of plays, you'll have situations where
sometimes they're going to crashinside and the safety is going

(27:07):
to come up and become the contain guy.
Sometimes they can slow play, sometimes they can be flat
defenders. Either way, it makes it really
hard on the quarterback because no matter where you run the
ball, the offensive line doesn'treally know where the edge what
who's setting the edge on the defense.
It's not always going to be those outside linebackers now,
traditionally, I'm sure, But thenext question y'all are going to

(27:30):
ask me is, well, if they're going to run 3-4, are they going
to have the defensive lineman that they've got?
Are they going to be eating up double teams?
And you know, big guys, what youthink about when you think about
3-4 And at least at Arizona, they didn't really do that.
They would, sometimes they wouldbring 5 up front and those
tackles are sort of pinching andcondensing the field.

(27:52):
Old Dominion did that a lot against the Hokies the last
couple years where they would try to jam everything up and
inside and then bring up the safeties to make the tackles.
Other times they'll slant and iflet's say they're slanting to
the boundary, that boundary Jacklinebacker will bounce off, come
back up and go into the flat. And then it's the role of the

(28:15):
four technique is to get to thatedge and become either a spill
or a force guy. So when I look at the Virginia
Tech personnel nose is challenging.
I'm assuming that Gilliam and Copeland, because they're sort
of the biggest, biggest guys with the strongest base, are
probably going to be in that nose roll.

(28:37):
Are they good fits for it? I don't know.
I'm thinking that's why they brought in the priest or kid
from Hampton. That's huge.
And if he can play, you know, ifhe can play on that level,
perhaps he may be a long term option for that position.
But I I really don't see fits elsewhere.
And then you look at those 24 techniques.

(28:59):
You know, Emmett Laws is an undersized guy.
He's pretty quick. He looked good in the bowl game,
but we know he's got quick twitch and can you move
laterally. So he makes sense for that role.
The Arias Nash from Mercer, who if you all want to see him look
up YouTube Alabama versus Mercer.

(29:20):
You can see him against some of the best of the country and he
acquits himself pretty well, especially given how completely
outmatched his teammates are. But he's also quick, undersized,
you know, 35 technique guy who can, you know, penetrate and he
was the best pass rusher from the defensive tackle spot in all

(29:42):
of FCS. So he kind of fits that role.
I wouldn't be surprised if Burgos play some inside as as
odd of as that may sound, a guy playing, you know, started at
defensive end for the better part of the last two years.
But I could see him being eitherinside or out.
He he could be, you know, more of a run oriented edge guy, but

(30:06):
you could also play in that role.
And Stevens is a big kid. He could be in that role.
And then you've got the young guys.
We don't really, you know, hand Chuck.
We don't know anything about Johnson.
What little I've seen of them. He probably would fit, although
if he grows a lot more, maybe hecould be the nose.
But there's not, you know, I, I think from the four techniques,

(30:27):
I think they've got some inexperience guys.
You don't know how they're goingto hold up over the course of
season against top and talent. But they have the skill set.
The clay is there. They can be successful nose.
You know, I mean, Gilliam left Oklahoma so he didn't have to
eat up lockers for the linebackers and safeties to be
stars. And now that he's going to be

(30:48):
asked to do that again, if he's in that position, Copeland, I
mean, we don't really know in hell of a weight lifter.
Do we really know what he is? I know that there was a lot of
hype around him last spring, butwhat I saw of him in the spring
game, I was kind of he wasn't. I didn't think he was
particularly disruptive. And then, you know, there's a
bounce and he gets the interception and everyone's.

(31:10):
But in terms of every snap, he didn't blow my socks off.
And so where did where do those other bodies come from?
And then so you move out to the edge and that that's pictures a
little more clear. Ben Bell is a hellacious pass
rusher and he's perfectly suitedto line up out wide where he

(31:32):
doesn't have to have a lot of other responsibilities.
He's not someone who's real accustomed to spilling the ball,
so being in position to turn everything back to the inside
makes sense. And you know, he for the role, I
mean, he's, you know, Bryce Pop,Ricky Jackson.
I'm I'm I'm showing my age here with some of these names.

(31:54):
Kevin Green type of outside linebacker is really
one-dimensional. Fred Dean, if you want to go way
back. You know, those guys that
they're not really Charles Haley, they're not really a,
they're not really a defense or they're not really a linebacker,
but they're kind of standing outlike a defensive end and they're

(32:18):
just coming every time. So he makes sense.
Everyone has told me that they brought in, I'm going to
Butcher's name. Is it Jackman or Jackman?
James Jackman? That was a middle linebacker in
Eastern Michigan, and he looked good.
I mean, he couldn't cover a passworth of squat, but he's a heck

(32:39):
of a run defender. But everyone said he's been
brought into play edge. So I assume that's where he's
going to be, too, because he's again, the other, the field guy
has to be a little more adept atdropping into coverage and
playing in space. So I assume those are the two
guys at the boundary, which again, brings me back to Burgos.
You know, is Burgos going to be the third string guy or are they

(33:03):
going to find another way to gethim on the field?
And I'm assuming he's probably going to be he'd probably be the
four tech and I would assume on the field side in that way when
they're calling pressures where the the field side linebackers
backing out into the flat, he can move out and become the edge
guy. And like I said, I wouldn't be

(33:25):
surprised if Stevens I got some run at 4 technique or the edge
spot, but you know, he doesn't look like he's a guy who's going
to play in space as well. I think Jason Abbie could be the
sleeper guy if they hadn't brought in, if they hadn't
brought in two guys with good pass rushing credentials and
Bell in particular, I could haveseen Abby standing out there.

(33:48):
Why? Because where he's a smaller
guy, I think he's got some twitch.
I I I watch him on tape and I never hear anybody talking about
him. I go that guy can play a little
bit and when he's played, he's been productive against pass
rush and I, you know, run runs got work.
But if you're lining up like as a nine tech way out wide, well,

(34:10):
you don't have to worry about that as much.
That's not in position to be blocked.
So at the front, I'll pause. I've probably talked too long.
I'll let you all ask questions and I can talk about the second
level guys. Well, you're good there, though.
That was that was good information and I appreciate you
going into that. You know, you you brought up
Stevens there, you brought up Abby as being kind of guys that
may you, you could you might could see him in the edge.

(34:33):
You might could see him at that 4 technique.
Let's let's talk about the the guys with that with their hand
in the dirt. Is this going to be kind of a
more of a true to gap or is it going to be some sort of hybrid
approach? It's it's one gap, but the idea
is to create the jam through movement.
OK, at least that's what Arizonadid.

(34:55):
So it's it's very similar to what Bud did.
If you're, you're slanting to the boundary, the idea is to get
to the gap and if you get a a hat on you, then you got to jam
it up at that point if it it, but you've got to be twitchy
enough that if you get through the gap, go make a play.
Arizona didn't really do that. And this is where and you guys

(35:18):
and I talked before we got on the air.
Personnel wise, I think, you know, it might be long term that
they do want to get to the pointwhere they do 2 gaps.
But at Arizona they didn't have that personnel.
And that's how they made-up for is move, slow down the blocking
scheme, get into position and try to eat guys up.

(35:39):
Because it's definitely when youwatch Arizona Cardinals film,
you're not seeing anybody on thefront line that's making a huge
number of plays. It's it's really is more making
sure they're spilling, spilling or forcing the ball above a
Baker. And and but I might, I might go
on record now say I think Ben Bell might be a better pass

(36:00):
rusher than anybody who's on theArizona Cardinals roster From
from what I saw, they just did not have they didn't have a lot
of, you know, real burst twitchyguys coming off the edge.
That was probably the best bunch.
I don't think anybody consider him a top 20 pass rusher in the
NFL. So, you know, I think there's

(36:22):
going to be some painful momentsand I'm hopeful that I'm wrong.
I'm really excited to see how they allocate those those kids
during the spring and we'll see if they can hold up to it.
But it's it's going to be a challenge this first time in 40

(36:44):
years. They've had a different
philosophy and I know Justin Hamilton's was a little
different, but I mean, it's all what it's been 1 gap for me in
front for as long as I've been afan.
So you know, I'm I'm really learning to all the geometry is
probably going to change where Iwatch buds defense enough where
you could sort of see, oh, that's where that's why the

(37:07):
safeties look good when things are right and bad when it's
wrong. It's everything's designed.
They don't have to think they know exactly where the runner is
going to have to go and, you know, make it easy.
And I'm learning a new geometry now, so all.
Right, Kelly, you, you moved up like you had a question.
Oh no, I'm just paying attention, all right?

(37:27):
I'm going to throw this back. I'm going to throw this back in
here real quick. This is obviously a hypothetical
here, but would would Kelly Lawson have made a good jacker
spur in this system in European?Good athlete he probably would
have played and again, I don't know Jack Spur, it's Jack is
boundary. I know at East Carolina when

(37:47):
they use Jack, Jack was the boundary linebacker and Spur,
Spur was the field or some otherterm.
I think he would have been fieldside.
I always said he I thought he would have been a good star whip
use that role, you know, but he he's he's gone.
I mean, at this point I'm not I'm not going to I wish him best

(38:10):
of luck. Sharando kid from from
Winchester area, but he's not around anymore.
So I've got figure out with whatthey've got who who fits.
And it's an interesting question.
Fieldside linebacker. That's one of my two biggest
question marks. I do not know on the roster who
fits that spot. I'm assuming Woodson's going to

(38:33):
be the Mike playing right in themiddle stat, you know, stacked
up behind the nose for that field side linebacker.
They're supposed to be a pass rush type.
So can Jockman do that while thesame time get out to the flat
and sort of bumping a a slot receiver?
I I don't know. And and, you know, I don't see,

(38:55):
you know, the, you know, I don'tsee Bristol TN's finest in, in
that Keller in that role. You know, Gabe's not going to be
healthy. Clatter ball is going to be a
mic right in the middle. Yeah.
I have no earthly idea how they're going to play that spot
in the in the NFL. That's where Wilson played.

(39:15):
He was 63245. You know, I'm, I'm struggling to
see where the fit is at that fieldside linebacker spot.
Or for those of us, for people who know the old terminology,
what would have been the star, You know, similar alignment on
the field, but it's going to have to be a bigger, more run

(39:37):
sound guy because they're going to be playing with a six man box
most of the time. Well, Joplin's got the body pack
you just mentioned he is that. Yeah, yeah, Joplin's in that
role and he can get to the flat then.
You know, I don't think he came to Virginia Tech to be a backup.
So I in my article I wrote that I suspect he will start, but I
don't know. Again, I don't know him and Mike

(40:00):
in coverage. Was like sort of like watching a
bigger version of Bromfeld in coverage.
It was kind of painful to watch,but him as a run defender he was
and he knocked your Dick in the dirt.
He was productive. There we go.
He he he could he could he couldplay and I I I said all and you
all may have seen I was on a tally.

(40:22):
I think I was on your right after the hire was announced on
Twitter, your chat and when I was on with Pete over at 2, DI
said I, I, I mean, other people were saying he's brought to be
an edge guy. I blame it.
Mike and I put Woodson at that field linebacker and see if it
works. But I I don't, you know, I have

(40:44):
the rumbles I've heard say that's not the plan.
So. What about bass because it's on
screen? You already addressed Keller
Woodson. What about bass?
I I know very little about bass.I want to see the, you know, the
legal issue he's got to clean upand see how that impacts his.
I know he's also coming off an injury and didn't play a lot.

(41:05):
He, he, he would probably be theone that body type wise and
skill set wise would make the most sense.
But I, you know, I, I sort of want to see that he's being an
active participant and is givinghim being given some time before
I get a good feeling, you know, same thing.
I wouldn't say that clatter ballis going to play right away.

(41:26):
And I've seen some people on on people on message board say, you
know, oh, platter ball is going to step right in.
Oh no, he's not. If you never expect a freshman
to play as a true freshman, you will never be disabled.
That's very good. Let's go to the back end because
let's talk about with the corn. I want to start with the corners

(41:47):
because I feel like that might be the least changed or.
You're you're dead on. I don't think that, you know, I
think that Pry inherently wants to play zone and one of the
advantages of the free high safeties as you can disguise
really well the middle of the field.
And you know, I talked about this at length in my articles.

(42:11):
I don't know if it was coaching or whatever, but the Hokies,
last year's free safeties, you know, lining up 20 yards deep
and then dropping another 15 yards where there's no receiver
threatening their cushion and just creating a big doughnut
hole in the middle of the field.I never understood why it kept
happening. I I, I don't know if it was a

(42:31):
coaching philosophy or it was just poor instincts from MO's
Phillips and to a lesser extent Jones and Reddish.
I you know, I thought they did alittle bit better job and in
that situation, but I think thatthe pry wants to run side.
He did a lot of zone blitzing atPenn State and this gives them a
little better disguise because they were predictable in their

(42:54):
zone blitzing next year. Also, you know, I I know Lovettt
looked really good in the bowl game, but, you know, asking him
to be locked down, man, the old style, you know, boundary
corners going to be on an islandthe whole game.
You know, I I don't know if that's that's something that

(43:15):
probably wants to continue doing.
I think it's just been a necessity the last few years or
how much they struggled to to cover in the middle of the
fields. They had to rely on their
corners. But but I'm assuming love, it's
going to be the starter and thenit's up between Brown Murray
from the transfer from East Carolina and Thomas Williams.

(43:38):
I'll tell you my sleeper guy, I love Josh Clark's tape from the
spring game last year. I thought that kids going to
find a way to get on the field and unfortunately he didn't tell
the bowl, but he wasn't needed to.
I wouldn't be the least bit shocked if halfway through
spring ball we're hearing that he is taking the position and

(43:59):
owning it. And then Brown, Murray or
Williams are contending to be the nickel that will come in and
replace the field side edge guy as a true nickel in those
situations or maybe as a third safety in and those situations
try to match on a receiver. So so I I don't think you're

(44:21):
going to see, I think the guys who you expect to play are
probably going to play at corner.
And Clark is kind of the the guythat I'm looking at that
someone's going to take a big step forward and and be a legit
a legit second option behind Lovett.
That's the guy I'm looking to toreally grab Brown.

(44:41):
Murray's film was OK, but it didn't, yeah, it it didn't blow
me away. He looks like he's going to be a
solid, serviceable guy, so. Yeah.
Or it's got more upside to get past him.
Yeah, let me ask you a question.Just this doesn't really have to
do with any kind of scheme. It's more to do with skill

(45:02):
because sometimes it just matters about how much talent
you have to put on the field. When you look at what the
coaches have brought in, throwing skill, I mean throwing
scheme out of the way, do you feel like on defense that we
have, I don't want to say we're more talented.
Do you feel like we have more pieces to work with this year

(45:22):
than we did last year, or do youfeel like last year's team had
more defensive talent as a whole?
So that I'm going to cheat my way out of this answer.
I do not think that they have a two players the caliber of the
Neus Peebles or Antoine Power Island upfront and especially

(45:46):
Peebles. I've been very vocal on Twitter,
best defensive lineman potentially that they've had
since settle and maybe going back to defensive tackle going
back to Bruce Smith. He was unbelievable this year
and I don't know that because itdidn't always manifest itself as

(46:07):
he was the one getting sacks. I don't think people realized
how good he was. He was.
They went when teams double teamed him and created space for
Power Island out some of his best games.
And when he didn't get doubled, he was absolutely decimating
folks on the inside. I think that those are are tough

(46:28):
replacements. So I'll go to the second part.
They had egregious, horrific holes, especially in the middle
of the field and safety and Mikelinebacker and and even, you
know, I like Caleb Woodson, but he had moments where he really

(46:48):
struggled and the other guys that were coming in to to give
him rest at times really struggled.
Those holes were so bad that they offset a lot of the good
that the defensive line was doing.
So bringing in, you know, hopefully Woodson, a year older,
addresses that issue somewhat. And also being less reliant on

(47:12):
the linebackers to make plays because one thing about this
defense, the Mike, you know, canmake plays.
White made a lot of tackles. He just didn't look particularly
overwhelming on film for Arizona, but you're not as
relying on them to be a a someone who can eat up gaps and
still make plays like Bud's defense required him to do.

(47:35):
So this the question you they brought in four safeties and you
still got Quentin red issues very highly touted and I think
has a ton of upside. So looking at the three safety
alignment, generally you're going to see those safeties line
up about 10 yards deep. You don't know who's the one.

(47:56):
One or two will come in and run support late, but they they
won't show it early if they're doing it right.
So the offense doesn't really know where that that Allen
player is coming from. Most of the time it's going to
be the middle safety. And so when you're looking at
skill sets, you want your two outside safeties to have some

(48:17):
flexibility of guys playing on the hash, but they have to be
able to play deep half match to deep half turn and run with deep
receivers because they're going to be playing zone with those
corners. And so they brought in you look
at, I think Reddish is a fit forthe deep half.
I don't think he's playing the middle safety Superman type of

(48:38):
role. So I think he's probably won
Coville. My my friends who are around
Clemson football said one of thereasons that he left was he
didn't want to play around the line of scrimmage.
When he did get a little bit of playing time this past year, he
was used kind of like a nickel or like a star in our defensive

(48:59):
lexicon. And my understanding is he
wasn't real happy about it, though he looked.
He played a lot in that role against Appalachian State.
I thought he looked pretty good in it.
But if that's not what he wants to do, then he's probably a
candidate for the deep half. Tyson Flowers.
Sorry to Tyson and his family ifthey're watching.
I think he's garbage. I wish they hadn't brought him

(49:21):
in. I watched a lot of Rice film and
that secondary was as bad. You think our secondary look
bad? They look like they didn't have
a clue what they were doing. So I'm I wouldn't expect a whole
lot out of flowers. The guys I'm looking at for that
Superman role are Christian Ellis from New Mexico and Isaiah

(49:45):
Cash. They both have their strengths
and weaknesses. Cash is as good a form tackler
as I have seen on film and doingthis for 14 years.
Every time he makes a tackle, he's around the ball.
Guy goes down, arms wrapped. Even if he's diving at their

(50:05):
legs, you're seeing the arms come up, up above his head,
round the hips. It is beautiful.
But does he have the size 5-10, maybe 6 foot two O 5?
And he doesn't have blistering speed.
And you watch Bubba Baker, Buddha Baker, who was used in

(50:26):
that role in Arizona. He was a fantastic tackler,
great instincts, all the good things that I like, but looked
like a rocket ship coming up theline of scrimmage.
When you all see the film review, I'm going to call it out
like he's beating it. He's running twice the distance
as the Mike linebacker. Both are unblocked and he's
beating Mike linebacker to the ball.

(50:48):
So Cash, is he that level of athlete?
No, but he's going to be a reliable tackler, which is
welcome in middle field. What about?
Ellis is more of a volume guy. He he's a hitter, not as
necessarily as good a tackler. I thought he was going to play
the star when I didn't realize that Tech was going to be

(51:10):
changing defensive schemes. I thought they were bringing in
Ellis to play the star. He's got a little bit more long
speed, little bit bigger body. So so I think that those are two
guys and then who knows, you know, maybe, maybe Reddish would
thrive in that role. I don't know.
But with his with his range and with the very limited use of him

(51:32):
in a tackling role last year since they had him 30 yards from
the honest image half the time. I, you know, I don't know.
But long term, the kid from the kid from Virginia incoming
freshman Robinson and I'm brain cramping on his first name.

(51:53):
Is it Sheldon Robinson? Sheldon Robinson.
Sheldon Robinson. Yeah, Sheldon Robinson from.
Woodbury no. Sherrod Henderson and Sheldon
Robinson. I get their names confused but
Sherrod is a defensive man. Sheldon Robinson watching his
film he had he plays around the line of scrimmage.
He has the ability to turn and run with distance and range.

(52:14):
I think long term this defense was made for him to be a star.
It may not happen year 1 and that may not buy time for pry to
get to when he's going to physically mature and who knows.
I mean, again, my freshman rule,but Brandon face on was ready to
play right away. So you know, maybe maybe he's

(52:37):
that guy. But I really, really liked his
film. He had range, he hits, he
tackles, he plays the ball in the air.
You know, I, I don't know about the level of competition he was
playing, but he ripped the partyand for what is expected in that
role, well, I, I should probablyget into that.

(52:57):
So the entire defence is predicated.
Those edge guys set the edge oneway or the other and that middle
safety, not most of the time is going to be the one up around
the line of scrimmage. And the idea is all those
interior guys are keeping him clean, to a lesser extent
keeping the mic clean, but especially keeping him clean.

(53:17):
And you've got to have a guy whowe're the biggest difference in
Bud's defense, safeties were playing half the field, your
alley defenders only playing thealley to one side and you've got
someone else responsible on the other side.
And this defense in base and most of the unless they're
bringing a specific pressure that alley defenders got to
cover both sides of the field. So they have to read the play

(53:40):
quickly. They've got to react.
They got to be up in the up in the alley and they got to put
people down because you know, generally the other safeties are
going to be dropping back into coverage.
So where I'm struggling right now and Robinson's not ready or,
or assuming he's not ready, who's the fit?

(54:03):
Is that what? Is that what I said I was going
to ask you later? Is that what gives you pause
right now based on everything? That's what gives me the biggest
pauses. This defense is predicated on
that middle safety being an absolute superstar.
Ohio State did it with four downlineman in the three high
safeties win the national championship.
And we've heard rumors that their defensive coordinator was

(54:26):
the guy I probably wanted and that they were working on trying
to bring him in before all of a sudden he elevated his worth
with the national championship run.
Who do you have it? Middle safety Caleb Downs.
Caleb Downs is a badass. You know who's the badass?
Like, who in Hokey's history would fit that role?

(54:49):
You're telling me? Maybe, maybe.
Maybe. Maybe.
Jarrett. Kyle.
Jarrett. Hi, Sean.
I'm sorry, Not Kyle. Kyle Fuller.
Wow. And, and right now, right now,
any Hokies fans are watching or ready to throw rocks at me for
that snafu. Not on this program.

(55:10):
They screwed up all the time on this.
Program maybe Jimmy Williams, you know, but but there haven't
been a lot of guy you know Chancellor if he had been used
that way, you know, possibly people forget Cam Chancellor
really really struggled in Blacksburg.
He was a much better pro than hewas a college player, but.
He never found his fit until he he never found his fit until he

(55:33):
got to the boon where they put him at strong because we tried
him What corner free. Free.
And then finally, Pete. Pete decides, wait a second,
he's 64, he's 2:30 and he can run a 445.
Put him at strong and let him annihilate and running running
backs and tight ends. And I.
So maybe he would have. Been the game about him all the

(55:54):
time and then he became a big time pro and oh, I love Cam
Chancellor, he was great. I heard the grumbling.
I know I got receipts on some ofy'all out there, but yeah, who
who is that guy? I would encourage every single
Virginia Tech fan. You want to see what the middle
safety is supposed to look like?Go find Buddha Buddha Baker

(56:18):
highlights from last five or sixgames last year for the Arizona
Cardinals and watch that. And then think to yourself, man,
when was the last time a hokey defensive back looked like that?
I don't know. We got we got a Miami fan
throwing a good name out there too for for this.
Oh, macho. Yeah.
Oh, he was a corner. God bless him.

(56:39):
He was a corner, but I think. Just a good corner.
The the the way he played though, I think he could have
maybe had a fit here. But Brandon Flowers, Brandon
Flowers hit the way Voodoo Bakerdoes.
I don't know if he ever could have run, run the way Buddha
Baker. Just my God, like I watching
that was like watching Aaron Donald in college and going

(57:02):
people are sleeping and this is the best defensive lineman I've
seen doing this. And then he got to the NFL and
all of a sudden he was a huge star.
And I'm like, see, I wasn't justmaking up.
Just because we were beating Pitt back then doesn't mean he
wasn't killing guys on the inside.
So let me, let me let me ask this question.
Why ain't even a question. I'm going to make a statement.

(57:23):
My hokey fandom and my sanity relies on Virginia Tech having
Buddha Baker to play on defense next year.
Yeah, I'm a I'm a little antsy. I'm not watching a fucking game.
What's the use? What?
What did we do with? Like I said, maybe may.

(57:45):
So I'll, I'll, I'll put on my positivity hat, not not my
strong suit, but like I said, the cash kids, I, I, if I had to
pick my favorite, I think cash is going to end up being the
guy. I just he, he's such a good
tackler and he's reliable and maybe he doesn't have the
explosiveness, but I mean, they're going to be a lot of

(58:06):
growing pains. This is going to be new for
everybody who's returning. It's it's going to be a
different a ball and wax. I think some of the transfer
guys might end up being more comfortable in the scheme than
than the returns. Nothing like carpet.
At one thing, Yeah. Well, one thing when Fritch said
is, you know, this may not buy prior time.

(58:27):
I'm going to go ahead and let everybody know is watching this,
that or that, may watch it tomorrow or the next day.
Crockett lose every game. He ain't going nowhere.
They're not going to fire him. He just bought himself probably
three more years by not having an offensive line, an offensive
coordinator or defensive coordinator, so.

(58:49):
The worst offensive line I have ever seen.
Get it out of your head if you're the heck of going.
Somewhere the last three. Weeks don't even get me started
on don't even get me started on offense and offensive
coordinated and offensive line we.
If y'all want to spend an hour listening to me RIP the
offensive line from last year, I'm happy to do.
It was bad. I watched Squad of Nick Marshall

(59:11):
and it was bad. And our offensive coordinator
went to be an offensive line coach.
It's crazy. Crazy.
All right, well, let's get to it.
Let's get to it because I mean, what I've liked that's happened
the last about 40 minutes. Here is Frank, we were going,
you did it perfectly, man. You brought players, you brought

(59:32):
ideas. But let's get up some of these
screenshots that you have and let's explain that because,
because right now you've got my head thinking of all right,
here's 0, here's 4 techs, here'sa guy's on the edge, there's
your mic. I mean, I, I'm picturing that
obviously in a month actually. Is it a month from today?

(59:53):
What from today? Is it the 14th or the 12th I
can? It is the 12th, so exactly a
month for the day. A month, yeah.
So we'll be seeing it here. We.
Go. OK, well, so this is starting
out. So as you all know, Cephkis was
the defensive coordinator at at Wofford.
This is a look at when he didn'tuse an odd front.

(01:00:16):
This is their nickel when they're running at Wofford.
And this is one of those situations where, again, it's
going to look more like the traditional Virginia Tech
defense with the difference being that both of the edge
guys, those are the outside linebackers that are standing
up. This is going to be, you know,
more primary pass situations. I don't know how much they're
going to do this. Based on his time in the NFL,

(01:00:37):
Arizona would run 2 down linemanhead up on the guards rather
than here you've got, you know, A5 Tech to the field and more of
a nose to the boundary. But in this set, you know,
you're expecting your your edge guys to rush and you've got your
two linebackers and their trips formations.

(01:01:02):
They're having to roll over the safeties to the outside with one
deep. But this wasn't something I saw
a whole lot of the film in the film I included to show that
there's flexibility. It's not going to look like the
same. It's not going to look like the
one of the things that I there'snot much I didn't like about
bugs defense scheme wise. But with with the defense

(01:01:27):
coordinator the last couple years, it got pretty predictable
where pressures were going to come from.
And they were going to, they were going to bring the star and
they were going to slant everybody to the boundary and
they were doing that way, way too much.
And they weren't bringing the mic at all, even though the mic
linebackers really weren't very good cover guys that would never
blitz them. So they became a little bit

(01:01:47):
predictable. So this is just showing that
there's a little bit of flexibility.
Arizona would run sort of junk looking defenses where you have
a bunch of guys standing around a line of scrimmage and they're
all moving around. It wasn't so static like we've
become accustomed to the next few years.
So if you want to go to the the next Wofford one, I'll show the

(01:02:08):
the base defense base 3-4 that he was running at Wofford.
Yeah, because when I see this, I'm thinking like almost like
looking at Jay Bateman when he was at UNC, like that's kind of
my initial look at this. Yeah, and and again, this is a
this is a change up both of the the key thing here is both of
the edge guys are those outside linebackers.

(01:02:30):
So even though they look like, oh, these are bigger guys,
they're going to pass rush all the time, especially the guy to
the field. That's a guy who has the ability
to drop. And so so you know, they they
still have to be confident. Your field linebacker still has
to be confident to rush, which Idon't know that Woodson, you
know, otherwise I would say Woodson would fit in that role,

(01:02:52):
but I've never really seen him as much.
He certainly wasn't used much asa blitzing guy.
So you know, that's where I think I think you can see in
this look, you'd have Ben Bell as the guy to the boundary and
and Jonkman probably to the field or Burgos in in this look.

(01:03:13):
All right, so this is Wofford's base formation.
Again, you're seeing a nose tackle.
He's slightly off. He's not straight head up.
But you've got both of the defensive ends are playing what
I would call 5 techniques here. I've read and they keep calling
it a four I even though they're a little more outside shoulder

(01:03:33):
on the guards. You see your linebacker if if
you all watched a lot of the East Carolina games from early
in Fuentes era and end of coach Beamer's era, they always had
the boundary linebacker sort of walked up to line scrimmage and
instead of in the Lawrence Taylor pass rush pose, it kind
of be squatting. I used to call it the Popeye

(01:03:55):
linebacker is what you'd look like if you had the Popeye pads
on practice and you're trying toprevent yourself from getting
killed. You've got your field
linebacker. He's a little more off the line
of scrimmage and playing about halfway between the right
offensive tackle and the slot receiver.
And again, this is their run in 3-4.
So you've got the two linebackers, but you can see the

(01:04:17):
safety boundary. Safety is walked up.
So again, there's a little bit of positional flexibility.
He hasn't started using the the three safety look.
So generally what you're going to see from this with the way
the running backs align, most likely run play is going to be
inside zone to the right hand side.

(01:04:37):
What you would expect here, the defensive end or defensive
tackle, whatever you want to call it, the the four technique
to the field is probably going to slant right and try to get
outside of the shoulder pad right onto the right shoulder of
the right offensive tackle. Can we try do some real quick

(01:04:58):
for those looking and I'm I'm lucky Siegler played offensive
line, Tally played D line and tackle.
I've been adjusted. We have our friend Robbie Field
side would be the head of the Bulldog the.
Down. Side is the feet of the bulldog.
If everybody was wondering if you didn't know what as he's
saying this, I want to clear that up because that is

(01:05:19):
something that I've been taught over the last few years.
And somebody be like, who the fuck is he talking about right
now? Now there we go.
Wide side of the field and shortside of the field is I'll use
that some. But so, so that defensive end
or, or defensive tackle, I don'tknow what the terminology will
end up being. When it was Bruce Smith, they
called it a defensive end in 3-4.

(01:05:41):
But to me that's more aligned like a defensive tackle.
So he's they're probably going to slant to the left or to the
top of the screen or to the field side, whatever you are
more comfortable with. That field linebacker most
likely is going to sort of shiftout to the flat, become a flat
defender. The right inside linebacker is

(01:06:03):
probably going to fill between the boundary free technique, the
defensive tackle to the bottom of the screen and that outside
linebacker who's in the Popeye position or kind of looking like
he's shrugging his shoulders. And that outside guy is going to
become your option defender. So where the quarterback is

(01:06:23):
going to have trouble, he doesn't know if that backside
defender is going to crash inside on the zone and that
safety who's creeping up could replace him as the option
defender. Could the outside linebacker
slow play and just sort of be stationary and slow read the
quarterback, or could that outside linebacker just becoming

(01:06:45):
like a bat out of hell and try to hit the mesh point, focusing
more on quarterback safety? So there's some variability
there that makes the quarterback's job more
difficult. One of the reasons that this
defense is becoming more popularin college football is zone
read, and it makes it a little more challenging from a zone
read perspective. Figure out, all right, who's

(01:07:07):
going to be there waiting for meas the quarterback on the
backside. You can do a little bit of a,
you know, sort of a gap hand offwhere that outside linebacker is
going to crash inside. And either, you know, if the
safety is not walked up, maybe even the boundary inside
linebacker is coming on pressuresort of moving to the right and

(01:07:28):
then up the hash and replaces them.
So that variability is difficultfor for defense.
I know that there was another article that I saw and I
apologize, I'm not giving appropriate credit, but said
that there was a lot of Dave Arnotta, who's y'all Correct me
if I'm wrong. He's at Wisconsin now.
He's he. He was.
He was at Wisconsin when Cephus was there at the GA.

(01:07:52):
Yeah, so, but but him running this 3/4, that was a lot of his
impetus was really focusing on making life miserable for
quarterbacks, trying to run zoneread and and make sure that
they're not being static with what those linebackers doing.
They're not just coming off the edge all the time, but they can.

(01:08:12):
They're not slow playing all thetime, but they can and trying to
mix mix things up a little bit. Can I ask a question just
looking at this because I see we've got 11 in the picture
here. So there's not obviously a high,
a high free safety. My assumption is the one on the
boundary side above the Bulldogshead is the free safety.

(01:08:35):
But what kind of look could seekhis come out of this because you
said he likes the skies and coverages.
Because I'm looking at this, everybody is within 10 yards of
the line of scrimmage. There is no one way back.
What, what sort of looks could he give when it comes to this
coverage wise? Yeah.
So so the safety to the boundarycould bail and you play true

(01:08:59):
cover for, you know, a lot of the the handoff stuff that Bud
was doing where you got inside leverage, outside leverage and
wherever the receivers go that comes the inside gets picked up.
I've read a lot where they want to match similar to what you
know, some of the articles I wrote about pry where they'll
run cover three over the top andall those linebackers are sort

(01:09:23):
of turning to the outside and identifying first threat, second
threat as it comes in the middleof the field and matching to
them. And once I get to you got to
match up. I don't think that they
disguised as much out of the space 3-4 look, when we get to
the the Arizona film are you're going to see a lot more
deception and and and and in different things where it looks

(01:09:45):
a lot like it's going to be cover 3 and it turns into cover
2. I know that was that's a
favorite that they were doing last year.
It really gave Caleb Williams a hard time for the Bears.
Course, he's a rookie quarterback.
So you know, you expect some of those struggles.
But here I'm I'm expecting, you know, without remembering the
play that I clipped this from. I I'm expecting probably cover 3

(01:10:08):
in the back end, seeing that theboundary linebackers probably
playing to the flat. I'm sorry, the field linebacker
playing to the flat safety walking up on the boundary side
could either go to the flat or he could bail or he could
replace the edge guy. If the edge guy rushes, you

(01:10:30):
know, crashes hard to the inside, you know, there's a lot
of different variability here. Yeah.
So you're giving in this case you got a lot of giving the
quarterback a lot to think aboutboth from your coverage
standpoint and also if you if you've got the the read option
call there as. Well, and those inside guys,
they're all about sacrificing themselves.

(01:10:50):
You're not going to see your defensive tackles or your nose
making a huge number of plays. Their idea is those three guys
ideally, and maybe one of the two linebackers are going to
account for all of those offensive line.
You don't want to see clean bodies getting down the field,
getting anywhere near the safeties.
If you watch yeah, I think thereare two games where you get

(01:11:11):
some, some good Wofford film from 2019 when see if see if
this was there. And even though they're only
running two safeties, it's the safeties making the vast
majority of the tackles. And you all see that.
I, I highlight some of that in the film review where you can
see really distinct alleys forming sort of like what Bud's
defense did and their two safeties filling, you know,

(01:11:35):
filling that alley. Sometimes both of them,
sometimes one. But they, they seem to have,
they understand the concept where if it's executed up front,
they're going to find themselveswith a ball carrier one or two
yards at most from a line of scrimmage in a very clearly
defined alley. Where I would, where I would
think the alley would be here, assuming that they they do do

(01:11:58):
the they do do the slant to the field is I would expect that the
the left defensive tackle that that for Tech, he's going to be
looking, even though he's tryingto get outside, that's hard to
do. So his objective is to try to
get to the outside to cut that. I believe that's a right tackle
off from getting to the second level.

(01:12:20):
And so he's de facto spilling the ball to the to the field
safety. He would once he keeps running,
he would get out of his back pedal and come up and and make
the play or the field guy, he's spelling him out to the field
guy, field linebacker going to the flat.

(01:12:40):
This would be a lot easier if I had one of those telestrators,
but. Yeah, I need, I need to, I need
to invest in in something where I can, I can do some circling
here, pull up, pull a Little John magic.
If you if you ever do film reviews for a for a blog, folks
out there reading, make sure yougot a guy who knows how to how
to cut, tape and and code in order to just hand you the clips

(01:13:03):
that you picked out for. Thanks Joe, if you're watching
because I don't know how to do. It guys you.
Want to go into the next one? We can start diving into the the
Cardinals looks. Yeah, let's let's let's put one
on here for for my Colts. So.
All right, So this is the Cardinals when they switch to
the switch to the Penny look towards the end of the season,

(01:13:26):
this is a little bit of inverted.
You've got again your three downlineman, nose guard guard
covered up, you know, again, in passing situations.
Colts are still spread out so you can see that boundary
defensive tackle to the bottom of the screen is widened out a
little bit. They you know, there's
variation. They're not real static in the

(01:13:47):
way they line up. But generally, you're going to
see those three guys with their hand on the ground and then
you've got your two linebackers lined up.
And here they're both using veryaggressive.
They're indicating pass rush. Doesn't mean they're coming.
They don't give it away. But you can see the edge guy,
the one to the field. He's splitting the difference
between the offensive tackle. And if you read my film reviews,

(01:14:10):
you're going to hear that a lot,splitting the difference between
the offensive tackle to the field and the slot receiver.
You have your one middle linebacker sort of stacked
behind the nose. That's Kazir White.
And the idea again, those 3 interior guys jam everything up.
Your two edge guys are setting the edge.
From this look, they tend to come a little more often versus,

(01:14:34):
you know, backing out. But the idea is to create an
alley to one side or the other. And then where they're inverted
here, there's the possibility ofthe two hash safeties, the one
who's just above the 40 yard line marker and then the one on
the hash mark to the opposite side.
Either one of those could theoretically be the the 6th or

(01:14:56):
7th man into the, I'm sorry, the7th man into the box.
But most of the time you're going to see Baker up.
Even with him, that's Baker in the middle, a little deeper.
Most of the time he's up, he would be right around the 41
yard line and sort of inverted, looking like a wishbone.
The other way here he's elevateda little deeper.

(01:15:17):
So they may be sending one of the other two safeties into the
box, but a lot of time you're going to see Baker's the one
going even if they do the invert.
But they're trying to show a little different here.
If you want to go to the next one, you get a even better look
at you know what they running more often towards the end of
the year. So here same same sort of
alignment. In this case, the wide receiver

(01:15:38):
is tight. So you can see that the the
field side linebacker is now to the bottom of your screen is
flexed out a little bit and he'soff the line of scrimmage, but
the boundary guy still up in in a pass rush position.
You can see from the stances of the defensive line, they're not
being real squatty and trying tojust jam up their gaps.

(01:15:59):
Their feet are a little further back.
They've got more forward lane, which means they're trying to
shoot up and get into the gap and cause disruption, not just
not just trying to, you know, squat and take on the double
team again. You have middle linebacker
stacking up behind the nose. There's a little bit of depth

(01:16:19):
there. The idea is for him to also stay
clean. He's not he's not assigned
fitting a gap. Like, for example, Jalen Keller
really struggled with that. And before him, Alan Tisdale was
God awful at it the previous year.
But the idea, let's say you're running the inside zone to the

(01:16:40):
to the boundary. Your boundary linebacker is
going to set the edge. He's probably going to rush up
field keeping his right arm free, taking on the blocker and
you're going to see the inside. They can either consolidate or
they'll probably slant to the right hand side with to the
field side with the backer. Bubba Baker on this run is going

(01:17:04):
to come up between that boundaryedge and the three, I'm sorry,
the four technique to the boundary side and fill that out.
And it's the job of that defensive tackle and the edge to
take the two blockers who are over there and make sure they do
not get in. Bubba, I keep saying Bubba
Buddha Baker's way. And when you all watch my film

(01:17:26):
review, you're going to see Baker up at the line of
scrimmage. Look at where the Mike is versus
him. He beats the Mike who's
unblocked on this play to make the tackle like he's shot out of
it. And the cool thing about it is I
don't know if it's a preset callwhere he knows where he's going
to be around line of scrimmage and he's going no matter, you

(01:17:47):
know, if they're key and run or pass or he's just that
instinctive and that quick. But they have really set this up
to to make his skill set shine. So Arizona with, you know, they
put up some pretty decent numbers defensively.
This was very bend, don't break,but it made Baker look like a

(01:18:11):
superstar. And when you see their big
plays, he's the one around the line of scrimmage.
He's ideally positioned to, you know, a lot of college teams
like flaring the running back out into the two flats.
Yeah, I'm going to cost people to pass out tonight as many
times as I screw that up. He's he's an ideal position to

(01:18:32):
cover the back going either way into the flat.
He can match to circle routes. He's, you know, 5-10 hundred and
95 lbs. So yeah, he and he's quick.
He's got the ability to lock on in coverage.
He can match. So if you're looking at this
play and you're looking at the slot receiver to the boundary,
maybe you're showing the backer kind of lining up in a, in a

(01:18:54):
passive position, but you want to blitz that backer.
He blitzes, then Buddha Baker's going to step inside just like
he's doing run sport. He's going to step right around
the 25 yard line and then he's going to turn to that slot
receiver and match. If that slot receiver comes
inside, he's got it. If the slot receiver goes
outside, he's going to get picked up by the the boundary

(01:19:16):
hash safety. So you have a lot of
flexibility. One of the things that they'll
do a lot in coverage, they'll run a lot of cover, too.
And you would think, well, in the Cover 2, it's, you know, no,
4 threes, the middle linebacker in the Tampa twos bailing out
and covering the post. You would think, well, the way
they're lined up here would be Baker doing it.
No, sometimes they'll they'll actually take Baker and make him

(01:19:39):
the match defender on slants andstuff coming inside.
And poor Kazir White's got to turn around and run to the yeah,
I think they call it the pole defender.
I've seen videos on Cover 2 using the term pole defender for
that Mike linebacker. So they'll basically switch
position. You'll see that Mike turning and
bailing and Buddha Baker coming into the flat.

(01:20:02):
He becomes, he's either the linebacker if they're running or
he's matching to those guys break into the inside and pass
game. So it gives a lot of
variability. From this look, they could run
cover three over the top and thetwo corners basically sit down
as you know, umbrella flat defenders.
You've got where they're both inpress position, you can run, you

(01:20:26):
know, cover 3, but where they'rebailing and Baker can come up
and be run support and that linebacker is going to run to
the flat. I believe that's Mac Wilson to
the boundary. It gives you a lot of different
options and one of the things that they emphasize, don't be
predictable, you know, bring pressures from different angles

(01:20:48):
bring, you know, you're all running the same coverages, but
where the cover guys are coming from, you can mix up.
And you know, again, in terms ofthe run defense, the whole idea
and we, we saw Old Dominion did it last year and some other
team, Duke used to do it when they would run the three safety
look a few years ago before the guy who's coaching at Texas A&M

(01:21:12):
now, I, I love and I'm brain cramping on his name.
Elko, Mike. Elko.
Thank you. Mike Elko, masterful defensive
coordinator, Got what I would have if I could have picked a
replacement for Bud, that would have been the guy I I would have
picked. But before he got there, Duke
ran a lot of three highs and it was the same thing.
They didn't have a lot of talentup front to jam everybody up and

(01:21:34):
one or two of those safeties wascoming into the box right at the
snap. But they would line up a pie,
never knew which one it was going to be.
They would play a lot of, you know, cover zero with a single
high and they would have those two extra guys in the box.
And I mean, especially when youroffensive line has Vt on the
helmet, generally they're not going to be very good.
So, or at least over a long enough history, all due respect

(01:21:59):
to the 2020 offensive line, which was awesome, but when
they're not very good, the chances of them finding a safety
that's much, much quicker at thesecond level is is pretty
limited. So that's, you know, those Duke
teams were very competitive on defense for a long time using
that approach. So I think prize took on this
defense. I think he was interested in the

(01:22:20):
three high look, the flexibilityit gave.
I think he also realizes that from a talent perspective, it's
going to be really hard to get the horses up front to have a,
you know, to dominate the last scrimmage.
He's not going to be able to getthe same level of talent that he
was getting, you know, at Penn State.

(01:22:40):
And even there his defensive lineman, you know, he, he found
some some gems that were probably not the most highly
recruited guys. Jesse Lucada was a their Mike
linebacker and they would play him at defensive end.
So I, I think that he's read thewhite writing on the wall.
This is a scheme that will allowit.

(01:23:02):
One, it shouldn't give up a lot of big plays because they have
the three guys deep 2. You know, you can sort of use
your defensive line as pawns andchess game and eat up blockers
and try to keep second level guys free.
And it's it's a little more intuitive for the second level
defenders than the old Virginia Tech defense has been where you,

(01:23:26):
you know, you basically have to go where that alley is going to
be. And a lot of those big runs
where somebody screwed up up front and let the running back
go somewhere where they weren't supposed to go and that you see
the safety was out of position. Well, that's because, you know,
someone up front blew the blew the force or spell call.
So I think half of what I've written the last two years was

(01:23:48):
let's look at the force and split on this big run and you
know, it's pretty good to get. Well, both the safety and the
edge guy are outside. Somebody screwed that up and it
was probably the defensive end. So let me ask this Prince could
you mentioned it there and I wasgoing to ask it in a few minutes
here, but I'm going to circle back.
Why is a scheme like this going to be easier to recruit?

(01:24:10):
I mean, because I mean, I feel like a lot of people are going
to say, well, don't you need a big nose?
That's not necessarily the case with some of these UA schemes,
right? You don't have to have a three
20 LB nose. It's nice if you do, but you
don't have to. I mean, it's, it's always, it's
always better to have 320 who can move than 285 that can move.

(01:24:31):
True, but you have to be able tomove.
So, you know, a lot of, I don't know, easier to recruit.
I think it's going to be different to recruit because you
know, some of the guys they've been getting a defensive end I
think can play in this 3-4. But like Antoine Power Island,
he was used kind of in this rolelast year as you know, more of a

(01:24:54):
stand up off the edge. They would line him up in the
middle and move him around. But he really struggled at
Florida when they added in the piece where sometimes you're
going and sometimes running the flat.
I, I kind of wanted them to keepthe defence my I've still got
question marks about the fit. I still have question marks

(01:25:14):
about how the personnel is goingto work.
And we were talking about it forthe break.
They haven't turned over the staff.
You know, I love JC Price. JC Price has been a even front
defensive line coach for as longas it's been in the game.
He played under Foster. You know, where does he fit in
terms of coaching defensive tackles to do something that's a

(01:25:35):
little different? They still need to move, they
still need to gap fit, but you know, they're not going to make
the number of plays I could thatnegatively impact defensive
tackle recruiting. As I mentioned, Kevin Gilliam
was a fish out of water at Oklahoma where the defensive
tackles were asked to eat up blocks.

(01:25:56):
So you know, how how is that going to work?
Do they have the Superman recruit at safety who he may not
be a five star guy because you're not really asking him to
play a lot of, you know, sort oftraditional deep safety
coverage, but you got to find a guy who, you know, is just an
absolute bad ass up in the box. And Trey Palamalu wasn't a deep

(01:26:19):
half guy, but he was great around the line of scrimmage.
And that's what you, you know, you need that middle safety to
be. I I and you know, we talked
about the linebackers. Who's the field linebacker?
I have no earthly idea who's themic.
I'm assuming it's going to be Woodson.
I would put John in there. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, I'll probably be wrong.

(01:26:39):
I've been wrong, you know, enough times before.
But I have a lot of question marks.
It's a big swing. It's a big swing that's high
risk. If it works out, they've not
giving up as many big plays. And I think that the viewpoint
is that gives them a better chance to compete, especially
with the better offense. You know, the downside is you

(01:27:02):
have a bunch of square pegs and round holes and it takes you two
to three years to flip the roster and tally.
I think you said it right off the bat.
I don't think he has two or three years to turn things
around. So it's a, it's a, it's a big
swing, especially when the new defensive coordinator is not
bringing in all his own guys that he's comfortable with
running this game. Yeah.

(01:27:24):
And I mean, you said it earlier when you talk about your fit and
things like that, I mean, obviously, I think you, you, you
wish that Don Terry pose could grow on trees, but they don't.
A guy that can move like that, that's in the, you know, 3/23/30
range in college, you, you don'treally see that, you know, that

(01:27:44):
type of player every day. At the same time, you know,
based on your description there,you, you don't necessarily need
those, those, those big noses that you're used to from a, a
more traditional, you know, 2 gap 3/4.
You know, that, that it was so popular in NFL for so long.
Let me flip it back over to, to here real quick and just ask a

(01:28:06):
quick question here. So you know, you were talking
about the the field edge here kind of splitting the
difference. If you're going against a, let's
say AODU that loves splitting those wide receivers out outside
the numbers, does that put you at any sort of disadvantage with

(01:28:29):
that type of alignment? I think with those teams that
are really heavy, you know, for widespread, they're going to run
trips, especially trips to the boundary, which, you know,
causes its own headaches. I would expect the nose to come
off the field and you're going to see the 22 defensive tackles
and the two edges lined up more.You know, they'll they'll still

(01:28:50):
be standing up, but they'll looklike more traditional defensive
ends and they'll do that a lot. And you'll see a lot of that's
when you'll see the junk defenses where right here you
got Baker 12 yards off the ball.If you watch enough tape, I
mean, this is a very limited sample size.
They will bring him up around the line of scrimmage as a
blitzer. Like they'll move him all

(01:29:12):
around. So you know, there's going to be
a little more variability, but that's that's what I would
expect is it from a base? Look, if you're playing teams
that are really emphasizing sortof like the Tennessee style
spread, you know, I think that they'll go to the true nickel
look where they'll take the noseoff the field and they'll, you
know, they'll play similar to what you saw with Ohio State

(01:29:34):
this year with the two stand up ends, 2 defensive tackles, sort
of head up or, or just offset onthe guards.
And then you'll have the mic, you know, right over center.
And but they'll, they'll still have the three high safeties.
I, I think the three high safeties is going to be the base
defense. That's the only connection I can
find between Syphcus and the, you know, the Ohio State defense

(01:29:57):
coordinator that they were pursuing originally.
So, so I think pride definitely sees the three high safety look
as what he wanted to go to, whether you know, whether it was
going to be Syphcus or somebody else.
I think that was his primary target from day one when he
started self scouting and looking at looking at the

(01:30:18):
defense. The interesting thing is, you
know, with Moses Phillips athleticism, he might have been
a hell of a fit for it. So him departing, you know, I I
don't know for sure he had the skill set, but he played sort of
he sort of played slow, but he may have missed out on on on an
opportunity to play in a system that really highlighted him more

(01:30:38):
than what they were doing last year did all right.
Kelly, anything right now? I'm good man, just paying
attention and trying to see if Ican take this test at the end of
this class well. I said I I'm I'm this is I'm

(01:31:00):
guess this is an educated guess.We may he may come out and
they're running the same damn defense they ran last year.
You know, I and and see if this because he's this young
Wunderkin who has all this NFL experience could adapt.
I but but based on what he was involved in, I could not find
any tape where he's running, youknow, base four man front with

(01:31:23):
any consistency. It was just just the nickel no
matter when he was at Wofford when Arizona wasn't doing it.
But I'm picturing this that the only connection I can make
between Jim Knowles and see if kisses they were both 3 high
guys. So, you know, I'm 100% expecting
something that looks like what you've got on the screen right
now as the base defense. Sure, French.

(01:31:45):
Let me ask this what what are the nuances between what Knowles
was running at Ohio State and what Cephus was was?
Running. So the biggest difference is
Knowles was running even front, Yeah, those even front one
backer or two backers. They went a lot of one backer
versus versus Tennessee and they'd show the light box and

(01:32:07):
they would have a nickel, they'dhave a true nickel when they'd
still have the two edge guys. So they were, you know,
basically they were replacing out their nose with a nickel
defender and going with I'm trying to remember the term.
So it was essentially A7 defensive back a look.
But you know, again, they were bringing safeties up pretty

(01:32:27):
heavily and then most of the rest of the time they're
running, you know, 4-2 with three high safeties.
So you know that that was the biggest difference.
He, you know, maybe fit what Virginia Tech was doing last
year and they were just taking alittle bit of a different, you
know, angle with it. Again, they had Caleb Downs.
Caleb Downs make a lot of guys look pretty damn good from a

(01:32:49):
coaching perspective. So, you know, I, I had my
thought. I was 100% convinced.
If you want to talk about something I've been, I was dead
wrong about. I was 100% convinced either
Pride was going to take over defensive play calling duties or

(01:33:10):
he was going to bring in somebody that he had some kind
of past experience, but that wasgoing to run the same system.
This was I was gobsmacked when when I heard the hire and two, I
saw, you know, what the coachingbackground was, I was absolutely
shocked. So not that again, that's not a

(01:33:31):
knock on Cephas. It's just such a big usually
when you change schemes this to this level of an extreme, that
means you're expecting you have two to three years to flip the
rooms and get the person out to fit it.
So. And that kind of aligns with
where his contract is and where the buyout is and things like
that. We, we figure at this point,

(01:33:51):
he's at least got two years with, with these changes that
he's made to, to see where it goes.
Right. And let me ask you this before
we kind of wrap up here. Were you kind of riding the wave
during kind of all the the whispers of who the hire might
be with? It's like it's Knowles.
And then, you know, he he gets on the run and, you know,

(01:34:14):
because it was such a protractedsearch for a defensive
coordinator much longer than I think a lot of us wanted it to
be, right. Were you kind of riding that
wave and kind of seeing the names that were getting floated
out there? You had Knowles out there.
At some point. You had Jay Bateman get thrown
out there. And then eventually, you know,
we end up on Seekers. When I when I was going through

(01:34:35):
it, like like I said, I thought they were going to run the same
scheme. So when Anthony Poindexter's
name was out there and they had coached together and coached
that scheme, I thought, you know, maybe, you know, that's
good probably for Virginia recruiting.
You know, it's familiar UVIUVA guy understood, but you know, he

(01:34:55):
was a hell of a player and it's obviously, you know, pretty good
coach. I thought maybe that he would
fit. I know Bob Shoop's name was one
that I was watching Tennessee tape on and they did a lot of
the same. You know, they didn't do the
alley defense quite the same way.
But in terms of how they use their defensive line and they
try to, you know, they were veryclearly doing pre call force and

(01:35:19):
spill. It wasn't a instinctive reactive
thing. So I thought that you know, he
would be a possibility. And then when they start
floating the, and I apologize, I'm forgetting his name, but the
Tennessee defensive coordinator from last two seasons, you know,
they he was doing, you know, a lot of similar stuff where
Tennessee had been really bad when Hypo first got there on how

(01:35:44):
they were setting the edge. They they really struggled in
that area. I think it probably held them
back from competing for some titles even though they had some
big time talent at defensive end.
But last year it really seemed to come together under his
leadership where they were, you know, doing a lot of the setting
the edge stuff and the safety seemed to have a good idea of

(01:36:04):
where to come up and do run support.
So those were the guys I was really looking at.
I was actually collecting film clips to get ready to write, you
know, reviews on them, especially Shoop and and the
other guy that had been at or that was at Tennessee and the
name's escaping me Poindexter, because you know, I it's not

(01:36:25):
exactly easy to find a light UConn film, but when he was a
defensive coordinator at UConn, but I could just go, here's
Brent prize prize defense at Penn State.
Here's what they were doing. And Brent prize the head coach
and he got the job entirely based on, you know, his great
defenses at Penn State and you know it, it sort of made sense.

(01:36:48):
So when he didn't become an option, they took this big right
hand and he, from the sounds of it, sounds like that those were
never the guys being considered.But you know, those were those
were the ones that sort of made sense to me.
I know that there were some other names floated where I just
went that doesn't fit at all at all.

(01:37:08):
But you know, I'll tell you the way my spring is gone.
That feels like it's two months ago at this point.
It's been what, maybe 3 weeks, 4weeks since a lot of this
clarity started to come up. So I got, it's hard to even
keep, keep track of it. But yeah, those were the guys I
was looking at. I'm, I'm still surprised, but at

(01:37:29):
the same time, you know, the olddefense, I think I, I, I had no
issues with what Virginia Tech was doing scheme wise
defensively. I had no idea what they were
teaching their linebackers and safeties to do within the
context of that scheme. I would just watch it and go, I
know what they're supposed to bedoing and that isn't it.

(01:37:51):
And you get they're still out there.
Nobody's getting benched, nobody's getting yanked onto the
sideline, getting here full, youknow, all teams are doing OK.
Any, any indication that the corners aren't impressed, man,
we're running posts and there's no, there's no safety in the
middle of the field over and over and over again.

(01:38:12):
Never an adjustment. So, you know, he didn't have
that. He didn't have the assistance
that we're doing a good job. That's my opinion.
I don't think the players were stupid or or slow or anything.
So I I thought that that was a coaching issue and in terms of
talent and he had Michael Parsons had Brendan Smith at the

(01:38:33):
at the strong side, you know, Will linebacker and he never,
you know, Woodson was as high end as he got Turner's
recruiting tenure. And that defense just doesn't
work in life. Even Bud's defenses, when Bud
had a badass, you know, we called it backer back then
boundary side, inside linebacker, you had a badass.

(01:38:53):
The defenses were unstoppable. When you had someone who was
mediocre, they were OK. And when you had someone who was
really bad, they were still OK. But then you had to watch that.
Really, you had to watch LyndaleGibson and Jake Johnson miss 10
tackles again. So that position was really
important. And they never got that guy.
Yeah. If you go back and read when
they hired Pry, I said, my God, can they bring Abdul Carter and,

(01:39:18):
you know, with him because his linebacker film was great and he
was really good as a linebacker.I had no idea he'd become the
best pass rusher in the country.But God, would I would have
given for pride of Abdul Carter,Abdul Carter to be that will
linebacker. And maybe we'd be having a
different conversation right now.
You might be, I want to ask you this real quick and I think

(01:39:40):
we'll we'll see if either body here has any more questions.
But with this type of defense, now what's going to be the
offense is where if we're playing this offense, we should
just eat them alive under 20 points.
But if we're playing this type of offense, buckle the fuck up

(01:40:01):
because if we miss one or two play, we're fucked.
Well, I and a lot of that's going to depend on how personnel
ends up fitting in. Yeah, for sure, I'm.
Saying so let's say it's an above average, everybody is
above average and you're shockedlike we we got the Isaiah cash
turns out to be a tackle machinecan get sideline to sideline

(01:40:21):
everything, everything is working above average.
Yeah, if you can, if you've got a team that runs a more
traditional run game, not as much of A zone run game, and
your offensive lineman can, you know, take care of that edge guy
and and get level defenders to the second level.

(01:40:42):
And that means blocking those front three one-on-one.
If you got offenses that have offensive lines that can block
that front three on one-on-one, you know there's going to be a
little bit of trouble because again, I don't know that there's
the Superman at the safety spot that's, you know, going to be so
dynamic that doesn't matter. He's just going to beat

(01:41:03):
blockers. They're trying to get to him and
he's too quick and too elusive and too instinctive.
He'll get there before they arrive.
You know, looking at it, it's well suited to zone, read, run,
spread stuff. I think it's ideally suited to
stop that kind of defense slow developing stuff.

(01:41:23):
If you watch and I think there is a YouTube video that says Ben
Bell highlights, strongly recommend folks watch it.
He is if you all remember the last two Marshall games, how
Marshall's edge guys were comingup the field and that disrupted
all of Tyler Bowen's sort of slow developing, you know, run
wide. You know, this defense prevents

(01:41:45):
teams from running wide if it ifit's doing things right, teams
that are oriented towards running more sweep oriented
stuff outside zone, this defenseis going to give them our time.
If they can run up inside and and dominate that interior 3,
there's going to be a lot of trouble.
So that's what I'd look for froma you know, that's what I'm

(01:42:08):
looking for. And Mr. Compton, who just
commented, yes, same thing. You know, if you're running the
traditional pit offense and teams good at it, you know that
that pin and pull power stuff and you get, you know, create
that gap. The weak spot in defense is
always going to be between the four tack and the the edge guy.
If you can hit that seam, especially with one linebacker,

(01:42:30):
it doesn't take much for you to disrupt that linebacker, disrupt
that safety and that backs off for a long way.
The idea is to give that that mic and that free that middle
safety a free run and you hope that they can be the playmakers
you need at that position. And you and you sure as hell
hope that those edge guys, if they're going to line up that
wide and they're, you know, they're a little susceptible to,

(01:42:53):
you know, speed, draw off tacklepower where you're kicking out
the end and they're playing outside in anyway.
You know, which what you're hoping they'll make up for
because they're lining up why they're going to have an
advantage on offensive tackles with pass rush.
And again, if you haven't seen Ben Bell play, watch it and

(01:43:13):
you'll sit there and go. Yes, yes, quarterback pain.
I like it. It's all coming to plan.
Right. It's all coming to plan.
Well, listen French, the last hour half here has been an
educational piece on what we're likely to see next year.
Obviously we're spring ball starts next week.

(01:43:37):
We we know people are going to get in there and then we're
going to have the spring game. How much are we going to see?
We don't know. But I think here based on what
Sam Cephas has done, you have definitely given us at least at
least the 200 level, 200 level because I got a feeling as you
start seeing real games, 300 and400 level stuff will be coming

(01:43:59):
out soon. So tally, Brian, anything before
we wrap it up tonight? I'm all.
Set brother, I'm good to. Go.
If I could do a quick, just a quick advertisement for folks
who may not know thekeyplay.com.You know, great community there,
a lot of good folks who, you know, have a, a pretty measured

(01:44:22):
attitude about, you know, the state of the team.
You know, we're not happy when it's not happy, but folks aren't
ripping each other's throats out.
And I'll do my film reviews, youknow, do a couple.
We try to take breaks in the offseason a little bit.
We do some stuff for the spring game.
And now with the new schemes, we'll highlight the new scheme,
probably do a couple articles ofsummer.
But every Monday we have a film review of the previous games.

(01:44:45):
Usually we'll do 10 to 15 plays.For anyone who hasn't seen it
before, we can try to go into deep dive and explain, you know,
where the blocking assignment may be missed or is it a
defensive call that just was theperfect call against the perfect
play call tried to, you know, assign assign the appropriate

(01:45:05):
blame or and identify opportunities for improvement.
And also I take great pleasure in calling out when guys do good
things. I said you could say I was the
the king of the Neus Peebles fanclub last season and same with
Bashaw Tooten. Bashaw Tooten behind our 2020
offensive line all I don't thinkand I really think, even though

(01:45:29):
the fan base loved him, I don't think people understand how
really good he was because he had nothing in front of him That
was it is just it was just bad. In fact, I never have to write
the word more other than talkingabout the offensive line coach.
Now Moore brothers Clements. Oh, they were, they were so bad

(01:45:56):
when I say that I I can smell myown because I was terrible too.
So. That's right.
That's right. I recognize that.
Guy, I I've sat in film rooms before and have been the focal
point of a bad place. So I I've been there.
It's not a fun place to be. At the same time you got to, you
got to call it like you see it. I haven't had that frustrating a

(01:46:18):
couple of years going back to when Curt Newsome was the
offensive line coach and you hadguys stepping with the wrong
foot or being, you know, felt felt like a full second behind
the snap count. It's just little dumb things
like that. Just you're taking the wrong
angle or your feet aren't movingat contact and you just go
That's, you know, that's 8th grade stuff.

(01:46:40):
That's not stuff that should be happening.
Power 5 football and you're watching it go on.
They're either just got no talent OR they're tuning out or
coach, you know, is teaching them via Zoom.
I know that that was proven a false rumor.
Well, I, you know, don't want tothrow stones, but your God be

(01:47:01):
better than that. Yeah, there you go.
All right. Well, y'all, with that being
said, dear God be better than that.
Let's hope next year's butter. We're going to wrap up this
episode of the Boundary Corner Podcast brought to you by Counts
Family Pharmacy in Blacksburg, along with our guest French from
the Key play here, I'm Curtis Wilson.
I'm Brian Siegler. Jonathan Talley.

(01:47:22):
We are part of the College TitleNetwork.
Check out boundarycornerbt.com to listen to all of our
episodes. While you're there, don't forget
to follow us Twitter, Facebook, Instagram favorite podcast
source Again, if you're looking at this one, definitely watch it
on YouTube to see some of the the photos we had here.
As always, we let our buddy downin Roanoke, Jason Long play us

(01:47:42):
in play us out. Check him out Jason Long
music.com where you can link to all of his music, Apple,
Spotify, his YouTube channels and his Facebook pages.
We appreciate y'all for listening.
Appreciate all the questions andas always, let's go.
Thank you. The.