This Coaching Staff's Biggest Issue: Failure To Anticipate Problems

[FaninAma]

This year's biggest problem? Bradford's injury of course and the lack of any backup with experience.

The 2nd biggest problem? The OL's inability to run block and take some pressure off the QB and passing game.

Both problems should have been anticipated last year by the coaching staff and moves to address both issues should have been made starting last year DURING the season.

So for the second time since 2004 this coaching staff has been caught flat-footed and it has cost them significantly in both 2005 and 2009.

Until the coaching staff starts to look a little ahead and anticipate the worst case scenario then the program will continue to have years like 2005 and 2009.

And yes, hindsight is 20-20 but a good coaching staff , like a good Boy Scout, should be prepared for the worst.

[OUHOMER]

Agree 100%, Little things, like OK we can not block, lets roll the pocket out.:mad:

[FaninAma]

Agree 100%, Little things, like OK we can not block, lets roll the pocket out.:mad:


How about making a committment on the OL that first you will know how to be a good run blocker then we will improve your pass blocking skills.

A team that can run the ball against even good defenses will always improve their chances of reaching their season goals.

[Mjcpr]

Don't forget the 2008 MLB fiasco either.

[FaninAma]

Don't forget the 2008 MLB fiasco either.
Good point. In that same game the failure of OU's rushing attack to break the 50 yard mark behind what was felt to be the best OL in the country should have been a huge red flag that there is/was a problem in that area.

[madillsoonerfan5353]

I've been saying since the start of practice that this O should look like it did '07 getting passing looks off of play action! JMSO :confused: The O looked like crap at Jerry World even with Sam in the game!

[Sasakwa]

I'd say reverse your first and second and I'd agree 100%. I'd suggest a 3rd, replacing the WR corps.

For how long did they know 4 of 5 OL were going to be gone? Why weren't these guys getting significant time during all the blowouts in 08?

[jkjsooner]

I think you're asking way too much to guarantee that the backups have experience going into the season. It's just not always feasible. Sure, for the positions where you rotate players constantly it pretty easy to do but positions like QB and kicker it's going to be hard.

Teams go into the season quite often with a starting QB who doesn't have experience. Maybe that's a problem but to expect next year's backup have experience is asking a whole lot.

Should we have burned Jones's redshirt last year just so this year's backup would have experience? That seems absurd to me. I could see maybe burning a frosh's redshirt this year in a blowout so that we have a backup for this year but if, say, we had a senior as a backup (as we did last year) would you blow a frosh's redshirt so that next year's backup had experience?

Jones has played in plenty of games this year. You can't blame his performance on not having some mop-up action last year and you would be stupid to blow his redshirt unless you planned on him starting this year.

This isn't the NFL. Guys have four years to play in college so othe turnover is tremendous. You are not going to ever be able to guarantee the NEXT YEAR's backups have experience.

[tulsaoilerfan]

I think you're asking way too much to guarantee that the backups have experience going into the season. It's just not always feasible. Sure, for the positions where you rotate players constantly it pretty easy to do but positions like QB and kicker it's going to be hard.

Teams go into the season quite often with a starting QB who doesn't have experience. Maybe that's a problem but to expect next year's backup have experience is asking a whole lot.

Should we have burned Jones's redshirt last year just so this year's backup would have experience? That seems absurd to me. I could see maybe burning a frosh's redshirt this year in a blowout so that we have a backup for this year but if, say, we had a senior as a backup (as we did last year) would you blow a frosh's redshirt so that next year's backup had experience?

Jones has played in plenty of games this year. You can't blame his performance on not having some mop-up action last year and you would be stupid to blow his redshirt unless you planned on him starting this year.

This isn't the NFL. Guys have four years to play in college so othe turnover is tremendous. You are not going to ever be able to guarantee the NEXT YEAR's backups have experience.

Hogwash; with the amount of blowouts last season, plenty of backups should have gotten the equivalent of 3-4 games worth of experience; how many times were the starters still on the field in the 4th quarter of games OU had handily won?

[goingoneight]

How do you prepare for losing a Jeisman winner, and all but one element that won him that Heisman Trophy? Would a JUCO guy really be any better than LJ?

In 2008 we lost Curtis Lofton to the NFL... the only way you immediately band-aid that is exactly how we tried to do so. Add a couple JUCO guys and put your most-experienced guy in place of the departed star.

Every coaching staff deals with rebuilding. The days of "reloading" were done when scholarship limits, playing time and TV began sending what we used to have waiting in line to places like Texas Tech, TCU, Missouri, etc.

We're just a team that for some odd reason has been cursed this year.

[SoonerShay]

Go outside for just a quick minute and run around your house once and time yourself. Now go back inside, stab yourself in the foot as hard as possible with a dull rusty knife. Go back outside and run around your house again, if your not as fast this time, go ahead and call yourself an idiot.

Even easier dislocate your both your index fingers really quick and now try to type your same message again at the same wpm.

[FaninAma]

Venables admitted he was ill-prepared
for Reynold's injury last year because he
didn't give anybody else any practice time.

The run blocking issue has been ongoing
for a while and remains to be addressed.

Stoops better realize that teams are going
to play physical with our receivers and so
whatever it takes to put pressure on the
QB. If we don't have a reliable running
game we will continue to score less than
20 points against food
defenses

[sooner94]

Venables admitted he was ill-prepared
for Reynold's injury last year because he
didn't give anybody else any practice time.

The run blocking issue has been ongoing
for a while and remains to be addressed.

Stoops better realize that teams are going
to play physical with our receivers and so
whatever it takes to put pressure on the
QB. If we don't have a reliable running
game we will continue to score less than
20 points against food
defenses

At first I thought you were trying to do your post in Haiku. I actually started counting the syllables. :D

[SoonerShay]

Lucky for us there are no more good defenses on OUr schedule.

No one got any practice time because Ryan Reynolds needed it in a *new* position. That was his first time starting at MLB you know.

Obviously run blocking will be hard to improve when your losing offensive lineman throughout the year.

[jkm, the stolen pifwafwi]

This year's biggest problem? Bradford's injury of course and the lack of any backup with experience.

The 2nd biggest problem? The OL's inability to run block and take some pressure off the QB and passing game.

Both problems should have been anticipated last year by the coaching staff and moves to address both issues should have been made starting last year DURING the season.

So for the second time since 2004 this coaching staff has been caught flat-footed and it has cost them significantly in both 2005 and 2009.

Until the coaching staff starts to look a little ahead and anticipate the worst case scenario then the program will continue to have years like 2005 and 2009.

And yes, hindsight is 20-20 but a good coaching staff , like a good Boy Scout, should be prepared for the worst.

sigh, in 2004 we had 29 players lose eligibility. 29 out of 85 players is more than any coach can hope to replace. how we got to be that overloaded on one class was based on previous attrition that just piled up over the previous couple of years.

Jason White
Mark Clayton
Will Peoples
Wes Sims
Gayron Allen
Jammal Brown
Dan Cody
Antonio Perkins
Brandon Shelby
Brandon Jones
James Moses
Donta Hickson
Kejuan Jones
Kelvin Chaisson
Vince Carter
Russell Dennison
Clint Ingram
Jonathan Jackson
Eric Bassey
Jowahn Poteat
Chris Messner
Mark Bradley
Davin Joseph
Lance Mitchell
Trey DiCarlo
Brodney Pool
Carl Pendleton
Donte Nicholson
Chijioke Onyenegecha

and that year's recruiting class wasn't much better

Brett Bowers
Marcus Walker
Alan Davis
Fred Strong
Lendy Holmes
Quentin Chaney
DJ Wolfe
Adrian Peterson
Rhett Bomar
Cameron Schacht
JD Quinn
Randy McAdams
Brandon Braxton
Chris Patterson
Garrett Hartley
Cory Bennett
Remi Ayodele

with peterson in it, some might call it a great class. all i can say is ack. twisting the knife a little, the class the year before was even worse.

this year's OL problem is the one thing that you can point to and say this is a systemic problem somewhere in the staff. it has happened too many times in the past to not call it a pattern -> new coach comes in does wonders with OL for 2 years, then OL falls apart, lose several to offseason attrition and permanent injuries, OL coach replaced.

[sooner ngintunr]

For how long did they know 4 of 5 OL were going to be gone? Why weren't these guys getting significant time during all the blowouts in 08?

Alot of people also forget that we lost another 4 this spring. jes sayin.

[rawlingsHOH]

So for the second time since 2004 this coaching staff has been caught flat-footed and it has cost them significantly in both 2005 and 2009.

Until the coaching staff starts to look a little ahead and anticipate the worst case scenario then the program will continue to have years like 2005 and 2009.

2001, 2005, and 2009 have all been very similar, OL wise.

Graduation losses were brutal in all three cases.

[Sooner47]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AShBoF1FPSE

[FaninAma]

Jkm, your post was very good. So what would
you propose to compensate for the lack of OL
experience/depth that seems to crop up
every 4 years whether it results from attrition
or graduation.

Maybe it is unavoidable but I think the fall-off
shouldn't be as drastic as it appears this year.

[ashley]

This year's biggest problem? Bradford's injury of course and the lack of any backup with experience.

The 2nd biggest problem? The OL's inability to run block and take some pressure off the QB and passing game.

Both problems should have been anticipated last year by the coaching staff and moves to address both issues should have been made starting last year DURING the season.

So for the second time since 2004 this coaching staff has been caught flat-footed and it has cost them significantly in both 2005 and 2009.

Until the coaching staff starts to look a little ahead and anticipate the worst case scenario then the program will continue to have years like 2005 and 2009.

And yes, hindsight is 20-20 but a good coaching staff , like a good Boy Scout, should be prepared for the worst.

You have to be kidding. The dumbest post today. You cannot know anything about football or recruiting.

[AlbqSooner]

Hogwash; with the amount of blowouts last season, plenty of backups should have gotten the equivalent of 3-4 games worth of experience; how many times were the starters still on the field in the 4th quarter of games OU had handily won?

The point he was making - and it was a very good point - is that in order to have given Landry any game experience last year we would have blown his redshirt. Bradford was rarely in any games during the 4th quarter last year. We utilized Halzle rather than burn the redshirt for Landry. It was a wise decision.

[FaninAma]

The point he was making - and it was a very good point - is that in order to have given Landry any game experience last year we would have blown his redshirt. Bradford was rarely in any games during the 4th quarter last year. We utilized Halzle rather than burn the redshirt for Landry. It was a wise decision.

Yeah, Landry had no issues in the BYU or Miami games.

You may be right. Having Landry gain some experience
last year probably wouldn't have made any difference
this year. After all, this year's experience hasn't seemed
to make a lot of difference.

[PLaw]

I think you're asking way too much to guarantee that the backups have experience going into the season. It's just not always feasible. Sure, for the positions where you rotate players constantly it pretty easy to do but positions like QB and kicker it's going to be hard.

Teams go into the season quite often with a starting QB who doesn't have experience. Maybe that's a problem but to expect next year's backup have experience is asking a whole lot.

Should we have burned Jones's redshirt last year just so this year's backup would have experience? That seems absurd to me. I could see maybe burning a frosh's redshirt this year in a blowout so that we have a backup for this year but if, say, we had a senior as a backup (as we did last year) would you blow a frosh's redshirt so that next year's backup had experience?

Jones has played in plenty of games this year. You can't blame his performance on not having some mop-up action last year and you would be stupid to blow his redshirt unless you planned on him starting this year.

This isn't the NFL. Guys have four years to play in college so othe turnover is tremendous. You are not going to ever be able to guarantee the NEXT YEAR's backups have experience.

Can't totally disagree, but Stoops has never done an adequate job of getting the 2's & 3's game experience. The KING was the master at that and often you would see the starters come out after the half without their should pads or they would run the first series of the second half and be done.

Bottom line, this is OKLAHOMA and the drop off to the 2's should not be that great. As with the MLB position in '08, this staff did not have backups ready to play. Landry has done an outstanding job this season and we may have been well in the BCS discussion had the OL been ready to play.

BOOMER

[PLaw]

sigh, in 2004 we had 29 players lose eligibility. 29 out of 85 players is more than any coach can hope to replace. how we got to be that overloaded on one class was based on previous attrition that just piled up over the previous couple of years.
with peterson in it, some might call it a great class. all i can say is ack. twisting the knife a little, the class the year before was even worse.

this year's OL problem is the one thing that you can point to and say this is a systemic problem somewhere in the staff. it has happened too many times in the past to not call it a pattern -> new coach comes in does wonders with OL for 2 years, then OL falls apart, lose several to offseason attrition and permanent injuries, OL coach replaced.

HMMMM, there have been a lot of misses with the O-Line recruiting. When you're 10 years into it and your looking to Juco and Div 1 rejects, then there is definitely something that doesn't pass the smell test.

Boomer

[boomerborn79]

Its not the players, its the coach putting the players in bad situations. A month ago the football world was saying landy was just as good as you can get. The kid had a bad game, if you watched the game you could see its not all his fault, inexperienced wide recievers, inexperienced line. How many times did the WR's gut routes short on blitzes= 0, how many of out routes are 15 yards down field=all, how is a line supposed to block while our WR's get jammed at the line and it takes longer to run long routes. Everybody keeps saying our o line doesn't run block, well we don't run. When we do its out of the shotgun, with no lead block, 5 o-line against 7-8 defenders= no run game. This O is not a good one. Last year I knew it had its flaws, *, and tcu exposed our run game. Bradford was smart enough to overcome. This year with what we have we should be running a simple offense just like we did wit Hybl. symple QB manages the game. D wins it. Look at Alabama, lost o linemen, new QB, run it down your throat, keep it simple. ITS NOT THE PLAYERS. IT THE ARROGANTS that is...

[jkm, the stolen pifwafwi]

guys, nothing about landry jones has changed since he first went into a game except the amount of film that opposing coaches have on him. once you accumulate enough film, coaches will gameplan against your strengths while coming after your weaknesses.

his weakness is that he is a 1 read QB. this is being exacerbated by the fact that he is being given **** poor 1 read options (*cough* a slant to tennell on 4th and 2? *cough*). believe it or not, sam was that way 2 1/2 years ago. the major difference is that sam had an uncanny ability to throw it to the one place his receiver could catch it. sam early that year had a completion i just couldn't get over - he threw into quadruple coverage and got away with it because it was in a football size window that defenders couldn't cover.

rhino and i marveled at it then thinking either he's the luckiest sucker ever or he's going to be a special player. luckily for us, he ended up being a special player.

jones is a freshman, pure and simple. his head has to be buzzing with both the notoriety, the fact that he has to grasp the plays quickly, and he has to improve his play.

[jkm, the stolen pifwafwi]

Jkm, your post was very good. So what would
you propose to compensate for the lack of OL
experience/depth that seems to crop up
every 4 years whether it results from attrition
or graduation.

Maybe it is unavoidable but I think the fall-off
shouldn't be as drastic as it appears this year.

the OL attrition/career ending injuries have to end at some point. with 85 schollies you have at most 16 OL on scholly at any one point. losing 4 to graduation and 4 to offseason attrition is going to bite you every frickin time.

i mean think about the effect of attrition for a second. lets say you started at a company with 4 other people at the same time. you go to lunch every day for a year, train with each other, etc. then 2 of them run afoul of a random boss and are canned. you have to interact with that same boss on a daily basis. how does it affect your performance? do you do things out of fear? or out of desire? are you off weighing your options?

what a lot of people fail to grasp is that there is a variable margin between a good college player and an average college player on gameday. preparation, work ethic, desire can all narrow that margin.

[snp]

Can't totally disagree, but Stoops has never done an adequate job of getting the 2's & 3's game experience. The KING was the master at that and often you would see the starters come out after the half without their should pads or they would run the first series of the second half and be done.

Bottom line, this is OKLAHOMA and the drop off to the 2's should not be that great. As with the MLB position in '08, this staff did not have backups ready to play. Landry has done an outstanding job this season and we may have been well in the BCS discussion had the OL been ready to play.

BOOMER

Parity is much more pronounced in college football with the advent of spread offenses, 85-scholarship limits, true freshman having a chance to start with regularity, increased television exposure, high school systems far more developed thus recruits come in better, etc. This isn't the 70s anymore.

[12]

Backup and youth. We'll be back... SOONER than later.

[beer4me]

It's called "Risk Management" anticipating and planning for known risks in whatever you are doing and also trying to foresee and plan for unexpected risks.

This is football it is a violent game injuries should not be unexpected the “Risk Management” portion has not been handled very good.

Before you lose your mind, “no we had no Bradford II nor Gresh II” sitting on the bench to fill in for the originals but this is OU this staff recruited everyone of the players.

They should be better as a group. (speaking mainly of the OL)

Stach will prove out to be very good IMO he had a bad day at the office, it happens, you ever had a bad day at the office?

[12]

No question... we need depth. Quality depth that could defeat most of our rivals. Well coached and loyal depth.

[wishbonesooner]

A poster on another thread said it earlier, I look forward to the day Josh Huepel takes over the offense. What worked with a great QB and AA tight end and WR's isn't working with Landry. A guy on ESPN was talking about our offense being stale and predictable.

[Sooner70]

To me, one of OU's consistent, chronic recruiting failures is securing an ace kicker who can perform in game situations. My gosh, what would OU's record be right now if we had a FG kicker that could hit one from the 35 yd line or a bit further? This is plain stupid. A HC that makes over $4MM/year needs to find a way to recruit a good kicker. My gosh, some of these Div. 5-A schools in TX has a better, more reliable kicking game than OU.

[FaninAma]

You have to be kidding. The dumbest post today. You cannot know anything about football or recruiting.

Funny, about 6 people green speked me for the post so I guess you are in the minority.

And BTW, isn't it funny that the team that rushes for the most yards in the RRS wins every, single year?

[jkjsooner]

The point he was making - and it was a very good point - is that in order to have given Landry any game experience last year we would have blown his redshirt. Bradford was rarely in any games during the 4th quarter last year. We utilized Halzle rather than burn the redshirt for Landry. It was a wise decision.

Not to mention that two years ago we had no expectation that this year's backup would have no experience. This year's backup happened to transfer to Michigan State. Which lead us to either burn a redshirt to play a third string player or live with the fact that our backup this year will go into the year w/o experience.

[MojoRisen]

WE WIN EVERY GAME IF WE MAKE OUR FIELD GOALS
OL penalties are shameful

WE MAKE OUR FIELD GOALS and we are in the mix even though we would get smoked by BAMA or Florida - we could hang with most all others.

it was not Landry's crowning moment against Nebraska, that is not an easy place to play and I think the play calling by Wilson was absolutely pitaful - predictable.... The anouncers knew we should have run that flat screen two plays earlier - Pelini is going to make quick adjustments on D, and wilson got beat... period.

Landry would make a great play, get excited and make a bone head play - killing all momentum - I was extremely proud of the Defense getting up one series after another and shutting nebraska down. Also holding them late after that big run and a field goal would have beat us...

[jkm, the stolen pifwafwi]

Not to mention that two years ago we had no expectation that this year's backup would have no experience. This year's backup happened to transfer to Michigan State. Which lead us to either burn a redshirt to play a third string player or live with the fact that our backup this year will go into the year w/o experience.

well, that is a story in itself. one of the things that i've talked about on this board before is the tendency of our new hires to completely bomb out on their first 2 recruiting classes. i personally refer to it as "moving on up" syndrome and it can be directly attributed to the resumes of the coaches we hire. stoops, rightly or wrongly, tends to pull guys out of lower division ball to come to OU. these guys have no idea how you evaluate an elite high school football prospect and tend to overvalue, by a large margin, athleticism over the ability to play the game. after the second set of busts, they tend to go back to what they know in evaluation and their recruiting rankings will go down but the talent level of the players will go up.

the problem is that you lost 2 years teaching them how to evaluate OU level talent which none of us pay attention too because they had current players that were brought in by a different coach that we see on the field every day dominating under the new coach.

think about the best and i mean best talent evaluator we've had on our staff for a young coach -> steve spurrier jr. savage, clayton? these guys were total unknowns. he also pulled in brandon jones, will peoples, antonio perkins, and ataleo ford who were all highly ranked. his one miss was on a player he begged to get a scholly for but they were more interested in guys like jamar mozee -> wes welker.

the difference was that sos, jr was around talent at florida. coming to OU wasn't a magical step up in the quality of athlete and he made the most of it. compare this with the guys who came from northwestern who have blown chunks on their first couple of recruiting classes.

one last point, you have to be excited about our defensive back 7's future when you watch our special teams. i watch some of our kick coverages 3 or 4 times because of how much effort some of those young guys give. i think brian jackson's growth this year can be directly attributed to demontre hurst's relentless motor. hopefully next year they'll bench travis lewis's overrated derriere and let ronnell lewis take over that slot.

[Harry Beanbag]

I can't wait to see Hurst on the field next year at corner.

[NormanPride]

Ronnell Lewis gives me chills. Huge, fast, and great desire always have a place on the football field.

[NormanPride]

So jkm, why have we seen BV go away from his standard 4-3 defense so much this year? I think I saw 5 different personnel groupings based on situations and formation against Nebraska. It was like we really gameplanned for them or something.

[goingoneight]

We've always gone to nickel sets in 5-wide sets.

Remember Reggie, DJ, Nic, Lendy and Marcus? We also run with a hybrid-type LB every year who can drop back into the secondary ala Baker and Clayton. Ibiloye is next year's guy.

Now... how well we cover and execute the nickel package isn't always pretty.

[NormanPride]

Yeah, but we've been doing that more in four and three WR sets in passing downs this year. We've also brought in an extra LB in running situations. Add that to the different looks we give from the DL and there have been quite a few different groupings that we use...

[jkm, the stolen pifwafwi]

So jkm, why have we seen BV go away from his standard 4-3 defense so much this year? I think I saw 5 different personnel groupings based on situations and formation against Nebraska. It was like we really gameplanned for them or something.

part of it is that he has more pieces to play with that he trusts. part of it is that some of the pieces he has are just limited in the situations they can handle.

in general, our staff has always been enamored with the idea of hybrid players. they want guys who can do multiple things so that when they are in, they can give multiple looks with the same personnel grouping. the realistic fact is that not all players excel at multiple things and when they don't you have to dedicate an extreme amount of time prepping them for the things they don't do well. the problem with this as demonstrated over the last couple of years was that the defense was only good and sometimes worse than the sum of its parts.

after a couple of years of this, venables has adapted his thinking to a more traditional "put the players in positions where they are strong". as a result, you've seen an increase in the productivity of the defense. the problem is that they still aren't performing better than the sum of their parts. there is an extreme amount of talent on the DL, but they just don't make each other better. its all individual effort or nothing.

a lot of people call this a great defense. i disagree, its an opportunistic defense, but it still just doesn't have that "it" that makes a defense great. guys like hurst and ronnell aren't any more talented than the guys behind them. they are young, raw, and need a lot of reps. yet they make the kick coverage unit geometrically better because they have that something extra that goes into making each other better.

that is one of the things that really bothers me about this staff in the long run. they believe that their system is superior, regardless of the evidence to the contrary. it takes multiple YEARS for them to change something that is blatantly flawed. that time frame just doesn't sit well with fans who want instant action on things. stoops seriously needs some independent "i don't give a crap if you fire me or not" consultants to evaluate the strengths weaknesses of his staff and gameplans and take the criticism to make him better. the main reason for this is that mack has and is now the better coach.

[NormanPride]

Agreed. Stoops is still learning to be a head coach. He's good at turning the program around and creating a winning atmosphere, but he now needs to learn how to innovate constantly and use the pieces he has effectively to maintain his success.

Mack had the same issues when Stoops was kicking his butt, and I think Stoops will shift some now that the tables have turned. Coaches like Tressel and Carroll are seeing similar problems, so it's not just us. I imagine once the SEC catches up to Meyer, he will see the same things happen.

[jkm, the stolen pifwafwi]

I can't wait to see Hurst on the field next year at corner.

during the texas game, when he came in and had the near INT and the QB sack i was like "someone is about to get wally pipped". the next series jackson was back out there and has been playing like his hair was on fire ever since.

[NormanPride]

It's amazing what competition at your position can do for your production. It's too bad that injuries and inconsistency in the lineup has not let that help the OL as much.

[rawlingsHOH]

So jkm, why have we seen BV go away from his standard 4-3 defense so much this year? I think I saw 5 different personnel groupings based on situations and formation against Nebraska. It was like we really gameplanned for them or something.
In the month of October we saw 2 new wrinkles that we didn't see the first 4 games.

-Subbing out Reynolds for Ibiloye on pass downs versus the spread. Creating either a nickel or dime look (depending on Clayton's allignment). Prevelent against Texas and Kansas.

-And subbing out Clayton for Box, and sliding RR over to Sam, on run downs agianst power personnel. Prevelent against KSU and Nebraska.

[Harry Beanbag]

If only Clayton could catch...

[rawlingsHOH]

We've always gone to nickel sets in 5-wide sets.

Remember Reggie, DJ, Nic, Lendy and Marcus? We also run with a hybrid-type LB every year who can drop back into the secondary ala Baker and Clayton. Ibiloye is next year's guy.

Now... how well we cover and execute the nickel package isn't always pretty.

In 2008, we rarely went to nickel. I think we were also pretty reluctant in 2005, too. They liked Clint Ingram on the field as much as possible. But all other years, yes, often.

2009
CB: Jackson, Franks
S: Carter, Proctor (or Nelson)
NB: Ibiloye (in for Reynolds)

2007
CB: Walker, Smith
S: Wolfe, Holmes (Harris would drop down to nickel)
NB: Harris (would go in for Baker early part of the year, Reynolds later in the year, which really made more sense)