Chinander excited to watch Knights compete for jobs
Erik Chinander took a UCF defense that ranked among the worst in American Athletic Conference in 2015 and turned it into one of the best.
In 2016, the Knights ranked in the top five in the AAC in all major defensive categories. UCF featured the Defensive Player of the Year in Shaquem Griffin, who returns for his senior season, but other questions remain.
The Orlando Sentinel caught up with Chinander to discuss how the defense is shaping up heading into the 2017 season. replacing those two inside linebackers, we’re going to have to be big time communication wise.
“The two inside backers and the two safeties are the four biggest communicators on whole defense, so that’s going to have to be a huge portion of what we do this spring and just getting everyone comfortable. That’s the focus right now.” now and I’m looking forward to what they can do once we get some pads on and see them full speed.”
“Absolutely. In the first meeting, I didn’t talk about scheme or Xs and Os. One of the first things we said to the defense is, ‘Guys, it’s an open competition.’ There’s no depth chart. I told them, ‘Shaquem Griffin, you’re the player of the year last year, congratulations. This year, you have no spot. So, let’s go beat him out.’
“Nobody has a spot. I know these three [defensive] linemen are coming back, the player of the year in the conference is coming back, I don’t care. Everything is open. I’m not going to give you a pass, everybody has an opportunity to earn a spot and I think competition breeds excellence. I wanna see guys competing every single day.”
“Well, every time it happens, right, it’s the end of the world, it’s the sky is falling and you go out there and you see all these young guys running around and you’re like, ‘Oh, man. We got something.’ It’s just like last year. I didn’t know any of these guys. They weren’t real great defensively statistics wise the year before we got here. I was like, ‘Eh, we’re not going to any players. We walk out there and it’s like man, these guys are pretty good.’
“Just like now, these young kids are coming along. We’re seeing the Shawn Burgess-Becker’s of the world and some of these freshmen and some of these guys that were in the second-string duty. Once they get cast in that first-string role, their confidence rises. They get some more reps and things go the way you want them to. It’s kind of like watching practice. It’s never as good as you think, it’s never as bad as you think.
“I’m excited about these kids. I’m excited about some kids that are not even on campus yet that we’ve recruited. I don’t think we’ll drop off in defense. We’ll only get better every year we’re here no matter who’s in the system. We just gotta keep developing those guys and that’s kind of college football.
“It’s not the NFL, you don’t get to pick up a free agent. You don’t get to keep guys for 20 years, it’s our job to be able to develop an 18-year-old by the time he’s a 22-year-old grown man, we need to develop that kid constantly, constantly, constantly. I think our staff is better than anyone in the country in developing kids.”