Defense getting a needed new look
Players are the same, but new coaching staff is changing scheme
Tim DeRuyter has landed in this hot seat before and lived to tell about it.
Tasked with fixing college football’s worst defense, Cal’s new defensive coordinator took on a challenge similar — albeit not quite as extreme — seven years ago at Texas A&M. In one season, he helped elevate the Aggies from 104th nationally in scoring defense (33.5 points) to 21st (21.9).
Future Pro Bowl linebacker Von Miller, who won the Butkus Award that season, credited the changes that came in 2010. “Coach DeRuyter is a wizard,” Miller told the Houston Chronicle at the time. “Everything he’s told me has come true.”
What DeRuyter told the Bears is simple: “Guys, the old Cal defense isn’t what we want to be. But we have the power to change that. We don’t inherit anything.”
That should provide some measure of hope to Old Blues, who watched exciting offense but dreadful defense in four seasons under former coach Sonny Dykes. As the Bears prepare for their Sept. 2 opener at North Carolina, here are gruesome reminders of the immediate past:
• The Bears played 49 games the past four seasons and the opposition scored at least 40 points in 27 of them.
• In three of those four years, Cal ranked no better than 124th nationally (out of 128 teams) in total defense. It surrendered more than 24,000 yards over that span — equivalent to nearly 14 miles — and gave up more than twice as many points as rival Stanford.
• When they beat Utah 28-23 last Oct. 1, it was the first (and only) time in four seasons they won scoring fewer than 30 points.
“To me, Cal was always just going to try to score with you,” said CBS analyst Rick Neuheisel, the former head coach at UCLA, Washington and Colorado. “And they couldn’t (win) because their defense just got obliterated.”
So how do the Bears flip the script? There is a new coaching staff, a new 3-4 defensive alignment and a new emphasis, but primarily the same players who allowed nearly 43 points per game last fall.
It starts with new head coach Justin Wilcox, who spent the previous 11 seasons as defensive coordinator at Boise State, Tennessee, Washington, USC and Wisconsin. He brings that point of view to Berkeley.
“We weren’t used to the head coach being in defensive meetings,” senior cornerback Darius Allensworth said. “Maybe a couple times, but coach Wilcox pokes his head in the DBs room almost every day.”
“I love coach Dykes to death,” added senior defensive lineman James Looney, “but I just like the aggressiveness of having a (head coach who was a) defensive coach.”
Wilcox, who spent the 2003 through ’05 seasons as linebackers coach at Cal under Jeff Tedford, has flanked himself with two former head coaches. DeRuyter (Fresno State) and offensive coordinator Beau Baldwin (Eastern Washington) give Wilcox a sounding board with balance and experience.
And it’s not just DeRuyter who can have an impact on defense. After running ultra-fast tempo in the Bear Raid, Cal figures to be more versatile under Baldwin. He hopes to shift time of possession and reduce the frequency the defense returns to the field.
“When we talk about one side of the ball not performing, I always look to the other side of the ball first,” said Pac-12 Networks analyst Yogi Roth. “How many snaps do they play? With a lot of the spread teams the stats are really skewed. It wasn’t like they didn’t know how to play football.”
Neuheisel believes the new Cal coaching braintrust will find ways to maximize strengths while protecting weaknesses.
“It would be unfair to Sonny and the guys on that staff to say they did not try to be good defensively,” he said.
“They built the team around an uptempo offense. Go, go, go. They developed the first guy (Jared Goff) taken in the NFL draft.
“In doing so, you’re going to put your defense on the field a lot. It was a nightmare.”
Inside linebacker Devante Downs admits he’s curious to see how the new equation works. “I haven’t played on a team that doesn’t run 95 plays, but I think it will be a nice changeup.”
The 3-4 scheme is more flexible and better suited both to Cal’s personnel and to defending the wide-open offenses in the Pac-12, DeRuyter said. Citing Utah, which has had success playing a four-man front, Roth noted the Utes rotate eight players into those spots.
“James Looney is an allconference type player, but asking him to play 75 snaps and be a beast is hard,” Roth said.
The new defense required some position changes, including junior Cameron Saffle’s move from defensive end to outside linebacker. He’s learning to drop back into coverage but also will be utilized as a pass rusher.
Creating that pressure is the starting point to what the Bears hope to do. “We want to change the clock in the quarterback’s head,” DeRuyter said.
By doing so, the Bears expect to generate more turnovers. “We don’t want to be three-and-out. We want to be one-and-out,” Allensworth said. “The whole culture is way more aggressive. We want the ball.”
Above all else, the Bears will have to become a better tackling team. It’s such a priority for Wilcox he assigned defensive backs coach Gerald Alexander to serve as tackling coordinator, and the Bears work on tackling fundamentals every day.
“It can always be better,” Wilcox said of the Bears’ tackling. “But techniquewise we’ve shown vast improvement from spring until now.”
The last piece of the puzzle is rebuilding confidence. The players say they have a different sense of themselves this fall camp, but Wilcox cautioned confidence must be earned through performance.
Still, Allensworth is convinced this season can be the start of something. “We talk about that every day,” he said.
“We’ve started changing the culture and even when I’m gone, I’m excited to see where the coaches take this thing.”