McNeill’s philosophy of subtraction clicks
NORMAN — The night before Ruffin McNeill debuted as Oklahoma’s defensive coordinator, he gave his players a compelling option: to erase from the game plan any call they didn’t understand.
“I was kind of shocked because a lot of coaches are more dictators instead of leaders,” senior linebacker Curtis Bolton said. “It kind of threw me off because it was like ‘Wow. He kind of gave us a little bit of power there.’”
No one erased anything, but the message resonated. OU played its best defensive game of the season last Saturday, holding TCU to just 275 yards.
Even against a stagnant offense, it gave OU a needed jolt of confidence.
Lincoln Riley said the Sooners needed a new voice after he fired former defensive coordinator Mike Stoops.
McNeill is expected to be that voice, yet his policy of allowing players to scrap parts of the game plan proves he’s not the only one talking in OU’s defensive meetings.
Under McNeill, OU’s defensive game plan is finalized every Wednesday. Nothing can be added on Thursday or Friday, but things can be removed.
“I’ve had some say, ‘Coach, I’m not sure about that,’” McNeill said. “If one guy says that, then it’s off.”
It’s not a metaphor. A manager in the meeting will delete that defensive call from a computer.
McNeill, from Lumberton, N.C., has been coaching with that philosophy for 40 years. But it’s older than that. He learned it from his dad,
Ruffin McNeill Sr.
McNeill Sr. coached his son in high school and was a long-time teacher in North Carolina.
He taught his son how to coach football, and one of the first lessons was learning to put trust in players.
“To get them to perform is to make sure they understand what they’re doing,” McNeill remembers his dad, now 85, telling him. “And if they do, they’ll play fast.” Quite literally.
“If a guy has a 4.5 (40yard dash), he’ll play 4.5,” McNeill said. “If he’s thinking, he’ll play 4.7.”
While simplicity might not always lead to success, it worked against TCU and a similar game plan will be used at 2:30 p.m. Saturday when OU hosts Kansas State.
Measured change was necessary after Texas decimated OU’s defense at the Cotton Bowl. The Sooners ranked 97th nationally in total defense after allowing 48 points and 501 yards against the Longhorns.
“The temptation would’ve been, I’ve got two weeks here, let’s try to change as much as we can, do as many wrinkles as we can,” Riley said. “Which would’ve been in our opinion completely the wrong approach.”
McNeill has done the opposite. He’s subtracting instead of adding — deleting calls at the first hint of uncertainty.
“It’s never the call,” McNeill said. “The kids are the call. That’s what we began telling them.”