Hoping to clamp down on rivals by air
Even the freshman cornerbacks have been on the Cal campus longer than their coach, John Lovett. His mission is to repair a secondary that gave up a boatload of touchdowns and yardage last season.
“I knew I was walking into a little bit of a hornets’ nest,” the 64-year-old Lovett said.
In 2014 the Bears gave up an average of 367 yards passing per game, dead last in the nation among Football Bowl Subdivision schools. They gave up 42 touchdown passes, most ever by a Power 5 conference school.
Head coach Sonny Dykes’ teams have been leaky defensively dating to his days with Louisiana Tech. But improving the secondary has to be his biggest concern going into 2015.
Greg Burns, who coached the full secondary last year, is now handling the safeties. Adding a fifth full-time coach to the defense indicates Dykes is trying hard to stem the flow of points Cal has surrendered.
Lovett had his own problems the past couple of years. He had spent all of his nearly four decades in coaching at the collegiate level before joining Chip Kelly and the Philadelphia Eagles in 2013. The Eagles ranked 32nd and 31st in passing yards allowed during his two years coaching the secondary.
Vulnerable to the deep ball, they gave up 72 pass plays of 20 or more yards and 18 of 40 or more last year, leading the league in both categories despite a strong pass rush. They gave up 30 TD passes, tied for fourth worst in the NFL. Lovett was reassigned to the scouting department after the season.
According to the Allentown (Pa.) Daily Call, Lovett’s replacement, Cory Undlin “has brought back a teaching mentality that many players said was lacking under Lovett.”
The Eagles’ defensive troubles didn’t bother Dykes in the least. He cited Lovett’s resume: “Thirty years as a college football coach for some of the best programs in the country.” Hiring him was “easy.”
Lovett declined to discuss his experience in Philadelphia, other than to say, “Chip was wonderful to me. It’s a great place. He does a wonderful job there, and he’s a great coach. I’ll just leave it at that.”
He said he was happy to stay in coaching rather than scouting, but said the key to his coming to Berkeley was being reunited with Dykes and defensive coordinator Art Kaufman.
Lovett coached the secondary at Texas Tech in 2012 when Kaufman was defensive coordinator there under Dykes. Lovett and Kaufman had the same roles at Ole Miss from 1995 to ’98.
At Texas Tech, Lovett took over a woefully weak defense and built a pass defense that led the Big 12 and ranked 15th in the nation. The 8-5 team won a bowl game that year. “Right now we’re a little bit ahead of where we were when we walked in at Tech,” he said.
Dykes and Kaufman told him Cal was a great place to work, and “that made all the difference in the world,” Lovett said.
As for the talent level of his players, he said, “It’s much improved from what it’s been. They’ve got a number of guys who have a chance to play and help us.”
One of them is freshman Malik Psalms, who said Lovett is “a little bit of an old-school guy, but the way he teaches, I can really benefit from. He’s learning the system at the same time I am.”
Hired a little less than three weeks ago, Lovett has his players wear their jerseys to meetings to help him get to know them.
“We have no history,” he says he told them. “What you do from here on defines you and how I treat you.”