Football: UL defensive coordinator Willis begins upgrading process

 Tim Buckley, Daily Advertiser, 08/22/13

 

 

For new UL defensive coordinator James Willis, it all starts with instruction.

The practice field is his classroom. His chalkboard is full of Xs and Os.

But Willis’ methodology also comes with plenty of hands-on “here” and “there.”

“Everything we’re doing, we’re teaching every step. We’re teaching every day. We’re teaching every second,” said Willis, hired earlier this year to replace the fired Greg Stewart. “There’s never a wasted rep, never a wasted moment, to me, in teaching the kids.”

With the Ragin’ Cajuns’ Aug. 31 opener at Arkansas now less than a week-and-a-half away, it seems as if the lessons being imparted by Willis and his defensive staff – the rest of it intact from two 9-4 seasons in 2011 and 2012 – really are making a difference.

“He connects with the players very well,” said Rodney Gillis, UL’s sixth-year safety. “All the players understand him. We have a lot of respect for him, and we think he’s doing some great things for our team.”

“I think Coach Willis’ best attribute is that he is a teacher. At linebacker, I can pretty much tell what is happening anywhere on the field,” senior linebacker Andrew Hebert added. “And the great thing about Coach Willis that I’ve noticed is it doesn’t matter if you’re the fourth-string guy; you’re gonna get coached. He’s gonna give everything he has for you, as long as you’re doing that for him.”

Willis played linebacker in the NFL, for Green Bay, Philadelphia and Seattle from 1993-99. He’s coached linebackers since then at Rhode Island, Temple, Auburn (where he played) and on Alabama’s 2009-season national-championship team. He was Texas Tech’s defensive coordinator in 2010.

And after two seasons out of the college game he’s back in it at UL, tasked with revamping a unit that yielded 28.1 points and a whopping 427.3 yards per game last year. The Cajuns also finished second-to-last in the Sun Belt Conference in red-zone defense in 2012, and dead last in pass defense at 283.5 yards-per-game allowed.

“That’s why we made some changes,” Cajuns head coach Mark Hudspeth said, “and only time will tell if we’re better.”

 If the UL’s defense is not, it won’t be for lack of trying.

So suggests Hudspeth, who considers “work ethic” to be Willis’ forte.

“If there’s ever a guy that dots the ‘i’ and crosses the ‘t,’ that’s been James,” the Cajun coach said. “Very organized. Our staff is very detailed, and he demands a lot of those guys.

“They’re all on the same page, they know what they’ve got to do, and I think he’s got a good handle on the players we have. Now it’s just his job to mold a bunch of individuals and put them together as one unit.”

It all starts, Willis suggests, with elementary schooling.

“At the end of the day, we have to make sure we’re the most-sound – fundamentally sound, technique-sound, great-tackling – team, the greatest-tackling team, in this conference,” he said. “That’s our goal, and every day we strive toward that.”

The first thing he focused on after arriving at UL in time for spring practice earlier this year was as simple as it gets.

“Tackling, first of all,” he said, “is all about passion and desire and wanting to get to the ball.

“But we also have to show them the proper angles. The proper leverage. Understanding where the sideline is. Understanding where their partners are. And then, when they get to the ball, (to) get there in a bad mood.”

Much of Willis’ spring was spent getting to know, and evaluating, Cajun players.

He figured out right away that UL had a concentration of talent on the defensive line – namely Justin Hamilton, Brandon McCray and preseason All-Sun Belt pick Christian Ringo.

He also identified depth among UL’s linebackers, a group led inside by Justin Anderson, the Cajuns’ top tackler last season.

“Our strength right now is gonna have to be in the middle. We rely on everything we do up front,” said Willis, who calls the Cajun defense inexperienced “across the board.”

“We build our defense from inside out, and up front we do have some big, very physical, athletic guys. Right now that is the focal point of our defense. That’s what we will build everything around … because that, to me, is our foundation.”

Willis also did not need long to determine that UL’s defensive backs, exploited and much-maligned in 2012, needed attention.

“Our whole goal going into the spring,” he said, “was to find out what we had in the secondary. That was the No. 1 question. … We had to move some guys around, move some pieces around, to find out exactly who we were.”

Now that he knows, depth development has become a defensive priority.

So has strategy in the secondary.

“Schematically, we’ll be a little different than we were last year. Some the same,” Willis said. “I do know right now we are a team that’s gonna play some zone. We’re pretty good zone defenders. We’ve got to find us some man-coverage guys and develop those skills.

“My thing is I’ve been in a lot of different schemes, a lot of different defenses. Cover 3 is Cover 3; Cover 2 is Cover 2; Cover 4 is Cover 4,” he added. “To me, it’s all about what can our kids do? What can our players do well and execute consistently at a high level?”

Willis and Hudspeth both put emphasis on UL’s defense being much more “multiple” than it was a season ago.

“We will never just sit there and let our opponents know where we are, know what we’re doing,” Willis said. “We’ll have some different looks.

“One thing about going into a game on defense: We always have to prepare for an offense that’s multiple, an offense that shows a lot of different looks; well, the same thing goes in our hand also. Offenses are going to prepare for us also.

“Our system and our concept is simple for the kids. They understand it,” he added. “But the looks will be so totally different for the offense that each week and each game and each series something different will be coming. We’ll never just be sitting there so guys can figure us out and know who we are and attack us.”

Wanting to do that, however, is one thing.

Another is getting players who had grown accustomed to one system over the last two seasons – and for some juniors and seniors, two systems over the past three seasons – to buy in.

Although UL’s first real test still is more than a week way, signs so far suggest the education the Cajuns are getting will prompt them to do just that.

“One thing about (Willis) is he’s very calm and collected. That’s his main thing,” Hebert said.

“But you have to be explosive. You don’t let outside noise get you. You’re zoned in,” he added. “That was a lot different for me, compared to a lot of other coaches I’d been around. Now, you flow through stuff. It’s not, ‘You’ve got to be all nervous.’ ”