New defensive coordinator Tom Allen wants his defense to have three strands of DNA in takeaways, tackling, and effort. Considering the Tigers’ issues with tackling last season, Allen is making sure his group gets plenty of practice this spring.
Allen spoke with the media following Wednesday’s practice, and he almost grimaced when he mentioned watching the film of last season and seeing all of the missed tackles.
“We have three DNA, and I think I mentioned this when I first got here. Takeaways, tackling effort. It’s a simple formula, it’s our DNA for our defense, and obviously, the second one of those is tackling,” Allen said. “Tackling fundamentals to me showed up on film and I’m talking about the things that stuck out, and tackling was at the top of the list. But that also comes when you’re out of position. You miss those tackles when you don’t have your feet in the right spot.
“So much is about foundationally getting, we call it, we’re going to close space. We’re a shoulder tackle team, we’re going to close space. We want to be able to get in a position to get closer to the back. We talk about stepping in the Madden circle, which is being able to be within the yard of the ball carrier, stepping with that near shoulder, and then properly finishing.”
Allen went on to say that he is putting the defense through tackling drills – over and over and over.
“Those have been the emphasis and so we try to isolate each one of those areas for different drills and we just do ’em over and over and over again,” he said. “And so you want to have a great foundation with the fundamentals of that and then you want that to carry over into the group work. And then obviously eventually into the team. We had some live reps today; first time we’ve had live reps this entire spring.
“So that’s when it really shows up. You really can’t tell for sure how much progress you’re making, obviously it’s way too early to tell, but at the same time it’s just about breaking down the fundamentals of tackling and making sure we have visual for it. We show ’em different PowerPoints for each one of the phases of those things that you just described, and then you put ’em in those positions to go do it.”
The Tigers still “thud” tackle in practice – when the defender wraps up a ball carrier but doesn’t take them to the ground – but Allen says it’s important to teach proper technique with the thud system.
“You watch those films we watch with our players; we watch those tackling drills, and then obviously you’re critiquing throughout the process of game film,” Allen said. “We don’t do a lot of live tackling. I don’t care where you’re at. You’re going to live tackle some, but you’re not going to do it all the time. And so that’s why tackling in space with your, we call it thud tempo or tag tempo, which we call tracking here, is critical. And so, we call it accountability for when they don’t do it right, they don’t finish in the right position in space because that leads to missing tackles when it’s live. So you’re trying to maximize those opportunities during spring ball. So, a lot of layers to it as you notice, it’s a huge priority and it will be the entire spring.”
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