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How will Fickell and Schiano mesh?

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Scarlatina's picture
December 12, 2015 at 12:19am
41 Comments

Admittedly, I do not know the details of Schiano's defensive schemes or philosophies. Doing some quick (incomplete) research, I get the impression that Schiano runs a very aggressive defense focused around multiple blitz packages and pressuring the offense hard.

My first worry is how Fickell and Schiano's philosophies are pretty different. Fickell is from the Tressel coaching tree, and runs a "bend, don't break" type defense. Very conservative, and focused on not giving up the big plays.

It worries me because I believed the struggles of the 2012 and 2013 defenses were not because of Fickell's ineptitude (contrary to popular belief), but because our co-DCs had widely different approaches. Withers' always stressed "going for the big plays (INTs, PBUs, FFs)" to his DBs instead of the sure tackle/stop... which often meant poor form tackling, soft coverage to bait the offenses and giving up big plays as well. This meant that Fickell's units (DL + LB) and Withers' units (secondary) were never on the same page, and the result was a really disjointed defense.

Maybe someone with more in-depth knowledge of Schiano's history can give insight... Is it a possibility that Fickell and Schiano's philosophies will clash?

Edit: I'm not implying that Fickell and Schiano will hate each other on a personal level, I'm saying when 2 extremely different coaching styles are combined for different units like Fickell/Withers, it can make a very incohesive whole unintentionally.

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