In case you hadn't heard, we got this new coach on defense - apparently he's pretty good.
In my opinion Greg Schiano is walking into this new position in about as close to a best case scenario as possible. His predecessor established a culture of confidence and success, his reputation allows him to immediately compete on the recruiting trail, and the personnel already there for him is... awaiting confirmation... yeah, it's loaded.
So how will this talent be utilized? Will Schiano's approach be simple and systematic - in the mold of Ash? Or will Schiano rebuild the entire back-end philosophy from scratch? He will be dealing with all new starters, save one Gareon Conley. So if he were to choose to teach a new system/implement a different philosophy, he would probably have free reign to do so. Also the versatility of our defensive backfield makes anything a distinct possibility.
The main determinant for personnel is naturally the situation. Past that, you try to position players where their strengths predispose them to be successful. Past that, you combine strengths of specific players to create an identity. This is all very obvious, but the first thing we need to figure out is who exactly will be on the field and when. Specifically - whether our LB corp or Safety/Nickel corp is better suited for 3rd and long. With Darron Lee, we didn't have to sub out a player in order to switch from a 4-3 tendency to the Nickel look, but that requires a skillset like his.
In my opinion, with the talent that we have in the secondary now I could see McMillan staying on as the only true LB in obvious passing situations. Dante Booker may not be so reliable in pass coverage, so we may go .25 personnel often. I think Denzel Ward will be the 3rd CB and play nickel when Worley/Baker come off the field. So in essence, the combination of Worley/Baker/Ward would combine to fill Darron Lee's shoes. Schiano showed us in the spring game that he loves blitzing the boundary corner with 2 CBs on, and blitzing the slot corner when using 3. So putting the speedy Denzel in Darron Lee's old position on 3rd and long would position him to be a formidable pass rusher/slot cover without needing to be so physical in the run game.
Another thing, Malik Hooker might single-handedly influence the defensive playcall tendency. He has insane range and his ball-skills are very well-refined, which could lead to us going Cover 3 VERY OFTEN. Allowing Malik to play center field so that Damon Webb/Erick Smith can play close to the box.
Hooker, Webb, Erick Smith and Burrows in the back and Gareon Conley, Damon Arnette, Ward and Lattimore outside? If you can guess our back 4 right now you need to move to Las Vegas. Although you may want to move to Las Vegas anyways, because the best 4 from that group is gonna equal easy money for Buckeye betters.
Thoughts? What are your expectations philosophy-wise based off the starters you hope to see?
