On early Tuesday morning, Rutgers Football put out a press released that head coach Greg Schiano has hired Robb Smith as the team's Defensive Coordinator.
The Knight Report we spoke with some of the network’s top analysts and writers to get their thoughts on the Smith's return to Rutgers as the leader of the Scarlet Knights defense.
HawgBeat.com publisher Andrew Hutchinson: "When Robb Smith came to Arkansas in 2014, it almost seemed like he was a godsend to the fanbase. He inherited future NFL players at defensive end (Trey Flowers), defensive tackle (Darius Philon) and linebacker (Martrell Spaight) and immediately turned the Razorbacks' defense into a top-10 unit, holding opponents to 19.2 points and 323.4 yards per game. That included back-to-back shutouts of ranked LSU and Ole Miss teams, becoming the first unranked school in the AP Poll era to accomplish that feat.
However, Arkansas' defense quickly dropped off after that trio was drafted. By 2016, Smith's unit was plagued by giving up big plays. They allowed 26 plays of at least 40 yards that season, which was tied for the third most nationally, and became the only SEC team in the decade to allow multiple plays of 90-plus yards. When the dust settled, Smith's defense was the worst in UA history (at least since 1947) in terms of total defense, giving up 426.6 yards per game.It's worth mentioning, though, that Arkansas' defensive issues seem to be bigger than just one coordinator. The Razorbacks have had five different defensive coordinators since 2012 and all of them have been in charge of at least one of the eight worst scoring defenses and one of the seven worst total defenses in school history."
AggieYell.com Co-Publisher Mark Passwaters: "Smith did a pretty decent job. The Aggies had a lot of turnover from last year, but didn’t slip much. He worked pretty well with DC Mike Elko. Smith did a lot of work with the linebackers and had to break in two new starters. He also worked with a converted wide receiver who ended up in the rotation. While the unit wasn’t as good as the 2018 team, they weren’t much worse and showed a lot of promise. Smith definitely helped, no question about it."
TheGopherReport.com publisher Matt Jessen-Howard: "Robb Smith is an interesting hire for Rutgers and has an up-and-down track record as a DC. He had excellent seasons at Arkansas and Rutgers but his defenses also regressed substantially at Arkansas and Minnesota. At Arkansas, I believe this was at least in part due to losing key players; at Minnesota most of his core players returned. Who knows how this plays out for Rutgers: being fired from a previous job isn’t necessarily indicative of future performance — Fleck has said before he doesn’t mind hiring coaches who have been fired before — and Smith’s obviously had some big successes as well. Schematically, at Minnesota he ran a 4-3 and 4-2-5 defense with one of the ends playing as a stand-up rush end."
TheGopherReport.com staff writer Connor Stevens: "Robb Smith asked a lot from his players and has great intensity in the practice field. A mixture of things went wrong in his time as Gopher defensive coordinator. One was a complex scheme that forced players to make one-on-one tackles without help behind them, leading to big plays for the opponent too often. He also didn’t have the luxury of having All-American Antoine Winfield Jr. who went down with a season-ending injury, leaving a true freshman walk-on to fill that void. A young roster and complex scheme are not always conducive, and that ultimately led to Robb Smith’s departure from Minnesota."
--------------------------------------------------------------
