When Robb Smith said the Rutgers football team was doing away with rugby-style tackling on a video call late last week, it was music to Scarlet Knights fans’ ears.
The team’s defensive coordinator is bringing back a style of tackling that he hopes gets the job done compared to the style of tackling that former head coach Chris Ash implemented.
Rutgers allowed the most chunk and explosive plays by a wide margin in the Big Ten a year ago and it gave up an average of 6.1 yards-per-play, which was 97th in the country.
“Our tackling system is kind of what we did here before. We took that system to Tampa Bay. There's different metrics in the National Football League. That helped us with negative plays and things of that nature. We're not a rugby style tackling team,” Smith said. “We have a little bit of a different system than that, but the biggest thing for us is we're gonna have our eyes off we're gonna have our head up because that's the way we play safe and we're going to tackle the way that we used to.”
Smith, who was previously on the staff at Rutgers from 2009-2012, was the team’s defensive coordinator as well in 2012 when Rutgers was a share of a conference title for the first time since 1961. That year, the Scarlet Knights finished ranked fourth in the nation in points allowed per game (14.2), sixth in rushing yards allowed per game (95.2), 10th in total defense (311.6 yards per game), and tied for third with the least amount of rushing touchdowns given up (six).
As far as the base defense goes, Smith foresees a “multiple” defense with both 4-3 (four defensive lineman and three linebackers) and 3-4 (three linemen, four linebackers) elements.
“I think that's kind of football nowadays,” Smith said. “Our job on defense right is obviously to stop an offense. When you want to stop an offense, you have to stop the quarterback. That's where everything goes right now in college. For us, whether it's 4-3 or 3-4, I think we're gonna have both of those principles within our repertoire, but at the end of the day we got to find the right guys and put them in the best position to be successful. That's really the process that we're going through right now as we meet with our guys and that process will even expand when we get into actual training camp and get a chance to work with them more on the field.”
No matter what style of defense is out on the field, Smith believes in set strategies.
“I think you have to have multiple principles within your defense. To me it comes down to a core philosophy,” he said. “We want to put pressure on the quarterback and put pressure on the play caller in order to be successful. We got to be able to stop the run. It was alluded to earlier and we got to be able to eliminate the big plays, and then really probably the biggest thing is we got to find ways to create takeaways and get the ball back to our offence. How those goals fit into our scheme, we're really kind of figuring that out in terms of where we can put our players in the best position to be successful."
When head coach Greg Schiano was here the first time around, the right defensive end spot was used as a rush end and he and his predecessor Kyle Flood called it the “R” position. Ash referred to it as the “JACK”.
When asked about that specific position, Smith said that player will be asked to do multiple things in addition to getting after the quarterback.
“It's gonna be multiple. The number one thing I think you gotta understand about us is we want to get back and play that fast brand of football. So, whatever that spot is called however we find the right guy to hit that spot we got to be able to put pressure on the quarterback at that position but also they have the multiplicity and do some different things in coverage and using the coverage,” Smith said. “For us right now it's about finding the right guys and putting them in the best position to be successful. That'll kind of shape the rush end position for us.”
That “R” position, as well as the entire defense as a whole, will need to apply more pressure on opposing signal callers going forward.
The Scarlet Knights tallied 18.0 sacks last season, which ranked near the bottom in all of college football.
“I certainly agree and whether it's pass rush or just putting pressure on the quarterback even in certain quarterback run game scenarios, you know, like I said before, you have to be able to put pressure on the quarterback,” Smith said. “It’s technique and scheme right, so as coaches we got to give our players the best techniques available to execute. And then it's our job in terms of scheme to make sure that we get those guys and whether it's movement, whether it's a variety of different things, pressure, but we've got to find ways to create pass rush. Certainly if we don't put pressure on the quarterback I think that puts us behind the eight ball a little bit.”
Follow Chris Nalwasky on Twitter @ChrisWasky.
