News, Analysis and Opinion from Bonesville's Denny O'Brien

Pirate Notebook No. 119
Wednesday, April 2, 2003

By Denny O'Brien
Staff Writer and Columnist

The old adage that defense wins championships has become the blueprint for success in Conference USA.

In a league which has built a reputation as a breeding ground for prolific quarterbacks with NFL potential, it has been defense, not offense, that has been the key ingredient in the recipe for cooking up a title.

Former Louisville coach John L. Smith spent his first two seasons instilling that mentality in a Cardinals program that, for years, had relied on its high-powered offense to mask its defensive flaws.

The new emphasis on defense eventually produced back-to-back titles in 2000 and 2001, continuing the trend first set by Southern Miss in the late 90s.

"If you don't play defense, you're not going to win a championship," Smith, now the head coach at Michigan State, said while still at Louisville. "When we finally stepped up and won a championship is when we came through defensively.

"It's not going to happen if you don't play defense. You might win some games, but you're not going to win the league."

While it has been proven that an impermeable defense is the key to success in C-USA, history suggests there is more than one manual for containing the league's lineup of high-octane offensive attacks.

Under Smith, Louisville relied heavily on a static 4-3 approach, with press coverage on the corners and very little blitzing from its linebackers.

On the other hand, Texas Christian, which dethroned the Cardinals last season, prefers a fashionable 4-2-5 alignment with multiple formations and wholesale blitzing.

Horned Frogs coach Gary Patterson said before last season's title run that he favors that philosophy due to current offensive trends, along with the flexibility offered by an additional defensive back.

"Offenses have gone to so many different personnel groups and formations," Patterson said. "Out of those personnel groups, they can be in anything. This conference is no different.

"I think one of the things about putting one defense on the field when you have five defensive backs who can also play the run, then you're able to line up in formations that you don't have to work on all the time. It has the eight-man front principles. It plays with great leverage. Anytime that you play with great leverage on defense and you tackle well, you're going to give yourself a chance to be successful."

Successful would be an understatement for the Frogs, who last season finished No. 1 nationally in both rushing defense (65 ypg) and total defense (250 ypg). Although somewhat undersized, TCU was able to compensate for the lack of muscle with superior speed, which helped force 42 turnovers, second-best nationally to fellow league member Tulane.

According to Patterson, the success of smaller, faster defenses at the college level has also made an impact on the pro game, as defenses are constantly playing catch-up with evolving offenses.

"People have gone to one-back, three, four, and five wide-outs," Patterson said last summer. "You're even seeing it now in the NFL.

"The Tennessee Titans went to a smaller defensive group, and now people are going back to the two-back, big fullback, big tight ends to counteract that. Everything goes in cycles and we'll be no different. The thing that I've liked about the 4-2-5 — and I think why, through the years it has been successful — is it handles the two-back capabilities because it allows you to get more people in the box. We try to work from the outside in instead of from the inside out."

East Carolina's inability to win a C-USA title under offensive-minded Steve Logan may have played a role in the hiring of John Thompson, who was once termed by the former Pirates coach as a "defensive mastermind."

Thompson, who was the architect of suffocating defenses at Southern Miss, Arkansas, and Florida, incorporates multiple looks in his controlled, chaotic schemes, a philosophy which new Pirates defensive coordinator Jerry Odom says keeps the opposing offensive coordinator guessing.

"We want to keep the offense off balance," Odom said. "We don't want to be chasing them, we want them to be chasing us. At the same time, we want to make it simple enough for our guys where there is not a lot of confusion and mental mistakes.

"You'll see a little bit of everything. Any kind of zone blitz or any kind of front you can think of. We'll do a lot of different things."

Kansas State coach Bill Snyder has been often criticized for his dessert-first approach to non-conference scheduling.

Under his direction, the Wildcats have traditionally frontloaded their schedule with an assortment of cream puffs before facing their main course of beefy Big XII foes. The theory is to build confidence with "guaranteed" wins and increase the program's depth by giving younger players significant action.

Many C-USA coaches have adopted a different philosophy and welcome the opportunity to face high-profile programs before entering conference play.

"If you have a three-game non-conference schedule," Patterson says, "you find one that you should win, one that should be a 50-50 game, and one that on a year-in, year-out basis, you shouldn't win.

"You need to play the big game for recruiting purposes and also to raise the level of expectations for your team — what level you have to play at to win those kinds of games."

The Frogs will have plenty of opportunities to play the role of David in the near future. TCU travels to Oklahoma in 2005 and has Arizona, Arkansas, Stanford, and Texas Tech on its ten-year schedule.

But as TCU has emerged as a Top 25-caliber program in recent years, Patterson says mid-level BCS schools are more reluctant to add the Frogs to their non-conference slates.

"Since the league has gotten better, it's been tougher for us to go out and get those games," Patterson said. "You don't have the lower half of the schedule in the SEC or Big XVII wanting to play you anymore. Only the upper three or four will actually put you on the schedule.

"It's tougher for us to do that, but that's just part of the deal. That's a good problem."

Much of the problem is due to the reasonable levels of success C-USA has had outside of league play.

West Virginia (East Carolina, '99), Miami (East Carolina, '99), Alabama (Southern Miss, '00), LSU (UAB, '00), Syracuse (East Carolina, '00), Texas Tech (East Carolina, '00), Illinois (Southern Miss, '02) and Florida State (Louisville, '02) have all been victimized by C-USA opponents in recent years, which has made others think twice about scheduling respectable non-BCS opponents.

In fact, Southern Miss has developed such a reputation as a giant killer that last fall the Golden Eagles marketed their season with the catchy slogan, "Anyone. Anywhere. Anytime."

"We're competitive," Southern Miss coach Jeff Bower explained. "I really expect, regardless of who we play, that we are going to win the football game.

"I've always believed that if you're going to improve as a football program, you've got to play a challenging schedule. I would have loved to have been at home against some of them, but maybe that's coming, too."

That day for USM will be here soon enough. The Golden Eagles will host Nebraska next fall on a Thursday night in front of a national television audience.

"I don't know how we pulled that one off," Bower said. "I didn't do it, but it's working more than it has in the past. We're seeing that happen more."