Love the way Toney approaches things. Very cerebral. From G. Allan Taylor at The Athletic...
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Considering Florida already has a “Coach Chaos” on staff, perhaps Jay Bateman will settle for “Coach Do-Over.”
As in, do that drill over, because it wasn’t perfect.
During the almost daily observation periods afforded reporters during preseason camp, the assistant in charge of the Gators inside linebackers teaches tackling with such a fundamental insistence that even his veteran players are being made to repeat reps.
“It’s real technical with coach Bateman,” says sixth-year linebacker Ventrell Miller, who has seen the gamut of tackling circuits while playing under three positions coaches in college. “He’s very much a hard critic, even when you think you’re doing a drill right.”
Tackling is the most violent aspect of football, but before the collision comes precision. The steps need to be efficient, the positioning balanced. There’s a proper way to shimmy and shuffle, and watching Bateman work his guys during individual drills is akin to football with Bob Fosse.
“We coach off the reps in the film room, so he wants to get you a good, fundamentally sound rep,” Miller says. “If he sees something small, he’ll bring you back up and have you do it over again.”
Too bad there are no do-overs in games because this defense could have used them recently. The Gators were a poor tackling team, quantifiably poor. Whereas Georgia’s vaunted defense had the fewest missed tackles in the nation at 5.7 per game, Florida averaged 13.2 to rank 57th in the FBS and ninth in the SEC, according to Pro Football Focus. Some of those came in key situations.
Miller didn’t record a single missed tackle in 2021. Then again, he lasted fewer than six quarters before needing season-ending surgery for a torn biceps tendon. Having him healthy again at Mike linebacker gives the Gators a proven clean-up defender in the middle.
I asked him about the muscle memory from repping these tackling drills, the cumulative effect they have when it’s game day and he’s squared up on a 220-pound running back: “When I hit somebody I don’t want no yards going forward. I either want him to stop or go backward. That’s the mentality I have. I like to be the hammer.”
But Florida’s tackling problem was so pervasive that Miller’s return alone won’t fix it. Here’s another statistic that illustrates how poorly the Gators wrapped up on tackles last season: They allowed 3.6 yards per rush after contact, which ranked 126th in the FBS and last in the SEC.
Not enough hammers.
So how does a team improve at tackling when the NCAA is trending toward fewer and fewer full-contact practices?
Defensive coordinator Patrick Toney doesn’t gripe about the football rules-makers going soft. At age 31, he wasn’t raised in the era of players brutalizing each other during practice and exacerbating the body’s wear and tear. He recognizes player safety is paramount, that every takedown carries the potential for a separated shoulder, a broken wrist. Instead, he insists “you can improve on tackling every day” by simulating and re-simulating the lead-up to tackles.
“The biggest aspect of missed tackles, in my opinion, occurs in the approach to tackle,” Toney says. “What is my body position? What is my leverage? What is my angle? You can work that on every rep even without going to the ground in attack mode. We work tackling every day against our offense, good on good. We never go to the ground. It’s all angles, leverage and approach.”
The previous staff, I assure you, worked many of these same tackling drills, though fans might rightly ask: To what benefit?
That 40-17 loss at South Carolina — humiliating and spiritless — halted Todd Grantham’s four-year tenure as defensive coordinator two weeks before the end of the regular season. Though none of his defensive assistants were retained by Billy Napier, they landed at programs such as Auburn, Louisville and Georgia Tech, and Grantham became the latest millionaire analyst to enlist in Nick Saban’s legion at Alabama. This was a staff of respected coaches that, for whatever reason, couldn’t induce players to handle basic assignments, much less elevate their games.
One of the manifestations involved missed tackles. Safeties Trey Dean (16) and Rashad Torrence (13) committed the most whiffs in 2021. That’s not surprising, given the difficulty of bringing down twitchy skill players in space, but their misses are also the most damaging because safeties are the final backstop.
Next was linebacker Mohamoud Diabate (11), who became Miller’s stand-in before transferring to Utah. Nickelback Tre’Vez Johnson, expected to start again this season, charted eight missed tackles, as did linebacker TyRon Hopper, who left for Missouri. Two players on the defensive front, Brenton Cox and Gervon Dexter, had seven each. Cornerback Jason Marshall and safety Jadarrius Perkins each missed four.
You’ll notice a heavy dose of returning names on that list, presumed leaders of the 2022 defense. Can they morph into reliable tacklers under different coaching? Is the coaching really that different?
Fifth-year linebacker Amari Burney, like Miller, has experienced a string of preseason camps in Gainesville. When he says, “the approach has changed,” it carries substance. The tackling circuits — which include profiles (straight-up with a ballcarrier), gator rolls (pursuit) and turnovers (ball-stripping) — may not be particularly innovative, but their frequency and the way they’re scrutinized daily by assistants like Bateman show a top-down emphasis.
Toney, who coaches the safeties, says the defensive staff evaluates tackling technique across seven-on-sevens, individual drills and team periods. He preaches about defenders “owning our leverage” and taking “appropriate aiming points.” And in one particular area that needs improvement from previous seasons, he wants a primary tackler to be accompanied by teammates hustling in for backup. “That’s something we’re hard on in practice — the finish phase of the play. We want all 11 people to get to the football.”
Saturday’s scrimmage at The Swamp marks the end of a two-week camp and a chance to gauge tackling in live action. “We’ve been stacking good days on top of good days,” Miller said. “We’ll see how much progress we’ve made in the scrimmage.”
Torrence, issuing a declaration of accountability for himself and his teammates, wants Florida to rediscover the tenacity that branded its championship defenses: “This is what you signed up for, so it shouldn’t be a bunch of excuses.”
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Considering Florida already has a “Coach Chaos” on staff, perhaps Jay Bateman will settle for “Coach Do-Over.”
As in, do that drill over, because it wasn’t perfect.
During the almost daily observation periods afforded reporters during preseason camp, the assistant in charge of the Gators inside linebackers teaches tackling with such a fundamental insistence that even his veteran players are being made to repeat reps.
“It’s real technical with coach Bateman,” says sixth-year linebacker Ventrell Miller, who has seen the gamut of tackling circuits while playing under three positions coaches in college. “He’s very much a hard critic, even when you think you’re doing a drill right.”
Tackling is the most violent aspect of football, but before the collision comes precision. The steps need to be efficient, the positioning balanced. There’s a proper way to shimmy and shuffle, and watching Bateman work his guys during individual drills is akin to football with Bob Fosse.
“We coach off the reps in the film room, so he wants to get you a good, fundamentally sound rep,” Miller says. “If he sees something small, he’ll bring you back up and have you do it over again.”
Too bad there are no do-overs in games because this defense could have used them recently. The Gators were a poor tackling team, quantifiably poor. Whereas Georgia’s vaunted defense had the fewest missed tackles in the nation at 5.7 per game, Florida averaged 13.2 to rank 57th in the FBS and ninth in the SEC, according to Pro Football Focus. Some of those came in key situations.
Miller didn’t record a single missed tackle in 2021. Then again, he lasted fewer than six quarters before needing season-ending surgery for a torn biceps tendon. Having him healthy again at Mike linebacker gives the Gators a proven clean-up defender in the middle.
I asked him about the muscle memory from repping these tackling drills, the cumulative effect they have when it’s game day and he’s squared up on a 220-pound running back: “When I hit somebody I don’t want no yards going forward. I either want him to stop or go backward. That’s the mentality I have. I like to be the hammer.”
But Florida’s tackling problem was so pervasive that Miller’s return alone won’t fix it. Here’s another statistic that illustrates how poorly the Gators wrapped up on tackles last season: They allowed 3.6 yards per rush after contact, which ranked 126th in the FBS and last in the SEC.
Not enough hammers.
So how does a team improve at tackling when the NCAA is trending toward fewer and fewer full-contact practices?
Defensive coordinator Patrick Toney doesn’t gripe about the football rules-makers going soft. At age 31, he wasn’t raised in the era of players brutalizing each other during practice and exacerbating the body’s wear and tear. He recognizes player safety is paramount, that every takedown carries the potential for a separated shoulder, a broken wrist. Instead, he insists “you can improve on tackling every day” by simulating and re-simulating the lead-up to tackles.
“The biggest aspect of missed tackles, in my opinion, occurs in the approach to tackle,” Toney says. “What is my body position? What is my leverage? What is my angle? You can work that on every rep even without going to the ground in attack mode. We work tackling every day against our offense, good on good. We never go to the ground. It’s all angles, leverage and approach.”
The previous staff, I assure you, worked many of these same tackling drills, though fans might rightly ask: To what benefit?
That 40-17 loss at South Carolina — humiliating and spiritless — halted Todd Grantham’s four-year tenure as defensive coordinator two weeks before the end of the regular season. Though none of his defensive assistants were retained by Billy Napier, they landed at programs such as Auburn, Louisville and Georgia Tech, and Grantham became the latest millionaire analyst to enlist in Nick Saban’s legion at Alabama. This was a staff of respected coaches that, for whatever reason, couldn’t induce players to handle basic assignments, much less elevate their games.
One of the manifestations involved missed tackles. Safeties Trey Dean (16) and Rashad Torrence (13) committed the most whiffs in 2021. That’s not surprising, given the difficulty of bringing down twitchy skill players in space, but their misses are also the most damaging because safeties are the final backstop.
Next was linebacker Mohamoud Diabate (11), who became Miller’s stand-in before transferring to Utah. Nickelback Tre’Vez Johnson, expected to start again this season, charted eight missed tackles, as did linebacker TyRon Hopper, who left for Missouri. Two players on the defensive front, Brenton Cox and Gervon Dexter, had seven each. Cornerback Jason Marshall and safety Jadarrius Perkins each missed four.
You’ll notice a heavy dose of returning names on that list, presumed leaders of the 2022 defense. Can they morph into reliable tacklers under different coaching? Is the coaching really that different?
Fifth-year linebacker Amari Burney, like Miller, has experienced a string of preseason camps in Gainesville. When he says, “the approach has changed,” it carries substance. The tackling circuits — which include profiles (straight-up with a ballcarrier), gator rolls (pursuit) and turnovers (ball-stripping) — may not be particularly innovative, but their frequency and the way they’re scrutinized daily by assistants like Bateman show a top-down emphasis.
Toney, who coaches the safeties, says the defensive staff evaluates tackling technique across seven-on-sevens, individual drills and team periods. He preaches about defenders “owning our leverage” and taking “appropriate aiming points.” And in one particular area that needs improvement from previous seasons, he wants a primary tackler to be accompanied by teammates hustling in for backup. “That’s something we’re hard on in practice — the finish phase of the play. We want all 11 people to get to the football.”
Saturday’s scrimmage at The Swamp marks the end of a two-week camp and a chance to gauge tackling in live action. “We’ve been stacking good days on top of good days,” Miller said. “We’ll see how much progress we’ve made in the scrimmage.”
Torrence, issuing a declaration of accountability for himself and his teammates, wants Florida to rediscover the tenacity that branded its championship defenses: “This is what you signed up for, so it shouldn’t be a bunch of excuses.”
