The Complexity of Hiring a Defensive Coordinator at Oklahoma State

Mike Gundy is in the tough position of filling his newly vacant defensive coordinator position after Glenn Spencer was let go last week.  Although there have been names thrown around, at this point it’s mostly just a guessing game.  

There are obvious factors that play a role — is the prospective candidate interested? Can OSU afford him?  Does he have the right pedigree?  Will he be someone that will stay a while? And so on with the questions that Mike Gundy will need to answer.  

But I think a bigger question for whoever gets selected is, “do they have what it takes to succeed at OSU?”  Building on that, do they have the intelligence and experience to understand the variables involved to piece together a successful defense, which subsequently is defined much differently at Oklahoma State than other programs. That’s a hard question to answer, and this topic started churning in my head after reading this tweet from Blake Huddleston (you should follow him @coachhuddleston).

You can have a good defense in this league but you HAVE to be good situationally or you’re toast.

— Blake. (@CoachHuddleston) January 11, 2018

I think given the situation and the league OSU is in, it’s more important to be situationally sound instead of sound across the board. This may sound crazy to some. The goal of any defense is to stop the opponent and give the ball back to your offense right? Of course, but I think it always comes back to this — you can try to be great in every aspect of defense, but in reality you often end up being average in every aspect of defense. But if you’re good at the right times, you can get away with it. The amount of resources and talent that is required to be great across the board is only feasible in rare situations.  

Important questions that a defensive coordinator should be asking is what type of players can they recruit consistently? In what situations will those players have success? How will they define success? What type of offenses will they see on a regular basis and how does that affect what they do with their players? (Big 12 makes this tough with multi-dimensional offenses that value balance)

What I would like to see from a defensive coordinator is to find a few areas where OSU can succeed in. These areas will need to be focused so that the players OSU can recruit will thrive in them. Find identity in a few key areas and be about it, absolutely dominate in those areas. Preach it year around, practice it year around, embed this mentality into your players’ minds forever.  You want to make sure in these particular areas that you win and win big.  

For example, West Virginia and Washington State. Both coaching staffs realized their inability to recruit good talent and size on the defensive line (which is somewhat of a problem for OSU as well, although not as bad).  In both cases they decided to use their personnel to their advantage.  

In West Virginia’s case they moved to a 3-3-5 alignment with smaller, but quicker defensive lineman. The idea is to shoot gaps up front and try to put opposing offensive linemen in zone schemes in space to try and block their linebackers. It also enables them to replace a big defensive lineman, which again they’ve struggled to recruit, with an athletic defensive back.  

In Washington State’s case, they have a similar problem recruiting quality defensive lineman. In response to this, they designed their entire defense around slanting their line to create disruption up front. Hercules Mata’afa was an All-American defensive tackle for Washington State, and he is 6’2 252 lbs!!! You were simply not going to be able to run your normal blocking schemes against Washington State.  

These are only examples, and the solution will be different for Oklahoma State. It could be dominating the turnover battle (which OSU has often done), winning 3rd down, not giving up big plays, red zone defense, causing chaos in the backfield, generating pressure or winning the 1st quarter. I think it’s up to the new defensive coordinator to piece together all the variables to find their identity.  

The ideal situation is to put your players into winning situations based off their ability, and force your opponent into uncomfortable situations. The problem with this strategy (also problems that WVU and WSU face too) is you leave yourself vulnerable in other areas where there was no focus. If I’m the defensive coordinator, my goal is to dominate so much in our core areas, that we try to minimize our exposure to weakness in the areas we don’t focus in on. But make no mistake, you will get burned at times. You have to set this strategy moving forward knowing this.  

Just to provide an Oklahoma State example for more clarity of what I’m talking about, let’s look at the Oklahoma State/Texas game from 2017. OSU’s offense is based off a vertical threat down the field to stretch a defense to open up holes in the run game. Don’t get this part confused, it is not the other way around. Texas knew they wouldn’t be able to defend both, so they dropped three safeties deep and forced OSU to run the ball over 50 times. Now the OSU offensive line was riddled with injuries and that caused poor blocking, but even with that factored in, the offense was taken out of its comfort zone. Texas was willing to drop back into coverage and let their 3-man front and Malik Jefferson (who is tremendous in space defending the run) defend the run game. Putting your players into positions where they can succeed, and hope like hell your opponent isn’t good enough to expose you elsewhere.  

I think getting out of the mentality of “we are going to stop them every drive” is tough to get out of, but I feel like that was Glenn Spencer’s undoing. It was discussed at length, but Oklahoma State has had success forcing turnovers in the past. But also had emphasis on getting off the field on 3rd down, generating pressure, red zone defense, forcing field goals, and also a bend but don’t break strategy.  

At times the defense didn’t force turnovers, were torched for big plays, gave up 3rd down conversions and gave up touchdowns in lieu of field goals. Again I come back to finding an identity. Where are they going to dominate? What areas are they going to sacrifice so they can dominate?  

Mike Gundy has to find the right candidate to come in who will recruit well, have a long tenure, at the right price. All of the stuff we hear on a regular basis in the coaching search process.  

But I think when you dig deeper, can he find a coach who is willing to mold himself and his process to Oklahoma State and the challenges that are presented? Does he have the experience and personality to analyze the variables – the personnel, the opponents, the situations – and create a winning strategy? Because a winning strategy is not to go out and dominate in every aspect. Oklahoma State is not Alabama or Ohio State. I think the mentality and personality of a coach are more important than any experience on his resume.  

I think the right defensive coordinator is the one who can analyze the variables and challenges, and enable his players to win the situations they choose to win. Leave it to Nick Saban to win every down.