Inside the Gameplan: Texas Safeties

Defensive backs in the Big 12 get exposed on a weekly basis. There’s a trial by fire that has to happen for every young DB in this league and while fans often forget, even the best tend to endure some tough times as underclassmen before finding their footing.

After 2015’s class produced five DBs that saw action as freshmen – Davante Davis, Holton Hill, Kris Boyd, P.J. Locke, and DeShon Elliott – optimism is high for 2016 with many hoping that the more serious trials have been completed and Texas can resume fielding dominant units again.

After all, the last time Texas had such a talented yet young crop of DBs was in 2008 and things went pretty well that time around. Will Muschamp had just taken charge over the defense and inherited a roster fresh off the graduation of safeties Drew Kelson (also LB), Erick Jackson, Marcus Griffin while also losing Ishie Oduegwu to injury and was returning Ryan Palmer at one corner spot while losing his counterpart Brandon Foster to graduation.

Compounding the loss of all these veterans was the fact that Muschamp needed to finally drag Texas into the era of base-nickel defense in order to finally start getting some stops against Big 12 offenses of the day, which were loaded and led by QBs such as Sam Bradford, Chase Daniel, Todd Reesing, Graham Harrell, and Zac Robinson.

Muschamp made what was then a series of surprising decisions, moving Palmer inside to nickel while starting perhaps the least heralded safeties of the underclassmen ranks: redshirt freshman Earl Thomas and true freshman Blake Gideon. The results were shocking.

Much of the reason for the stark improvement from 2007 to 2008 was the fact that Texas was covering slot receivers with Palmer rather than Robert Killebrew, the renewed health of pass-rushing freak Brian Orakpo, and Muschamp moving Sergio Kindle to DE/OLB opposite Orakpo. No one could block Texas’ pass-rush in 2008 and the young DBs were the primary beneficiary.

By the end of 2008, Texas was playing Curtis Brown, Chykie Brown, and true freshman Aaron Williams regularly at the corners and nickel respectively, setting up for a dominant 2009 secondary that was able to keep the Texas defense on top of the world despite the departure of Orakpo.

Some of that success came as a result of the growth of Thomas and Gideon over the course of 2008, which allowed them to become a dominant tandem in 2009 that combined for 139 tackles, seven tackles for loss, 14 interceptions, and 21 pass break-ups. Williams got enough action in 2008 to prepare him to join them and the resulting trio was far and away the best in the league.

Texas came a long way over the course of 2015 both in finding corners and in getting them some valuable experience to allow them to come back blooded and confident in 2016.

But in a league where safeties are isolated in as much space and against as good of athletes as they’ve ever been, one of the big questions for Texas is whether its safeties will be ready to anchor a top 10 passing defense in 2016 or if that’s a destination that is further ahead in Longhorn history.

What did we learn from 2015?

Texas gave major snaps at safety or nickel to six different DBs over the course of 2015, five of which return in 2016. Here are those six guys and their statistical production from the 2015 campaign:

At the start of the year Duke Thomas was spending most of his time at the nickel while Jason Hall and Dylan Haines manned the back end and John Bonney was thrown to the wolves at corner. At the very end of the year the coaches did something very interesting that has received very little notice or attention and which had a profoundly positive effect on the defense.

They rolled out a DB lineup against Tech that included Holton Hill, Davante Davis, and Bonney as the corners and nickel, while playing Thomas at strong safety and dropping Haines (and then Hall after Haines went down) as the deep safety.

With Hill, Davis, Bonney, and Thomas on Tech’s top four receivers and Haines deep, Texas was able to squeeze the Raider passing game. They still gave up yardage but they got better play from their safeties, at least until Haines went down, then they’d seen previously in 2015. Were it not for injuries up front (Malik!), they very well might have run away with the win in that game.

They kept up this strategy in the following contest against Baylor but this time played Hall as the strong safety and P.J. Locke as the nickel while Thomas played free safety and served as an eraser over the top.

As a result of this experiment we learned that P.J. Locke is at his best in the nickel where he has shorter distances to navigate and simpler reads. We learned that Bonney is a great open field tackler and solid in coverage but currently out-matched trying to play on an island outside. Thomas proved to be one of the most well-rounded DBs in the league.

Meanwhile on the back end, Hall was found wanting either in coverage or playing near the box where he simply lacked the explosiveness to be a dominant player. His counterpart Haines continued to do what he does, providing consistent and heady if unspectacular and occasionally over-matched play. As even Haines’ defenders (such as myself) have noted, he’s only an asset to the team if surrounded by players that can cover up his weaknesses and allow his strengths to shine.

DeShon Elliott played very sparingly in relief of Hall but flashed greater overall athleticism than either Hall or Haines when he did. The kid just moves very fluidly and confidently.

That said, what’s perhaps been most overlooked from last season, particularly in the hurried projection of Elliott as a Day 1 starter in 2016 and eventual All-Big 12 awardee, is that he didn’t play that much football in 2015 and instead Thomas was used to shore up the safety position in order to survive the Tech-Baylor gauntlet at the end of the year.

Another overlooked detail was that Bonney was plugged in at FS late against Baylor and played reasonably well.

What we learned from 2015 is that Texas’ older safety tandem of Haines and Hall don’t complement each other and that the younger DBs are still relatively untested and likely have some serious trials ahead before they are ready to run this league either.

Projecting 2016

The interplay between the strong safety, free safety, and nickel positions is integral and without having complementary parts on the field no one shines and everyone will inevitably be exposed and burned in a noticeable fashion.

What teams ideally want are three different skill sets on the field at all times that can play off each other. There needs to be a coverage specialist with range and speed, a box player who’s a weapon when introduced at the point of attack, and a support player who’s heady and knows how to help and play off the other two. If he’s also an exceptional athlete that’s great but Texas is still a few years away from being able to get greedy.

If one player has multiple skill sets that’s great, but everyone on the field at these three spots needs to be able to fill at least one of those roles.

As an example of how this can play out, last year Oklahoma played their box player at nickel (Eric Striker), their coverage specialist at strong safety (Steven Parker), and then that freed up ol’ steady Ahmad Thomas at free safety to play over the top and be able to lend support to either as needed.

Without Parker and his ability to cover slot receivers, Striker would not have been freed up to dominate the field edge or blitz and Thomas would have been much more vulnerable in the seams.

The 2009 Texas defense used Earl Thomas as a sort of rover around the box, locked down the slot receiver with Aaron Williams, and relied on Blake Gideon to support them from the back end.

There are also teams that will play someone heady and reliable at nickel, someone big and forceful at strong safety, and rely on an exceptional athlete at free safety to cover everything up on the back end. That kind of free safety is rare but Ed Reed or Earl Thomas in his NFL days would be some examples of what that can look like.

The challenge for the 2016 Longhorns is to find lineups where the parts are complementary and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. If you can find a lineup from this group that can do that, you’ve likely found your starting group for the following season.

As it happens, I think we may see a few different combinations depending on the opponent. Here’s what Texas has to work with in terms of filling the three main roles:

The coverage specialist: Perhaps Locke will grow as a coverage player and reach this point and perhaps Eric Cuffee or Brandon Jones emerges here down the line, but right now Bonney is the best coverage player in the mix at safety/nickel.

Any lineup that doesn’t include Bonney is going to need Locke or another DB to step up in a major way in terms of being able to cover ground and take away receivers. Unless Kris Boyd is introduced to this equation and masters the more complex role of the nickel, I’d bet on Bonney. If Boyd were to make a mental leap in the offseason and take over the nickel position, Texas would have someone who could be both a box weapon and a coverage specialist on the field.

The support player: The need for this role is why Haines is still an odds-on favorite to end up starting again in 2016. Bonney will probably be a more reliable back after learning through trial and error repeatedly in 2016 but he’s got a ways to go before he can line up the defense and know how to play off every one else. His trials came in learning the techniques of playing corner and nickel, not in seeing the field from a deep role and lining things up.

Hall has a chance to have an impact here as well but he’s done little so far to suggest he’s more of a playmaker than Haines. I think Elliott has great long-term potential here but he clearly wasn’t trusted to play the clean up role for his teammates as a true freshman.

The box weapon: This is where you would hope that Elliott would emerge in 2016, which would require fending off Hall and Locke. Elliott appeared at least as instinctive and sudden playing around the line of scrimmage as either Haines or Hall in limited snaps last year while Locke was much more comfortable out wide at nickel than playing directly in the middle.

This leaves the possibility of two different lineups for Texas at the interior DB positions that they could rotate through based on opponent. Against the more run-centric teams that don’t scare Texas with what they can do throwing the ball then a combination of Locke at the nickel, Elliott in the box, and Haines deep is the most probable lineup that offers some upside.

Against the more pass-heavy teams you could just expect to trade Locke out for Bonney while keeping Haines and Elliott on the field.

The eventual dream team would be a combination of Kris Boyd, DeShon Elliott, and Brandon Jones, but there’s little chance of all three of those athletes mastering the game to an extent that would allow them to jump past more steady and proven guys like Haines, Bonney, Hall, and Locke.

It very much looks like Texas’ secondary is still one year away with 2017 looming as a season when Texas potentially has more starting-caliber DBs then they can get on the field at any one time. In the meantime, here’s hoping that some of the guys who survived the 2015 season can put together some combinations that play well together andallow Texas to make a leap back towards the top of the passing defense rankings.