AMHERST — After three weeks of good practices, UMass football coach Mark Whipple was hesitant to make many changes to his practice plan.
The results on Saturdays didn’t reflect the quality of work he felt UMass was putting in during the week, but he didn’t want to disrupt the rhythm of what were some of the best practices of his second tenure at the school. Yet the coach made a change Monday after the defense once again struggled to bring down ballcarriers.
For most of this week, UMass will practice in full pads to increase the amount of tackling that will occur in practice. It won’t be consistent hitting and the contact will be managed, but there is hope strapping on the pads will bring out a more intense Minutemen squad on Saturday against Charlotte.
“We started the week off on Monday in full pads tackling, so that’s a good start in how to practice getting the ball down,” linebacker Bryton Barr said. “We’re going to go live and be full pads a majority of this week, and I really do believe it will carry over into Saturday, and hopefully it shows. It’s a different mentality if you’re doing a walk-through or if you’re in spyders or just shells, you know you’re not bringing the guy to the ground. When you’re in full pads, it’s full go and there’s no more games.”
The tackling issues that have plagued UMass (1-3) in its three losses are caused by several factors, defensive coordinator Ed Pinkham said. Some of the blame can be placed on a lack of execution within a scheme, which can leave players with too much space in which to make a tackle. Injuries have also left UMass scrambling at times to find players to plug into different gaps.
Although it isn’t an excuse, the Minutemen are playing several inexperienced players at positions that are outside their comfort zone. In addition to the freshmen who have been pressed into action, the coaches have also needed to play safeties at cornerback and shifted inside linebackers to the outside and vice versa. Pinkham said the constant shifts have definitely had an impact on the defense, which has needed to be more simplistic to maximize the chance for success.
“Most of (the issues) need to be prefaced by the fact we haven’t had the same group on the field and we’re playing people at new positions,” Pinkham said. “They haven’t had the practice time that they usually get … and the more reps they get, the better they’re going to be.”
The decision to practice in full pads for longer this week is a throwback to an old-school approach to football practices when hitting was more prevalent before game day. Pinkham said the modern game has made the small bits of practice when the defense works on live tackling that much more vital.
However, it has also put extra emphasis on the mental side of tackling.
“In this day and age, football has gotten to a point where you don’t tackle in practice the way you once did, you don’t hit every day,” Pinkham said. “You’ve just got to make the most of the time you do have at practicing tackling. You’ve got to prepare to tackle well and understand how you do that, so that when it’s time to go full-go, you’re the best tackler you can become.”
The whole concept of preparing to tackle boils down to eye discipline for Pinkham. Biologically, the human body has tells about what a runner is going to do — a high hip and long stride means a straight ahead sprint, while a sinking hip and shuffled feet indicate a change of direction is imminent.
Pinkham said training a defender’s eyes to accurately read a runner’s hips is one of the hardest skills to teach if the player wasn’t taught where to look from a young age, but also one of the most important skills of a great tackler.
“You practice preparing to tackle by putting yourself in the right position,” Pinkham said. “If you prepare to tackle, we talk about tracking a player’s hips … so looking at somebody’s hit as you approach to tackle is a pretty good idea. It’s not an easy concept to perfect … if you haven’t been doing it all your life, it’s a skill you really have to work hard to get good at.”
The chatter about improvements is important, but it does little to ease the anger UMass is experiencing on defense. Whether the Minutemen are making mental mistakes and having one-man breakdowns or they’re simply missing tackles, the problems with the unit are well known, which makes the emotions that much more intense for the players.
“It’s all frustrating, especially when we all know as a defense, one whole unit, what the problem is,” defensive end Jake Byczko said. “We know what the problem is, we just need to fix it.”
Josh Walfish can be reached at jwalfish@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshWalfishDHG. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage.