Baker tasked with marrying old to new as Mizzou DC
When Blake Baker arrived at Missouri in late January, heading the Tiger defense wasn’t on his radar. Baker, who had spent last season coaching linebackers at LSU, was hired by Eli Drinkwitz to replace Charlie Harbison as the team’s safeties coach. He spoke with former defensive coordinator Steve Wilks prior to being hired and met with Wilks several times afterward about his role within Wilks’ defense.
But when Wilks left to return to the Carolina Panthers’ staff on Feb. 9, Baker quickly became the most likely successor. Sure enough, Missouri officially announced him as its new defensive coordinator on Friday.
Now, Baker’s job is to marry Wilks’ scheme with the defense he ran during his six seasons as a defensive coordinator at Louisiana Tech and Miami, to try to keep a Missouri defense that will have its third coordinator in as many seasons from starting from square one again in 2022.
“We’re trying to carry over as much of the calls and style of defense that we can,” Drinkwitz said last week. “Obviously any defensive coordinator has a different fingerprint that they’ll put on it. … But we wanted to try to keep the terminology as similar as we can.”
From Drinkwitz to his assistant coaches on the defensive side of the ball to players, just about everyone at Missouri has harped on the importance of carrying some of what the Tigers did last season over to this year on the defensive side of the ball. The team felt like the transition from Ryan Walters’ defense to Wilks’ more complex scheme played a part in its disastrous start last year. Through its first seven games, Missouri ranked last nationally in run defense and had surrendered 37.1 points per game. The unit performed better down the stretch, and players felt like gaining comfort within the scheme had a lot to do with that.
“With coach Wilks we had to learn a lot of new things,” defensive tackle Darius Robinson said. “I feel like that was probably the reason why we were struggling at the beginning.
“I told (Drinkwitz) that was something that was very important to me, that we do try to keep things a little bit similar,” added safety Martez Manuel.
As a result, Baker has made it a priority to try to find ways to keep the learning curve as flat as possible during spring practices. He didn’t talk schematic specifics Monday, his first time speaking with reporters since arriving at Missouri, but he’s expected to run a similar base defense to Wilks’ 4-2-5 formation. So far, his primary focus has been on adapting to Missouri’s terminology.
“I don’t know exactly what we’ll be from a schematic standpoint,” Baker said. “I do think as much as we can group things in so that not every guy on defense is learning a new word. It’s easier for me to adapt to a word than 100 or 50 guys learning the new word.”
To help bring Wilks’ and Baker’s defenses together, Drinkwitz promoted linebackers coach DJ Smith to co-defensive coordinator. Baker will call the defensive plays on game days, but Smith will help with game-planning and implementing the scheme.
Baker called Smith “a tremendous help” in helping bridge the gap between what Baker wants to do and what Missouri did last season. Defensive tackles coach Al Davis said Baker has relied on not just Smith but Davis, who was also on the staff last season, to help make the transition as smooth as possible for his players.
“I think he’s doing the best job he could possibly be doing to marry things that he wants to do and is doing to the things that we have already,” Davis said. “Making it feel more comfortable for the kids that were here already. … When it’s not a smooth transition then those kids are going to play slow. They’re going to feel like they’re confused and they don’t know what they’re doing. But because there’s a lot of similarities on what we’re doing, it’s making it a very smooth transition.”
Just because Baker is making an effort to keep similar terminology as a season ago, however, doesn’t mean he’ll pay much attention to Missouri’s defense last year. He emphasized that the arrival of a new defensive coordinator means a “clean slate” for players.
“Any time I take a new job, I generally look at eight to 12 plays of a guy from a point of attack standpoint,” Baker explained. “I don’t know what they’re being taught, but just from an athleticism standpoint. And I do that so I don’t have any preconceived notions or opinions. And I told some of the defensive guys that were on staff last year, I said, I don’t want to hear about what our opinions of those guys were last year. Otherwise we’re doing them a disservice as a new defense.”
With Missouri having completed just two spring practices, Baker doesn’t yet have a clear idea who will man his defense or what it will look like. The purpose of spring practices, he said, is individual development. He harped on the importance of fundamentals, saying he’s learned during his career that it’s more important for a defensive coordinator to field a fundamentally sound defense than to be the best play-caller. Once he gets a feel for what each player can do, he’ll tailor the specifics of the scheme to his personnel.
But he did use his introductory press conference to express a couple assertions. He said his units will always take pride in “being an attacking defense that’s really good at tackling the ball-carrier.” He’s also confident Missouri won’t have to endure more early-season struggles resulting from a coordinator change.
Baker pointed to his first two stints as defensive coordinator as proof. During his first season leading Louisiana Tech’s defense, in 2015, his defense led Conference USA in rush defense and finished second in total defense. In 2019, his first season at Miami, the Hurricane defense ranked among the top 20 nationally in run, pass and total defense.
Add in his effort to incorporate familiar terminology, and Baker expects his defense to be “user friendly.”
“When it comes to this scheme, the proof has been in the pudding,” Baker said. “When you look at the first year it’s installed it’s been pretty successful.”
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