Davis teaming up with former coach to lead Mizzou DL
Al Davis never thought he would apply the material he learned during this particular class. After completing his playing career on the Arkansas defensive line and coaching at Fayetteville high school for a couple seasons, Davis returned to Arkansas as a graduate assistant in 2014 with an eye on coaching in college. As a grad student, he took a class about education — specifically, how to handle stepping in as a long-term substitute teacher.
Davis never became a teacher. But last season, he found himself in an almost identical situation.
Following Missouri’s 62-28 loss to Tennessee on Oct. 2, Eli Drinkwitz fired defensive line coach Jethro Franklin. Davis, who had been serving as an analyst, stepped into the full-time role. The abrupt promotion represented an opportunity: the chance to audition for an on-field coaching job in the SEC. Davis had spent one season coaching defensive tackles at Illinois, but that represented his only full-time college experience to that point. But at the time, turning around the defensive front must have looked like a daunting task. Missouri’s defense had just surrendered 458 rushing yards to the Vols, and through five games, it ranked last nationally against the run. Davis had to find a way to diagnose and correct the issues quickly, in the middle of the season.
So, Davis flashed back to the course on substitute teaching. The key, he remembered, was establishing a foundation, a baseline for what would be expected of students (or, in his case, players). He did so in a stern meeting with the defensive line that he called a “gut check.”
“When I walked in the room, I said, ‘hey, this is who I am, this is who I’m not,’” Davis said. “‘This is how things are going to go. You all are not going to be doing this on my clock. I don’t look like this on film. My mom watches the game, your mom watches the game, we’re not going back out there and looking like we looked last week.’ So it was one of those deals, it was a gut check. It was pretty raw and uncut.”
Slowly but surely, the defensive line began to play better. Missouri finished the season holding three of its final four opponents under five yards per rush. That only happened once in the team’s first nine games. Defensive end Isaiah McGuire was named the SEC defensive lineman of the week following the Tigers’ win over South Carolina, and fellow end Trajan Jeffcoat earned the same honor the following week.
The improvement earned Davis a full-time job. Speaking to reporters Monday for the first time since he arrived at Missouri, Davis said a key was offering more individual instruction. He noted that “when things aren’t going good, everyone is real sensitive.” So, instead of breaking down film and pointing out players’ mistakes in a unit-wide meeting, he had players meet him in his office one at a time to identify what they could be doing better.
While that tactic proved fruitful, it also came at a cost. Coaching four positions (two defensive ends and two tackles) at once, Davis didn’t have time to meet with every player. Special teams coordinator Erik Link and graduate assistant Fabrice Telfort ended up doing most of the coaching with the defensive tackles while Davis focused on the ends.
So, shortly after the got the promotion to Missouri’s defensive line coach, Davis asked Drinkwitz to reduce his responsibilities.
“Coach asked, ‘hey, how can I help us get better this offseason?’” Davis said. “I said, ‘get me some help.’”
Instead of having three coaches instructing the secondary (including former defensive coordinator Steve Wilks), Drinkwitz decided to hire a second defensive line coach. Davis knew the perfect person for the job: the coach to whom he attributes most of his success.
Kevin Peoples took over the Arkansas defensive line in 2011, Davis’ senior season. Prior to that point, Davis had played regularly and even started a few games at nose tackle for the Razorbacks, but he says he “sucked.” In his lone season playing under Peoples, Davis recorded a career-high 38 tackles, up from 14 the year prior. As an example of how Peoples transformed his game, Davis remembered Peoples holding a boxing bag in front of his chest and not allowing Davis to place his hands outside of the bag while blocking. Davis called Peoples the biggest influence on how he coaches.
“Because I had success in that system, now I coach it,” Davis said. “And it was one of those deals where if you really believe in something, why wouldn’t you want to teach it to other people? Why wouldn’t you want to spread the wealth of knowledge that you got from it? So meeting coach Peoples changed my life completely, and not just as a football player, but now that I’m a coach, I teach the same things that I was being taught as a player.”
Peoples has been a journeyman defensive line coach since leaving Arkansas, most recently spending two seasons at Indiana. When Drinkwitz offered him the opportunity to coach alongside his former pupil, he left Bloomington for Columbia.
Peoples will coach Missouri’s defensive ends while Davis will coach the defensive tackles. Peoples said that splitting coaching duties with Davis on the defensive line will be beneficial not only because it will allow players to receive more individual instruction, but because he and Davis “speak the same language” and teach the same skills.
“That’s so important,” Peoples said. “The whole defensive staff, being on the same page, but especially when you’re talking defensive ends and defensive tackles, because there will be crossover sometimes. .... So I think that’s vital, and that’s something that’s made the transition very easy.”
The play of the defensive line late last season might have been good enough to earn Davis a promotion. But both Davis and Peoples emphasized that they’re looking for more. Peoples noted that, while Missouri’s run defense got better, it wasn’t near good enough. “When you finish where you finished, run defense, obviously that’s something we need to improve on,” he said. Meanwhile, Davis said that he felt the defensive line had to devote so much attention to the run game that it took away from the ability to generate pressure.
“We did not pass rush well enough down the stretch,” Davis said. “I do think in the run game, they nutted up, they were physical, they attacked blockers. … As a pass rush, we did not help the football team — point blank, period. We could have been better.”
The hope is that this season, with McGuire and Jeffcoat both back and three transfers added to the defensive line, the unit can maintain its momentum from late last year and take a significant step forward.
Having twice the coaching should help, too. Ultimately, Davis said, that was more important to him than being able to call himself the Missouri defensive line coach. That’s why he asked his former mentor for help.
“At this level, with the quarterback being a runner, the defensive ends’ play is different,” Davis said. “Coaching d-tackles, it’s a little bit more simplified. It’s more about the technique, the fundamentals, the consistent reps over and over and over. They need to do the same thing over and over and over. The defensive ends, everything changes for a defensive end depending on where the back is, is the quarterback mobile, is he just a pocket passer. Coaching defensive ends takes a lot of time and energy, and I was spread real thin.
“So me, I don’t need to be the king of the hill to shine. I’ll shine if consistently we’re the best d-line in the country. So it doesn’t matter if it’s me and six other coaches or me by myself, it’s about getting the kids exactly what they need.”
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