Wilks looks to mesh fresh scheme with veteran players on Mizzou DL
It didn’t take Eli Drinkwitz long after being named the football coach at Missouri to realize his team’s defensive line was headed for a potential problem. Last year’s Tiger roster featured six scholarship seniors on the defensive front and not a lot of depth behind them, meaning the 2021 season looked like it would necessitate a complete overhaul of the position group. Drinkwitz spoke openly about how the position had gotten “out of whack,” which was why Missouri signed seven defensive linemen in its 2021 recruiting class.
Turns out, in Drinkwitz’s second season, it’s the coaches of the defensive line who have changed. The players remain mostly the same. That appears to be a good thing.
Since last season ended, Steve Wilks has replaced Ryan Walters as defensive coordinator and Jethro Franklin has taken over defensive line coaching duties from Brick Haley. But thanks to the NCAA’s decision not to count 2020 against any player’s eligibility, four contributors who would have exhausted their eligibility under normal circumstances returned to the roster in 2021. Akial Byers and Markell Utsey both changed their jersey numbers during the offseason but are back at their positions on the interior of the defensive line. Fellow fifth-year player Kobie Whiteside will join them once he recovers from a surgery that sidelined him for the spring. At defensive end, Chris Turner is back for his fifth season, while starters Trajan Jeffcoat and Isaiah McGuire will be third-year sophomores.
It’s early, but so far, the veteran group has impressed the new head of the defense.
“It’s great to have those guys,” Wilks said after Missouri’s practice Tuesday. “Markell Utsey, Akial Byers, two leaders up front that have really stepped up and made a difference for us this offseason. ... Darius Robinson, he’s performing well. So I’m excited about all those guys.”
Even though this year’s defense is learning a new scheme, Turner said the fact that so many of the players on the defensive line have played alongside one another makes for a cohesive unit.
“That chemistry is there,” Turner said. “We’ve played so many snaps together, and I feel like that’s one thing that’s really going to help us this year. We’re a veteran team, we’re a veteran defense and we have the experience, we have the chemistry. And I wouldn’t say we’re comfortable, but we know how to play with each other.”
Turner believes that familiarity will carry over despite the defensive front operating out of a different look this season. Missouri had transitioned to a base defense with three down linemen during Walters’ final season, but Wilks prefers a four-man front. In the absence of a BUCK linebacker, expect the two defensive ends to line up on the outside shoulder of opposing offensive tackles rather than the inside shoulder (a 4i technique), where they were last season.
McGuire, who recorded 18 tackles and three sacks last season, is one of the players making the switch to the edge in the new scheme.
“I’m excited,” McGuire said of the transition. “... When you’re more so in the 4i, you’ve got to look at the guard and the tackle and see who’s going to come at your first, gotta maintain that B gap, and with the edge, you’re looking at a completely different radius, you could say. Gotta look at the tight end, gotta look at the tackle. Okay, where’s the back set in the formation? Different stuff like that.”
Wilks will hope the blend of new scheme and experienced players will allow Missouri’s defensive front to perform better against the run. No statistic was more indicative of the Tigers’ record last season than run defense. In the team’s five wins, it allowed an average of 128.6 yards on the ground. That number jumped to 195.8 in the team’s five losses. The run defense was particularly problematic at the end of the year, as Missouri’s final three opponents (Arkansas, Georgia and Mississippi State) averaged a combined 6.2 yards per carry.
Even in a day and age when offenses tend to spread the field and throw the ball more than ever, Wilks said stopping the run remains his top priority. Doing so starts with the defensive line.
“Across the board, whatever level, it’s very hard to limit guys in the passing game,” Wilks said. “Guys are going to get their passing yardage. The one thing you can’t do is try to allow those guys to run and pass, it’s going to be a long day. So my number one deal is going to be to stop the run first.”
The early returns have been positive. While Missouri’s Black and Gold game on Saturday didn’t even feature live tackling, making it impossible to truly judge the effectiveness of the defense, Wilks said he came away pleased with the performance of the defensive front. If his unit is going to be effective in Wilks’ first season in Columbia, whether against the run or the pass, the veteran unit will likely be a major reason why.
“Everything that we do starts up front,” Wilks said. “It starts up front, d-line coming off the ball, creating a new line of scrimmage, controlling that line of scrimmage. And I saw that Saturday during the spring game, then had an opportunity to review the film, we did a great job up front.”
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