Hawkeye ‘D’ aims at being better than 2009 version

[ 0 ] September 1, 2010 | Mark Emmert

Iowa defensive tackle Adrian Clayborn, right, and linebacker Jeff Tarpinian (33) pursue a ball carrier at Ohio State last season. (Rodney White photo)

Wally Burnham has been around great defenses.

He was an assistant at Florida State in 1992 when the Seminoles, led by Derrick Brooks and Marvin Jones, held opponents to three rushing touchdowns in a dominating 12-1 season that ended with an Orange Bowl triumph.

When Burnham, now the defensive coordinator at Iowa State, looks at the Iowa Hawkeyes, he sees similar potential.

“They are big, physical and their linebackers do a great job filling the gaps, being in the right place, not getting blocked, getting off blocks,” said Burnham, whose Cyclones will travel to Kinnick Stadium on Sept. 11. “Their front seven does as good a job as anyone we play against of getting off blocks. They’re huge, and they’re good football players and well-coached.”

Iowa’s defense was certainly good last season, finishing eighth in the nation in points allowed (15.4 per game) and 10th in yards allowed (277).

But the question entering this season, with eight starters returning, is what will it take for the Hawkeyes to be great on defense? The proof will lie in these five factors:

Give ground grudgingly

Even in the age of spread offenses, the key to strong defense remains fundamental.
“You’ve got to be able to control the line of scrimmage,” Iowa defensive coordinator Norm Parker said. “If you can’t stop the run, it’s all over. That will never change.”

Last season, the Hawkeyes got pushed around at times, yielding 124 yards per game on the ground to rank just 34th in Division I. But a stout front four returns, a year older, stronger and wiser.

Defensive end Adrian Clayborn said the goal this year is to hold all opponents below 100 yards rushing. Defensive tackle Christian Ballard said the onus for that rests with the front four.

“We just try to take up the offensive linemen so that the linebackers can make plays,” Ballard said. “Our goal is to stop the run with our front seven. We don’t want our safeties having to come up to help. So we do emphasize taking up two blockers.”

Get off the field

Stuffing the run can make it difficult for opponents to sustain long drives, the kind that wear on a defense physically and psychologically. Limiting third-down conversions is vital.

Last season, the Hawkeyes allowed opponents to convert on 35.7 percent of third downs, 30th in the nation. That meant they had to struggle through 20 possessions of 10 plays or longer.

Parker said the ideal is to force opponents into more third-and-long spots to give the defense a clear advantage.

“Some third-down situations, like third-and-4 is a hard down,” he said. “Because it’s hard to play zone defense to get off the field. You almost have to be man to man and you have to have enough cover guys.”

Burnham said success on third down (his 1992 Seminoles coughed up just 25.7 percent of conversions) starts with a mindset.

“We call third down ‘money down,’” he said. “If we’re in practice and it’s a third-down situation, you’ll hear people call out, ‘money down, money down.’ And so it’s an emphasis, it’s an attitude of ‘we’re not going to let them convert.’”

Keep them in front of you

The flip side of allowing teams to drive methodically downfield is watching helplessly as they hit paydirt in one quick strike.

Any missed tackle or blown coverage can result in a big gain, and that’s something a great defense can’t tolerate. Last year, the fundamentally solid Hawkeyes excelled in this area, allowing only 10 plays of 30 or more yards.

“To be a great defense, you can’t give up big plays and you need to be flying around to the ball,” Iowa middle linebacker Jeff Tarpinian said. “You’re never guaranteed to make a play if you hustle, but if you don’t hustle you’re guaranteed to never make a play, so that’s something that we have to focus on.”

Safety Brett Greenwood said that focus started immediately after the 24-14 victory over Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl.

“We’ve been stressing better execution, better fundamentals,” he said. “In January, we even went over a lot of film of the mistakes we made in the Orange Bowl. You go back through, we see a lot of plays that we could have done better and helped our team out to improve.”

Become the attacker

Dominant defenses aren’t content to merely force punts, they seek to get their hands on the ball and turn the momentum of the game. Last season, the Hawkeyes forced 30 turnovers (tied for 11th in the nation) and sacked the quarterback 31 times (tied for 32nd). Solid numbers, but …
“I just want to get more sacks than I had last year,” Clayborn said. “Just be more of a force than I was last year.”
Clayborn, the 6-foot-4, 285-pound senior out of St. Louis, has the potential to be the most disruptive player in the nation following an 11.5-sack season that made him the subject of NFL draft speculation.

Clayborn wants to linger in the psyches of offensive tackles and in the opponent’s backfield, much like his role model, Jared Allen of the Minnesota Vikings.

“He just has a motor that’s out of this world, that I’ve never seen before,” Clayborn said of Allen.

Defensive tackle Karl Klug has no doubt his linemate will make a huge impact.

“His size, his speed, his nonstop motor, he’s got it all,” Klug said “You’ll see him run around people. You’ll see him overpower others. … He’s a beast.”

Men in the middle

Ultimately, Burnham uses a baseball analogy to describe the key to great defense.

“Right down the middle,” he said. “If you’ve got two studs inside at those two tackle positions. If you’ve got a pretty good middle linebacker. And you’ve got two safeties. It’s just like in baseball. That’s a great starting point. You need a guy that can line up and force a double team. And the middle linebacker needs to be able to play tackle to tackle and control the run game. And your safeties have to be able to help out with the run game and defend deep.”

Iowa has Klug and Ballard to clog up the interior of the line and Greenwood and the sticky-fingered Tyler Sash (six interceptions in 2009) returning at safety. So, using Burnham’s formula, the burden is on new starter Tarpinian to fill Pat Angerer’s cleats.

Tarpinian, a high school quarterback at Millard North in Omaha who has put on 40 pounds to get to 238 with the Hawkeyes, doesn’t feel any extra weight on his shoulders.

“You’re excited about it, but you don’t want to put any pressure on yourself that’s not needed,” he said. “We like to think of it like every player needs to be doing his job. You’re only as good as your weakest link. We need to make plays and be accountable to one another.”

The final word
Iowa enters the 2010 season Saturday against Eastern Illinois ranked ninth and with national title aspirations. The cliche is that defense wins championships.

Does this one measure up?

Parker isn’t ready to call them great.

“How good do they want to be? Do they want to remain hungry and push themselves again?” he wondered, before allowing only this as praise:

“I think they’ve got the chance to be real good.”