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January 26, 2007 > Sports > Bailiff brings new defensive scheme

Bailiff brings new defensive scheme

First-year coach to implement 4-2-5 alignment for 2007 season

By Nathan Bledsoe | Thresher Editorial Staff

The look on the sidelines won’t be the only thing changing with the football team next year. In addition to his new staff, head coach David Bailiff brings a new defensive philosophy, the 4-2-5 scheme he ran effectively in his previous stops at Texas State University and as the defensive coordinator at Texas Christian University. The Owls’ offensive philosophy will not change drastically.

“Offensively, we’re going to stay with the spread offense,” Bailiff said. “If you look at [sophomore] quarterback Chase [Clement] and what they’ve done here, that’s what we’ve done at Texas State [and] that’s what we’re going to do here.”

New offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Tom Herman will call plays for the Owls. Herman follows former offensive coordinator Major Applewhite, who left to become the quarterbacks coach at the University of Alabama Jan. 13. Herman was a graduate assistant at Texas during Applewhite’s sophomore and junior seasons — 1999 and 2000. While the offense will spend most of its time in a one-back shotgun look, Clement will be able to take snaps under-center as well.

“I believe every now and then you have to be under center,” Bailiff said. “When it’s third-and-one and you have to pick up a tough yard, you have to have an offensive line that knows how to come off the football. You have to have a running back that knows how to lower his pads.”

The biggest schematic changes for the Owls come with Bailiff’s preferred 4-2-5 defense.

“The 4-2-5 is a high-pressure package,” Bailiff said. “Every alignment looks like … a blitz alignment based on your free safety, and you also have good leverage against the run.”

The defensive set puts one more down lineman on the field than Rice played with last year but still utilizes two strong safeties. More traditional fronts often switch to a version of the 4-2-5 for their “nickel” situations, when an extra defensive back is brought in to help defend the pass. The base 4-2-5 scheme is designed to always present the threat of a blitz. The added down lineman makes the set stronger against the run and allows the defensive backs to get into good pass-coverage alignments independent of the front six. The new set is very similar to the 4-4 defense popular at the high school level — both are sometimes known as the “split” defense.

The return of strength and conditioning coach Yancy McKnight is just as important to the Owls as the new game-day coaches. McKnight returned to Rice Wednesday at the request of Athletics Director Chris Del Conte after initially following former head coach Todd Graham to the University of Tulsa. McKnight oversees not only the football team but every other varsity sport on campus.

Any coach entering in a situation like Rice’s must work feverishly to salvage a quality recruiting class, and Bailiff has been doing just that. The new coach has been on the road visiting recruits since taking the job. He said he asked players to be patient with him as he spends his first weeks away from campus trying to put together a full-sized recruiting class.

Bailiff is widely regarded as a top-quality recruiter, but he employs a style much different than his predecessor’s. While Graham used his high-energy and his salesman persona, Bailiff finds relationships with high school coaches to be more important — he is known to have strong relationships with many high school coaches in the state of Texas, and this should serve him well when recruiting. He will also look to recruit in the talent-rich Houston area more than Graham did in his short time at Rice.

“I look at the commitment list, and I don’t see enough young men from Houston on it,” Bailiff said. “I want to make Houston a priority.”

Rice holds all its athletes to higher admission standards than most universities, so recruiting presents a unique set of challenges. However, those higher standards also require Rice to recruit players more likely to graduate, which Bailiff said provides its own sort of advantage.

“You win championships with seniors graduation rates and championships work hand in hand,” he said.

Linemen are always top priorities in recruiting, but they are especially important to this year’s class. The switch from a three-man line to a four-man line paired with the imminent graduation of defensive tackles DeJaun Cooper and William Wood and defensive end Courtney Gordon will leave the Owls dangerously thin on the defensive front.

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