Coordinators Corner: Purdue's JaMarcus Shephard, Nick Holt preview Arizona

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SAN FRANCISCO — Purdue plays Arizona Wednesday in the Foster Farms Bowl, and the Boilermakers have potential challenges against the Wildcats' offense and defense.

Passing game coordinator JaMarcus Shephard and co-defensive coordinator Nick Holt offered their takes on Arizona on Tuesday afternoon.

Q: You’ve had all this time now to dissect this Arizona offense. What are the things that come to mind that you really have to slow down?

Holt: “Obviously, the quarterback is the engine that makes them go. There’s no question. Really, what it comes down to now is we need to tackle. Everybody’s saying it, but we’ve got to get our guys playing hard, getting off blocks and really overpopulate whoever has the ball and gang tackle. Hopefully that will eliminate some of the big, explosive plays they get. That’s real key. We have to really focus in now, these last 24 hours, on being physical and mentally sharp and getting lined up quick and being onsides, having a good, solid, sharp line of scrimmage. By that I mean guys not lining up in the neutral zone. We haven’t played in about a month, so we need to be sharp. Covering down formations, matching their tempo with our tempo. Just all the little things you take for granted during the season, we have to get back to the good fundamentals.”

GoldandBlack.com: Tate claps before the snap, so that’s even a discipline issue, not to just jump with the clap because the snap doesn’t always immediately follow.

Holt: “Yeah, absolutely. He gets people offsides. We’ve got to try to hold our looks because he claps, takes a long time, maybe look to the sideline, maybe get them into different plays. It’s really, really important that our perimeter people and our skill guys tackle well and do a good job of rallying around the football, the DBs and linebackers. D-line has to do a great job at the line of scrimmage, but it’s these guys on the perimeter, especially our two safeties.”

Q: Why are the two safeties so important?

Holt: “Well, those are the guys we’re bringing down out of some coverage situations to provide us more linebackers, more people in the box. Some of the stuff we’re doing is going to be pretty aggressive, and they have to make sure they don’t lose their eyes on some of the play-action passes they have out of some of their runs. So that’s really important.”

GoldandBlack.com: Their offensive line maybe isn’t incredibly big, but they’re experienced and maybe a little bit quicker and sound in what they do?

Holt: “They’re long. They have a couple guys who have some height. They really target well, meaning they don’t miss their assignments. You watch them, they’re very, very consistent with their schemes. They have a lot of different runs, but as far as blocking these different runs, it’s all very similar things for them to do, so they don’t have a lot of assignment busts and they’re not on the ground a lot. So they’re pretty athletic. They stay up, and they stick-and-stay on guys. You’re always looking for, ‘OK, are these guys on the ground? They don’t block guys moving very fast and fall over?’ These guys don’t do that. They’re good athletes. They’ve picked up movement pretty well. Their running backs do a good job playing off what their offensive linemen do. Making them look pretty good because the running backs, they have really good vision and they kind of pop through. Some of the running backs have some long runs, too, and the reason why: They’re fast, they have really good vision and they’re really small, and you can’t seem them sometimes in the line of scrimmage. DBs, linebackers will lose them on the line of scrimmage and all of a sudden, they pop out and they’re out in the middle of the field for a touchdown.”

GoldandBlack.com: Your linebackers have done pretty well shedding, though. Even if those offensive linemen are able to get to that next level, it’s not that you’re asking them to do something they haven’t done at points this season pretty well.

Holt: “No. They’ve got to do what they do. We spent a lot of time on that kind of stuff, of shedding blockers and escaping and getting guys down on our legs, we have a bunch of drills we do on a daily basis and our guys are good at them, and it shows up on game day. It’s our tools of the trade, and you’ve got to be good at them.”

Q: When you started those bowl preparation practices, you said you were making sure you got back to doing those fundamental things right. What have you seen from that area? Do you feel good about where you’re at fundamentally as a defense?

Holt: “I think we got in our work. I think our kids went about practice. I don’t think we ever had, really, a bad practice. They weren’t very long. Our kids got on the field and got off, and we stayed healthy. I was saying to the defensive staff, ‘Hey, almost all of our guys I can think about right now got better in these last two weeks as football players.’ Whether they were the young guys, scrimmaging at the end of practice, or some of the older DBs in one-on-ones. Our guys just got better in the stuff we do. It was really good to see. They were into it, and they saw it on film. When we scrimmaged the offense a couple times last week in some competitive situations, to me, it really showed up. Our guys were ready. Had some good drills and some good finishing when we went goods on goods. Our guys had two good practices over at Laney College. We had a nice, spirited walk-through, outside, kids had fun with it. We’re ready to go. We have to go play now.”

GoldandBlack.com: Everybody keeps bringing up the Lamar Jackson comparison to this, and there are some similarities. But this is not that defense. It just seems like you’ve gotten so much better. Is it a fair comparison to make?

Holt: “I think we did improve throughout the year. We had 11 games after that one. We did some really good things in that game, but everything was new. We had a lot of assignment busts in that game because they threw a lot at us in the opener, and we threw a lot at them, just trying to make sure we had some bullets in our arsenal. We might have done too much in that game. I think as the season went on, we found out what we were good at and there were some things, ‘Hey, we don’t really need to do this.’ So I think we really honed in on our package and solidified it and our guys got better because of it.”

Q: You've been in a lot of situations that need rebuilding. How satisfying and rewarding has this season been for you to take what you saw on film last year that these guys didn’t do, didn’t play together, to make them into what they are now?

Holt: "That’s what makes the coaching profession fun. That’s why we do it. The stats, all those, I really don’t pay attention to it. I just like the way our guys have really, they’ve got a glow about them now. They have confidence. They feel good about themselves. Their self image has come miles, in my opinion. They’re good kids, and they’re fun to be around. We have really good leadership, and we’re going to miss a lot of these guys, obviously. I’m really excited of what they got done. It’s too bad we didn’t get a couple of those other close games, it would have been really good for these guys. But I’m really so proud of them, so happy that they got to feel some success. We have to finish it, so they actually have a winning record, and really bless these seniors going out as winners. And that’s what fires me up."

GoldandBlack.com: Tate is a young guy. Does that leave any opportunity for you to maybe confuse him, especially with some of the different third-down nickel pressures you bring?

Holt: “Well, what he does, all he does is tuck it and run. If he’s not mobile, then it would be a really, really good part of our plan to do all our stuff — we’re going to do it anyway — but confusing him, yeah, he’ll be confused, but he makes his plays with his legs. That’s the hardest point. They’ll see some of our confusing looks, and they’re going to look to the sideline, the coach is going to see it, ‘We don’t want to throw the ball against this because we’re not going to protect this particular setup by Purdue,’ they’ll just check runs. Kind of like Indiana did a couple times on third down, on third-and-8, 9, 10, they hit us for a couple runs. That’s what these guys do. They do it anyway. If you look at third downs, their third downs, it’s 50-50, 60 percent pass and a bunch of quarterback ones. They get in empty, so you have to cover down the receivers, and they have a bunch of quarterback runs, quarterback traps, quarterback leads if they’re still a running back in the backfield.”

GoldandBlack.com: Arizona’s defense is pretty young but still appears to have some talent. What have been your impressions?

Shephard: “Had the opportunity to coach against some of these guys last year, actually, so very familiar with the athleticism that typically they’re going to bring. A couple of the kids actually on their roster I was recruiting at the time when I was on the West Coast. They definitely have some youth, but a lot of times with young comes hunger, excitement. Yeah, they’re probably going to have a mistake they make, but they have the opportunity to make some huge plays. You’re probably going to get both of those factors. In some ways, we had that with our own football team this year. Guys with inexperience, not having played a ton, even though they may be older guys, there were those moments where they made great plays and there were other times when the inexperience shows.”

Q: What else do you remember playing against Arizona when you were coaching at Washington State?

Shephard: “At the time, they struggled a little bit, so we got up on them pretty quickly. But, certainly, I saw the athleticism across the board. The quarterback they have now is even more capable breaking big plays over the course of the game. That’s what I’ve been harping on with our guys. Pac-12 football, hey, it’s a lot about athleticism. These guys are going to be fast, quick and in a hurry.”

GoldandBlack.com: Cole Herdman said they’re kind of built to stop the spread.

Shephard: “No doubt about it. I think our guys, we have to use what’s best for us to be successful. We’ve got some fast, athletic kids out there, too. Hopefully we can match that as well as try to use some power and some force to go out there and get done what we want done.”

Q: How do you size up your receivers against some of those DBs? How confident are you winning some of those one-on-one matchups?

Shephard: “I talk very frequently with the guys about in football, there’s 11 on offense, there’s 11 on defense, so the goal and hope is for you to get into a one-on-one matchup. If you break it all down, if you can get in a one-on-one matchup and then I want my guy to win the one-on-one matchup vs. their guy. Hopefully we can create those opportunities. I feel confident in my guys and how they’ve really kind of elevated themselves over these practices. Isaac Zico has been doing a really good job. I’ve been very surprised at how he’s kind of approached it all over the course of these practices. He really sticks out as one who could really have a major impact in the game. Anthony Mahoungou has continued to really show, hey, this is who I should have been all season and through these bowl practices, he’s been giving our guys hell on defense. It’s been great to see that, that he continues to push himself and hopefully he can go out there and have a great game and push him onto the next level.”

GoldandBlack.com: This defense has 18 interceptions, they’re younger, but it seems like their linebackers are pretty active, and they’re obviously forcing turnovers. Is it a schematic thing or are they just using some of that athleticism?

Shephard: “I think a lot of it has to do with those guys being hungry and just wanting to — I mean, they play their butt off for their head coach. You can see them. That linebacker (Colin) Schooler, he plays his butt of every single play. Coach (Chris) Barclay has done a great job of getting after the running backs and letting them know Schooler is going to be in their face all game long. We’re definitely challenging our guys to go out there and match and hopefully exceed the enthusiasm that they bring to the film, even.”

GoldandBlack.com: This defensive line will show some different looks, have guys standing on the line and then drop into coverage, maybe try to disguise some coverages. There could be moving parts. How do you think your offensive line has progressed to be able to handle those looks?

Shephard: "That’s a good part about bowl preparation. You’re given a lot of time to review that stuff and actually go over it with the offensive line. Certainly in order for us to have the type of success we want to have, they have to pick up those different schemes. It’s sometimes not as tricky as you think, especially after you start to look at it over the course of an entire season. You start to cut it up and kind of understand it better as you see the tendencies, the situations and so on. That’s what we’re going to focus a lot of our attention on, making sure we know, ‘Hey, in certain situations, this is what they bring.’ Now, obviously, there are anomalies there that you have to deal with. I think we have enough built in to be able to pick up some of those anomalies as well.”

GoldandBlack.com: You're a receivers coach, passing guy. Are you OK if Markell Jones gets 30 carries again?

Shephard: "1,000 percent — after we’ve thrown for 450 yards, yes. (laughs) If we can put up 450 first and then hand it off to him 30 times. I am the passing game coordinator, OK? However, the run certainly helps us set up the pass, and vice versa. (laughs) "

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