Q&A: Purdue cornerbacks coach Derrick Jackson
Derrick Jackson appears to be one of Purdue's most detailed coaches, constantly teaching the cornerbacks about techniques, especially footwork, coverages and what to look for against offenses.
He spoke with reporters for the first time after Monday's practice. Here's an excerpt of what Jackson, who came to Purdue from Wake Forest, had to say.
GoldandBlack.com: How is it going so far with your guys?
Jackson: "I think well. I think like everything, the hardest part is when you’re trying to bring in a new culture is getting guys to understand the expectations of what the new staff wants, and you’re trying to get rid of old habits. Not necessarily that they’re bad, but create winning habits. That takes time to develop. But I do think we have buy-in from the guys at this point in time. The guys are certainly working hard. They’re trying to do the things we’re asking of them, but they’re still new concepts that take time to learn. It’s only going to get better, but I think we’re at a good foundation right now to move forward with."
Q: What is the culture and expectations specifically relating to the cornerbacks?
Jackson: "I think first and foremost is guys who have the ability to get lined up, run the defense we’re calling, got to be able to take away big plays, which is something that obviously hurt us a little bit from the past a year ago, keep balls in front of us, got to become a better tackling unit where we give ourselves a chance to line up again and play the defense. End of day, it’s accountability. You look behind you, I tell them every day, there’s a goal line. If plays get behind us, points are going to get scored, bands are going to be playing. We don’t want to hear the opposing teams band play, so we’ve got to do a great job keeping balls in front of us and minimizing as much as we can and when we have opportunities to make plays on the football, we’ve got to create turnovers. Those are things you do in practice that are going to carry over in the game, so we’ve got to get more urgency to do that on a consistent basis in practice."
GoldandBlack.com: What do you think of this defense?
Jackson: "I’m excited. There’s not a day that I walk off the field or walk on the field, I’m not excited about the challenge we have in front of us. I do know that, again, there’s room for improvement. It doesn’t mean anything in the past wasn’t good, it just means there are things we have to do better to give ourselves a chance to be successful. I know everybody talks about the offense Coach (Jeff) Brohm has had the previous three years that he was at Western Kentucky, but we shouldn’t have to put the pressure on our offense to win us football games. To win in this conference, you have to have a defense that can play at a championship level, that can be elite, and I would hope our guys take pride that we can go out there and win games because of what our defense does and if the offense goes out there and plays great, that’s a bonus. But if the offense goes out and struggles, we’ve got to be able to produce and do things on our side of the football.
"I think we have coaches who have come from different places that we have had defenses that have been successful that I would hope the kids feel confidence in what we’re asking them to do and they build trust and now they’ve just got to execute it. It’s not going to be perfect Practice 9. It’s not going to be perfect Practice 15. It’s probably not going to be perfect over the summer, perfect come fall. But we’re opening up against Louisville, it needs to be perfect then. So we’ve got a lot of work to do. But we’ve got time to get it fixed, and that’s exciting. The kids want to be here, they’re buying in, they’re being coached hard. But they’re doing the things we’re asking them to do, and that gives us, I think, faith as coaches that we can get it fixed."
Q: Speaking of that offense, going against that every day as a defensive coach, what’s that like?
Jackson: "It’s not fun. (laughs) I blow a couple gaskets over the course of practice because they challenge. The one thing I will say having seen it from afar, I like that a lot better than I do seeing it up close because it’s constant stress on our defense. But I think the things our guys learn is that it’s your eyes have to be right, your technique has to be good, you’ve got to communicate. So it really makes you have to be a very fundamentally sound defense and have to do all the X and O things that sometimes you talk about on the chalkboard, well, it has to matriculate onto the football field in order for you have to success with it. But it’s going to make us a better team because we get challenged every day in a lot of different ways. And I like that as a coach because hopefully that means the game is going to slow down for our guys because they’re seeing a practice tempo, a practice pace and they’re seeing a menu of plays that’s going to make them be a better football team over the course of 12 games, hopefully 13 and 14, if we do things right."
GoldandBlack.com: A couple former players I spoke with about you mentioned just how good of a teacher you are. You always need to be that as a coach, but with the makeup of your group right now with some of those young guys is it maybe more important than ever?
Jackson: "I think, again, we always talk about as important as recruiting is, to have great players in your program, sometimes you’re not always blessed with the top-end of the spectrum. You have to develop people. I think a lot of the jobs I’ve had have been places where, again, we had to develop either young players or even sometimes we had to develop older players because there was staff transition into learning new systems. I think the enjoyment of that is seeing guys from taking a step to maybe a good player to becoming a very good player, a very good player to becoming an elite or a great player. Sometimes, it’s a guy who’s a role player getting a more supplementary role that helps the team, might be just as a nickel back, as a backup corner, but he can come into a game and get you out of a series, out of a game. But you’ve given that guy tools that he feels he can go out there and be successful. I always say this, it’s like anything you do, I learned from other coaches how to do the things that I was able to do and hopefully I took the really good things that I embraced and was able to put a spin on it my way. It’s no different than a player. We can put them in position to be successful, but once they’re on the field, they’ve got to empower themselves to trust what we’ve coached them to do, but they’ve got to have a little bit of flair and a little bit of swagger for how they’re doing things. I’m responsible for getting them in position, then they’ve got to be able to make plays, and that’s when you figure out the guys who are going to give you a chance to win or who are the guys who aren’t quite there yet, but we’ve got to find a way to keep exposing them to those situations and bring them along to where they can build confidence to know that when their number is called, they can be guys who give us a chance to be successful."
Q: How much of it this is Nick Holt’s defense or how much of it is a collaboration?
Jackson: "The great thing with Coach Holt is there are obviously things he’s done that he feels very comfortable with doing. With Coach Poindexter being the co-coordinator, there are things they did at UConn at a very high level. While he was there, they were one of the better defenses in the country statistically. So his expertise in that field definitely gives us a chance to look at some different things than maybe they were doing at Western Kentucky. Maybe even things you go back to Coach Holt when he was back at USC. I think you have a guy who’s obviously won a national championship as a defensive coordinator, so he knows football. He’s worked for guys like Pete Carroll. He’s been a head coach before. I think sometimes the thing you worry about is a guy not wanting to hear advice or opinions from other guys on staff, Coach Holt has been phenomenal about, ‘Hey, what are things you’ve done that have worked?’ Watching film of things we’ve done at other places to try to decipher can it fit within our system? I think the great thing about that is it doesn’t mean we are going to do our things, but any time you feel you have a voice in a room, it empowers you as a coach to feel confident about bringing forth new ideas and not feeling like you’re going to get shot down. But, by the same token, he’s the guy that leads the band and we’re going to follow his lead. What he says, we believe in, we trust and we’re all on board with that. As long as you have guys who will follow you and trust you, then you’re going to have a chance to be successful."
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