A former cornerback explains why more may not always be better at that position.
On Saturday, Syracuse Orange football coach Dino Babers spoke to the media following FanFest and once again, the secondary competition was a matter of discussion.
“It’s a good group, it’s deep. It’s deeper than it was last year and those guys have to come to practice every day,” Babers said. “I think it’s very competitive and it’s going to go up to the very last scrimmage to decide who’s going to win this thing.”
Babers said of new graduate transfers Devin M. Butler and Jordan Martin, “I think they’re ready to hit the field. We’re going to find out where they hit the field at on the depth chart after the second scrimmage.”
Coach’s final take: “I think we have a great nucleus of four and I think we can maybe even go to six deep.”
Please, no.
Chris Frederick and Scoop Bradshaw have held down the starting corner spots all camp, and based on coach’s turn of phrase — “nucleus of four”— it seems Martin and Devin M. Butler will probably rotate in. But rotating any more than four cornerbacks during a game is like playing two quarterbacks. It doesn’t work.
The cornerback position requires rhythm, balance and patience. When you play too many guys at the position, you risk disrupting the flow in the secondary.
As former Syracuse secondary coach Fred Reed once said, “a good quarterback can win you games, but a bad secondary can lose them.”
The cornerback position is delicate and unlike any other on the field. One misstep and the band’s playing. The position requires control. Physically, it’s one the most demanding on the field and probably the least appreciated.
After nearly every drive or crucial play, when players come to the sideline their coach says, “What’d you see!?” A good player describes it — could be a new route pattern against a particular coverage, or a new formation that hadn’t been accounted for during the week. The coaches collect the info, and then make adjustments to the gameplan.
All of that it lost when you throw a new guy in there. He didn’t see whatever had just happened. And when he does, he won’t react to it the same way as the guy who actually did. That limits production and leads to getting beat on the same problem.
An example: In 2013 against Wake Forest, our defense was playing a lot of cover-3. They were killing us with six-yard stop routes. I came back to coach Scott Shafer and said, “they’re giving us quick game to the field. QB isn’t thinking and just throwing it. Drop might work.”
Drop was a cover-2 concept disguised as cover-3. But it wasn’t in the gameplan. I’d play back, wait for a count and jump the receiver in a flat zone. Coach Shafer trusted me on it, and we ran it the next drive. On a third down, Wake Forest lined up and the Drop call came in, I saw the play develop, read the QB and attacked the ball.
My fingers just happened to be buttery and I dropped the interception.
The point is, had some other corner rotated in and gotten that call, chances are they would’ve just played the coverage without anticipating the route and no play on the ball would’ve happened at all.
The cornerback competition might be the best thing happening for the Orange in 2017. An improved secondary could be the difference in a bowl game or a long Christmas break, but let’s hope that those chances aren’t ruined by indecisive coaching decisions and depth chart politics.
Let the competition be what it should be, somebody needs to win, somebody needs to lose and somebody needs to be sat down and down and told they might need to wait until next year to contribute.
