When former WVU defensive coordinator Jeff Casteel left for the University of Arizona, the Mountaineer defense was in for a change. A change that will hopefully help West Virginia on its journey to the Big 12 Conference.
On Wednesday, new WVU assistant coach Joe DeForest said the Mountaineers’ new defense would be the 3-4, with a little bit of the 4-3 thrown in whenever it’s needed. That’s the direction he and WVU head coach Dana Holgorsen want to head in with all of the pass happy offenses in the Big 12.
Now DeForest’s position with the Mountaineer coaching staff hasn’t been assigned yet, but all indications point that he will be the co-defensive coordinator and will have a big say on what is going to happen with the defense.
((Below is an interview with Joe DeForest))
“We’ll be 3-4, but there are some times when you have to go to 4-3 when you get a run the ball team that wants to run it down you’re throat,” said DeForest. “So we’re going to have to do both just to survive different down and distances.”
Both Holgorsen and DeForest are very familiar with the Big 12 and DeForest comes to WVU after spending 11 seasons at Oklahoma State. DeForest says his move to Morgantown was because he wants to continue to advance in his career and he wanted his daughter to graduate from high school before he moved away from Oklahoma.
Both coaches really feel this type of defense will help them defend the high-powered offenses they will face in the mid-west.
“It’s just both of us talking about the state of college football and the state of defenses and the state of offenses,” explained DeForest. “You look at Pittsburgh and what they do in the 3-4. It creates so many problems and it’s difficult for offenses to pickup a lot of moving pieces.”
Switching from the 3-3-5 defense to the 3-4 defense will be a benefit to many of the incoming recruits. DeForest says all of the players will be in the same position once camp starts, no matter how experience they are.
“It’s a clean slate for everyone,” said DeForest. “Everyone on the defense has clean slate and everyone gets to start over and the new guys coming in, obviously, it’s a benefit to them because they only come in 15 days behind as apposed to coming in two or three years behind.”
The Mountaineers may not have all of the ideal pieces they need to play the 3-4 defense in the Big 12 Conference, but they’re building to that point. It all starts with recruiting and WVU is trying to build from the line and out.
“There aren’t enough big d-linemen in the country so it’s very hard [and] you’re very limited in the amount of guys you can get to rush the passer,” said DeForest. “You have to adjust your scheme accordingly to what you have on your campus.”
“It’s a lot harder to find down guys,” continued DeForest. “You can big safeties you can move down to hybrid linebackers and big linebackers you can move to rush ends. So there’s a lot more flexibility there because there are so many more bodies of those type of kids and that’s what were going to try and do.”