Aug. 13, 2008
By Alfredo V. Moreno
Assistant Media Relations Director
When defensive players come to the University of New Mexico they are required to master a second language. It’s not Spanish, French or Italian, but the language, signs and concepts all players must know to execute head coach Rocky Long and defensive coordinator Troy Reffett’s unique and highly successful defensive system.
Stepping onto the practice field and attempting to run this defense for the first time can be a humbling experience for any new player. With no time to spare on the practice field, new players are thrown into the deep end of the pool and expected to sink or swim. Eventually though, the signals, terminology and audibles all become part of their everyday lexicon, allowing these “bilingual” players to run one of the most creative, aggressive and exciting defenses in the nation.
“Bandit flex special auto…wide blue”
Coming out of high school or junior college, players enter a new world of complexity when they open the New Mexico defensive playbook. On the high school level, most defensive schemes are simplified, using between three and five basic calls throughout a game. At UNM, however, that number increases exponentially.
On gameday players have the defensive plays signaled in from the sideline by Long, while Reffett advises from the coaches booth in the press box. Each signal represents a different word and each word then indicates what each group of players is supposed to do on that particular play. The terminology and assignments, however, can change immediately and dramatically based on what pre-snap formation the offense lines up in.
Fifth-year senior safety Blake Ligon says the results can be incredibly confusing to the untrained player.
“For example, `bandit flex special auto’ – every word that was just said means a different thing, everybody is doing different stuff, you have to take different angles based on whatever that is and they get even longer than that,” Ligon said. “Even in those calls, there’s checks out of it. If he calls `wide blue’ and someone moves to the other side, then it all changes to a `face’ call and we have to do a bunch of other things.”
According to Ligon, it’s one thing to master the defense in the film room and off the field and quite another to maintain your focus in the midst of a full speed, highly physical game. In the heat of battle Ligon said that defensive players can lose sight of Long on the sideline, have their view blocked by their teammates or just have a momentary lapse of concentration that causes them to miss the rapid fire signals.
“I can look when everyone lines up and kind of tell what’s about to happen, but there’s several times when we don’t see the call,” Ligon said. “You’re too tired, can’t look, he’s too far away, then you look at the sideline and everyone’s in red and you can’t see where he’s at, but luckily someone’s going to see the signal so it gets echoed to everyone else.”
With veterans like Ligon struggling at times to keep pace with the defensive terminology, newcomers face a daunting challenge early in their careers. Ligon said that as a young player he just tried to break down what he was learning into smaller, more manageable parts and put the pieces of the puzzle together one by one, day by day.
“It takes a lot of extra work, a lot of extra studying of what you have to do because nobody is going to come in here and pick it up right away,” he said.
True freshman lobo safety Joe Harris knows all too well how difficult this stage of a defensive player’s career is. Not only has Harris had to try to absorb the terminology, signals and concepts, but he also had to do so in the midst of a position change, moving from linebacker to safety early in training camp.
“It’s way different than high school,” Harris said. “We had about four or five different plays and were always in zone (coverage), but here you have to run man (coverage) and then switch and then blitz and everything changes.”
At New Mexico, new defensive players like Harris face a trial by fire. They receive the entire defensive playbook upon joining the program and shortly after must be able to execute the scheme correctly, quickly and aggressively on the practice field.
“It’s difficult because you have to have it all down right away,” Harris said. “If you don’t, you’ll hear it from the coaches.”
According to Reffett, young players learn the defense on the field. Whether they’re being praised or chastised for mistakes, it’s all part of the learning process.
“We throw everything at them at once,” Reffett said. “We’re not a staff that gives bits and pieces, one coverage one day and another coverage the next day. They get the whole package every single day and it’s up to them to absorb it by getting reps on the practice field.”
While coaches can work with young players in the film and meeting rooms, their instructional time is limited on the field. As a result, the responsibility falls to veteran players to get newcomers up to speed.
“They coach them up a lot on sideline because we practice very fast,” Reffett said. “On the field as coaches, we have to coach them on the run, so it’s very important for those older guys to help the young guys out on the sidelines and also to let them know that they went through the same thing.”
While the learning curve is sharp, the defensive system built by Long and maintained by Reffett at New Mexico is thriving. The UNM defense doesn’t rebuild it reloads each year. Players like Ligon arrive on campus young and inexperienced, but with help from the coaching staff and veteran players they learn the terminology and philosophies of the system, rise up the ranks and eventually pass that knowledge on to the next group of future defensive standouts like Harris.
Stellar defense at New Mexico has developed into more than a yearly goal, but a true tradition of excellence.