Defense shows improvement early on

The Panthers football team concluded spring ball on Saturday with its annual Blue-Gold… The Panthers football team concluded spring ball on Saturday with its annual Blue-Gold scrimmage and one trend seems to be developing for next season — a solid defense.

Following a year in which the defense was left to blame for many of the team’s problems, the defense seems to be this team’s strength. Last season, tackling was atrocious, and many offenses were able to march up and down the field on the Panthers — including two schools that set school records for individual rushing performance.

The coaches wanted to make this point clear and showed film of last season’s games. Thus, this spring — and for all next year — the emphasis on defense is tackling.

“Yeah, we are starting to improve a lot,” sophomore linebacker H.B. Blades said. “[The defense] watched film of last year, and were all going, ‘eww, that’s bad.’ We are working on fixing that now.”

Both defenses seemed to have no problem tackling on Saturday, and only gave up a total of 20 points. The 20 points might seem rather low, but it should not have been that high. The first touchdown was on a reverse to Joe Del Sardo for a 33-yard touchdown, and one of the field goals was set up by a Joe Clermond interception right before the half.

The trick plays used by the offense was an indication that they knew they needed to do something to move the ball on this defense. Besides the reverse to Del Sardo, a second reverse was run late in the game to Larry Moore, a flea flicker attempted and stopped by a sack and at least 20 screen passes. All of these plays were attempts to keep an aggressive defense off balance.

“They warned us, but I didn’t know they were going to run so many. We [the defense] just have to be prepared for anything,” linebacker Clint Session said.

The trick plays were sometimes effective, but Saturday was the defense’s and specifically, the linebackers’ day. On one of the first plays of the game, quarterback Joe Flacco was sacked at his own four-yard line. That set the tone for the defense.

The four key experienced linebackers for the Panthers finished the scrimmage as the four leading tacklers. Session led the team with 12 tackles, Blades had 11 and both Brian Bennett and Malcolm Postell finished with 10. These tackles were accompanied by several big plays.

“I think we will be a lot better with me, Clint [Session], Brian [Bennett] all playing together another year,” Blades said. “We all play much faster cause we know what is going on now.”

One of the many big plays occurred early, when Session tipped a Tyler Palko pass and fellow linebacker Postell made the interception. Session would add a half of a sack to his day, which he would share with Bennett, who finished with two-and-a-half sacks. The sacks seem to be a product of better pass rushing.

“Our defense has done a better job of rushing the passer,” head coach Walt Harris said.

All these improvements might be a result of two guys from Florida, Blades and Session. These two seem to be taking the lead of the defense and trying not to allow what happened last year to occur again.

“Defense is from the heart. You got to play nasty and you got to play dirty. Just can’t let someone come in and take over like last year,” Blades said.

This seems to be the way the defense is headed and it is a necessary change. “It doesn’t matter where you are from, we [Blades and I] came in here trying to do it right, and trying to spread that out to everyone,” Session said.

After a successful spring, the defense is well on their way, but there is one goal they still have to achieve as a defense.

“Last year we made mistakes. This year, no excuses, we are just trying to be the No. 1 defense in the nation,” Blades said.

The defense will get a chance to stake their claim to that on September 4th in South Florida.