With Jacksonville State football entering its fifth week of practice next week, the two new defensive hires have started to make an impact and have gathered early first impression of the Gamecocks.
The bigger hire of the two by Rich Rodriguez was Luke Olson joining the staff at defensive coordinator after Zac Alley left to take the same role with Oklahoma. Olson was the Tulsa defensive coordinator in 2022 and spent 2023 as an analyst at TCU. The other hire was Brandon Napoleon, from Rhode Island, as the safeties coach. They join returning staff members William Green (Defensive line), Terry Jefferson (cornerbacks) and Pat Kirkland (Bandits) on the defensive side.
For Olson, the Jax State job was an opportunity for him to get back into coordinating and calling a defense. While he didn’t know much about the players, or even some of the coaches, he knew Rodriguez and he ended up lucking out with the players.
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“I know about coach Rod and got to talk to him,” Olson said. “I came up here, took the job and hadn’t met the guys yet, hadn’t really met the players yet. I had been out of coordinating for a year and I had the chance to get back into coordinating, call a defense, doing what I love. It just happened to be a really good situation to step into with some kids who want to be great, I’m lucky to be here.”
Olson has been on campus and around the program since late January but has only really been on the field for 10 practices since spring camp started on March 9 in the lead up to the spring game on April 19 at 6 p.m. in JSU Stadium. A major impression that he has seen is the willingness to learn the scheme and system. Multiple players have requested extra meeting time, even those who are outside the linebacker position that he helps oversee.
“The biggest thing that stuck out to me is these guys work hard and they want to be coached. A lot of kids in recruiting say they want to be coached hard, but they don’t mean it. These kids you can see it, they come in and they’re asking for extra meeting time, they want to go through stuff, other positions are coming up to me and going, ‘Coach can I get some extra time with you?’ And get on the board,” Olson said.
So far the early impressions is that the defense has been making continued strides during spring practice, even being the leaders during some of the practices. One area that has led the charge has been the secondary, more specifically the safeties who are under new leadership with Napoleon, who has helped infuse a new energy into the safeties and its spreading across the secondary and down the defense.
“He brings a lot of energy, the guys love his energy,” Olson said. “He’s really intelligent, I can talk to him about some technique things and he picks it up like that or he already knows what I am talking about.”
Rodriguez has noticed the energy that the new hires, especially from Napoleon, who might’ve been even more energetic before the injury. He also has liked what he’s been seeing defensively as they have brought in a new scheme.
“You should see him before he tore his Achilles, its probably crushing him…I like the energy that they bring,” Rodriguez said. “We’re doing some different stuff on defense, which our guys are learning.”
With the new hires there have been some changes to the Jax State scheme, but it looks to have the same ability to change looks. While they are working on installing the defense, some looks have remained basic early in spring but it looks like the Gamecocks will be moving to more of a nickel base defense for 2024, making Napoleon all the more valuable.
“We’ll typically have five DBs on the field, we can kind of stim around and give different looks from a 3-4, 3-3-5, we can get into a four-man front. We can be extremely multiple and get into a lot of different stuff,” Olson said.
Maxwell Donaldson covers high school sports and Jacksonville State athletics for the Gadsden Times. Find him on Twitter/X @_Max_Donaldson and contact him at [email protected].
2024-04-04 09:08:02
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