WSU’s Defense Rubs Off On Donahue Ucla’s New Emphasis On Speed Looks Quite Familiar To Cougars
UCLA will slap Washington State with an entirely different defensive look Saturday when the two teams line up at 12:30 p.m. in Martin Stadium in front of an expected crowd of nearly 35,000 and a regional ABC television audience.
Instead of their traditional 3-4 alignment, the 16th-ranked Bruins (0-1 Pacific-10 Conference, 2-1 overall) will go with four defensive linemen and three smallish, but extremely athletic, linebackers.
They will be quicker, faster and more aggressive than they have been in the past.
And they will blitz, stunt and run recklessly to the football like … well, like the Cougars.
It’s all part of a change in defensive philosophy that grew out of the frustration coach Terry Donahue experienced in last year’s 21-0 loss to WSU at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.
It was only the second time UCLA had been shut out since 1971 and Donahue recalls watching Chris Hayes, a 213-pound junior linebacker, run from sideline to sideline dragging down UCLA ball carriers.
Hayes’ performance convinced Donahue that speed - not size - was the key to great defense. And the old dog of Pac-10 coaches, in his 20th season at UCLA, proved that he was capable of learning some new tricks.
This fall, he moved All-American outside linebacker Donnie Edwards, a 6-foot-3, 228-pounder, from outside linebacker to middle linebacker and brought former safeties Abdul McCullough (6-0, 210) and Tommy Bennett (6-1, 204) up to play at the strongside and weakside linebacker spots.
He also moved 235-pound junior Phillip Ward from outside linebacker to defensive end and turned him loose as a primary pass rusher.
“It’s really kind of similar to what our defense runs, the same kind of 4-3 package that is predicated on speed,” WSU offensive coordinator John McDonell said of UCLA’s defensive changes, “penetrating with their defensive line and letting their linebackers run around.”
And Donahue is quick to explain that the similarity is no accident.
“Washington State’s (defense) influenced us, there’s no question about it,” he said. “I have great respect and admiration for (Cougars coach) Mike Price. I just saw what he did with the Washington State defense - took some guys that maybe weren’t the biggest guys in the world, but who could run - and turned the whole defensive image around.
“But we’ve not been able to make anywhere near as strong a transition, defensively, as Washington State.”
UCLA’s defense looked splendid in a season-opening 31-8 rout of Miami and a 23-9 pasting of Brigham Young the following week. But Oregon exposed a few weaknesses last Saturday while knocking off the Bruins 38-31 in the Rose Bowl.
Edwards suffered a compression fracture of the vertebrae in his neck early in that game and will be sidelined for at least a month. Sophomore Brian Willmer, a 235-pounder, will start in place of Edwards at middle linebacker Saturday against WSU.
“We played pretty good defense the first two weeks of the season,” Donahue said. “But we totally came apart last week against Oregon and had a very dismal defensive performance.
“We lost Edwards in the first quarter, though, and I’m sure his departure at such an early stage had some effect on that, because you just can’t lose an athlete that is as fast and as instinctive as he is and expect to hold up the same way.”
WSU quarterback Chad Davis feels that the similarities between UCLA’s defense and the one he works against in practice each day will benefit the Cougars.
And running back Derek Sparks agrees.
“Their personnel changes and what they’ve done is really the same thing we’ve done here at Washington State,” said Davis, who has thrown for 466 yards and two touchdowns in the Cougars’ first two games. “They’ve actually gone to our philosophy on defense.
“They have a lot of speed at linebacker, a lot of athletic ability and athletes who run around, fly to the football and make plays. But it’s something that we’re used to on offense, that’s for sure.”
“They look just like us,” Sparks said after watching video tapes of the Bruins’ defense. “They’re going with the smaller linebackers and they’re flying around and hitting people.
“That might create some problems for us as far as the different looks and stuff, but we practice against that type of defense every day, so hopefully, we can go out and execute against it on Saturday.”
McCullough, who thought he was being groomed to become the Bruins’ next great safety in the mold of Kenny Easley, Matt Darby and Othello Henderson, doesn’t seem sold on the changes - especially his own.
“The change is different in that you have to react to the run first,” he explained, “and if you look at films, I still slow-read the run and things like that because I still haven’t quite got it.
“It’s cool, I guess, and I like doing it because it helps my team out. But if I had my choice, I’d still be playing safety.
“I feel that I’m making a sacrifice to the team, but winning is all of our goals, and I want to win more than anything. So, if the coaches say this is what is going to make us win, I’ll do it.”
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