Clemson’s Steele ready to counter offenses

By Robert Rousseau  |   Monday, March 23, 2009  |  Comments( 1 )

Clemson Tigers
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When Clemson Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney hired Kevin Steele as his defensive coordinator, those who follow the team knew that there would be some changes. So far, though, Steele doesn’t appear to be into change for change’s sake.

“Before I do anything here I want to make sure that everyone clearly understands that this thing is not broke,” Steele recently told the media. “They were pretty good here on defense. They had a good coach, they were well coached, and they had a good scheme. But obviously there has been a change.”

That said, his style is going to bring change at Clemson, even if some things stay the same. While predecessor Vic Keonning's defense was more about field position, Steele’s defense “will be more formation oriented in terms of alignment.” Steele is serving notice that it will be a major priority and perhaps a change in mode of operation.

“The blitz will be according to down and distance, who is the quarterback, and what is the score,” he said, reinforcing this theme. “I like to blitz because that is my personality, but you will not coach defense long if you blitz Peyton Manning just because you like to blitz.”

Famous words to live by, without question.

Steele's verbalizations appear to indicate he’s more of an X's and O's guy than anything else. Then again, words are words and actions are actions. Steele has been successful in the past. Let’s see what he can do with the Tigers.
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About Robert Rousseau

Robert Rousseau is a sports writer that has been published in a variety of print and online venues. He’s been writing for RealFootball365.com for almost three years now. When Rousseau isn’t writing about college football he tends to be penning mixed martial arts pieces for MMAFighting.com or ...
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