Venables: Three beliefs and a dose of leadership

How has Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables built the Tiger defense into a unit that can withstand losing players to the NFL draft on a yearly basis?

CLEMSON—How has Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables built the Tiger defense into a unit that can withstand losing players to the NFL draft on a yearly basis? 

It is due, in part, to his three basic beliefs he tries to instill into his defense each season.

“I think attitude, belief, confidence, those three things… just to be a good competitor in anything," Venables said. "I think those are great qualities and traits to have. Having the right kind of attitude, it’s the mindset. It’s got to come to attitude as opposed to ‘Ah man, they’ve got the ball down here, they’re going to score. It’s easy points.’ And then the belief, be patient and play it one play at a time, you can have success. It takes a lot of toughness and courage to do that too.”

However, there is one area that Venables has little to no control over—the leadership on his defense because that is dependent on the players buying in and taking ownership.

All of which made the leadership of the 2019 Tigers the biggest area of concern. The Tigers had a bevy of very talented players returning from the 2018 team, but they lost all of their leadership.

“We lost a lot of great leadership…great leadership," Venables said. "Trayvon Mullen was a great leader in the secondary...and Kendall (Joseph), J.D. and Judah (Davis), and Jalen (Williams). There’s five guys and then Shaq (Smith) (who transferred in the spring) was a really good leader. Shaq was a guy that hadn’t played, our best leader for a guy that hadn’t played as much. He just had a lot of respect. There are six linebackers you’ve lost. 

"Then again, you lost not only the foursome, but then you lost (Albert Huggins). You know, a guy like Chris Register was a well-respected guy that brings know-how and experience and things like that, and ownership. That’s a lot of what leadership is. It’s, ‘I’ve paid the price. I don’t want a real small little sliver over here and this matters to me. It matters what you do and your attitude, and so forth.’"

This year's Tiger defense has experienced a level of success through the first three games that few around the country expected given everything they lost off last year's team.

The Tigers currently rank seventh nationally in scoring defense, 14th in rush defense and 15th in total defense. 

Venables credits the Tigers' success this season to the leadership that has morphed from a group of four defensive linemen being the vocal leaders to seven players sharing in the responsibility of holding the Tigers to their standard.

"Some guys have bigger roles on the field so you feel like there’s more of a leadership, but everybody can contribute leadership," Venables said. "To see that group of guys really come into their own, and I’m talking about the returning guys on the secondary, I’m talking about Isaiah (Simmons), Chad (Smith), and Jamie (James Skalski) in particular being good leaders. We took it from that foursome and those backers and now it’s kind of transformed that back seven as a whole providing a lot of good leadership.”