'I Don't Want a Coach to Take It Easy On Me' — How the Indiana Secondary has Embraced Matt Guerrieri's Style
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Every athlete will say they want to be coached hard. It's the admirable way for any player to approach any sport.
Likewise, no coach wants a player who says they hate coaches who are hard on mistakes. Athletes who can't take correction are not ones that coaches want to have in their locker rooms.
It's a symbiotic relationship where both coach and player demand the pursuit of perfection on the field.
From a PR standpoint, that's what every single college football team in America wants to put out there. But we all know it's not universally true. There are coaches out there who let mistakes slide, and players who are perturbed by the perceived nagging of their coaches for every error.
Indiana is not one of those places, especially in the secondary, where Matt Guerrieri has taken over as safeties coach and defensive coordinator. Players on the back line of the Hoosiers' defense want to be great in 2023, and they appreciate the standard their new leader has established.
"The thing I like most about coach Guerrieri is he coaches really hard. I love that, honestly," Indiana defensive back Louis Moore said. "I don’t want a coach to take it easy on me. He corrects everything. He just coaches hard, and that’s what you want."
While Indiana's secondary was far from the biggest problem the Hoosiers faced in 2022, it still didn't act as an overwhelming strength for the team.
After multiple seasons spent as one of the most opportunistic defenses in the country, Indiana only generated a moderate number of takeaways in 2022, and even worse, they surrendered 280.5 passing yards per game. It was the fifth most passing yards allowed per game by any team in all of the Power Five last season.
Coach Tom Allen hired Guerrieri away from Ohio State to change that in 2023. He's here to remind the defense, and particularly the secondary, that just being "not the biggest problem on the team" is not good enough.
"You got to come with it every day, or he's gonna chew you out," starting Indiana safety Josh Sanguinetti said. "He gets on top of everything. Even if we make a good play, there's a right way to do [things], and a wrong way to do things, so he'll just be on us for all the little things. I like him a lot."
Every team wants to improve on how it was the season before. That's particularly true for a team like Indiana, which went 4-8 and won only two conference games. That much is obvious.
But talking to players and coaches throughout fall camp, there's a sense that they feel they left meat on the bone in 2022. They believe there was enough talent in the building last season to be more than that, and there definitely is enough in 2023 to be a vastly improved squad.
That's why Indiana players have been so receptive to Guerrieri's "No B.S." coaching style, as Sanguinetti called it. They know that just trying somewhat hard and approaching practice the same way they did in 2022 will get them the same poor results they had in 2022.
"You don’t want players [just] getting by, because at the end of the day, we’re on the field together," Moore said. "Knowing we’re getting coached right, we know our responsibilities, and it’s going to make us better."
Those on the outside might roll their eyes at some of the quotes coming from Indiana players and coaches at fall camp, as they do with most preseason headlines. Every player is in the best shape of their life. Every new coach has injected something new that's perfect for the team. Everything is going great and the team believes it has what it takes.
The 2023 Indiana fall camp has been no different, but again, there's a pointed message through it all — last year was not approached the right way. This year, there are a lot of new players, a lot of new coaches and a new mindset in place. Guerrieri is one of the most important new faces in the room, and his players believe he's put them in the place they need to be entering the 2023 season.
"If we play within our scheme and play our defense right, we'll stop anybody," Sanguinetti said. "It don't matter if it's Ohio State, Purdue [or] anybody. We just play our defense and play within our system, and we'll beat anybody."
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