Michigan State DC Scottie Hazelton on Implementing the Defense
Michigan State football completed its second week of practice following the Big Ten's decision to reinstate college football and suited up in full pads for the first time on September 30.
But for the Spartans, it's been a long road, and over the last few months, the coaching staff did everything they could to implement the defense.
"The staff really did a good job trying to come up with a plan to get them moving when we were on Zoom calls and stuff like that. And the guys bought into it too, which was a cool thing," defensive coordinator Scottie Hazelton said.
While religiously working on their communication through Zoom, it wasn't the same; it wasn't football.
However, the players needed to learn what coaches were going to talk about when they returned to the field.
"That helped to transition when we actually got to start going," said Hazelton. "But the wonderful thing for us was those first four days of the first fall camp, for us to get some of that stuff on tape and just start working through those things really, really helped us."
Now that the Spartans are back at practice installing the defense is a massive area of focus, especially with the season less than a month away.
"We have great minds all over the place on this, and everybody's run a different scheme. And we're trying to take the best from each defense and kind of put it in, but we've got to be able to make it all work together. So we're going figure that out," Hazelton said.
Under former head coach Mark Dantonio, the roster was constructed to run a 4-3 defense, so that's where Hazelton started.
The new coordinator is sticking to what he's already said – the Spartans will focus on what their players already know before he tries to implement different schemes.
"So we're figuring that piece out as we continue to go," said Hazelton. "The start was good for us, and then we broke, but to come back, we're still implementing our defense right now."
With players back in pads, the real evaluations start because, in his eyes, wearing "pajamas" (non-padded practices) isn't "real ball."
"As we move forward, it's gonna see how the guys really play in pads when it's real ball, not in pajamas and stuff like that, and see how far we can progress," Hazelton said. "Because when you start to see guys start to slow down, well then we know, OK, that's probably good right there, we need to go back and redo it again. And that's kind of what we're doing now that we've got pads on."
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