Cincinnati Bearcats Football DC Nate Woody Highlights Flexibility of Defensive System

CINCINNATI — New Cincinnati Bearcats football defensive coordinator Nate Woody sat down with football radio color commentator Tony Pike this week for an extended chat on From The 513.

Woody just introduced his 3-4 blitzing scheme defense to Bearcats fans in last week's press conference, and he's excited to fit the system to Cincinnati's talent.

The unit only produced 10 turnovers last season (116th nationally), 1.77 sacks per game (93rd), and ranked 108th in stop rate (55% of opposing drives stopped). He's ready to bring the magic touch to turn that around.

"Once I understand the skill sets that the guys have that make them a better ball player, there's an awful lot of different schemes that you can run," Woody noted on the show. "And if you can major in the schemes that allow the guys to be the best that they can be. I think you want to use the best skill sets that you have available to you, and flexibility sometimes is a good thing.

"So I've based out of a 3-4 personnel, three down linemen and four linebackers. But the type of athlete that's at any of those linebacker spots may be different from year to year. Some people may call that fourth linebacker to the field a nickel, recon, or an extra safety or whatever, but we'll have a lot of different packages as well. We want to get guys on the field that may not be able to learn the whole defense, the notebook from page one to the last page, but if they can learn something for us, and we can use their skill set in a package, then I think that's a really good thing to do."

Woody doesn't sound like a coach who is going to force a square peg through a round hole.

He's ready to take the litany of expected new starters on defense and mold his 3-4 scheme to fit them the best way possible. He has the freedom to find the right elixir on Scott Satterfield's staff.

"He's just a tremendous personality, great character. Does an outstanding job from an efficiency standpoint," Woody said about Satterfield. "Just trying to make sure that each coach can get his job done, handle your business."

The Bearcats have done a nice job growing the win total each of the past two seasons, but now they are expected to actually make some noise in November, and Woody's tweaks will be a big key to that.

Another November with no wins, thanks to a leaky defense, would be a tough pill to keep down for a fanbase eager to contend for championships again (1-11 in November under Satterfield).

Army just went 24-9 in November with Woody leading their defense this decade, and led the AAC in total defense (yards) over the past two seasons.

Check out the full chat on From The 513 below:

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