Everything From Defensive Coordinator Blake Gideon In Tuesday's Press Conference

Georgia Tech Defensive coordinator Blake Gideon is five games in as the coordinator for the Yellow Jackets, and today, after practice, gave his thoughts on where the unit is early in the season and much more.

On his first five games as defensive coordinator…

“Yeah, the fun part is that our guys fight until the very last play, very last whistle. I mean, one of the most helpless feelings, I think, especially as a defensive coach, is if your guys lose fight, right, and then it really doesn't matter what you call or what stage of the game it is or what they're doing on offense. I think we've all seen that now. A few examples of that this year, that our guys have an ability to adjust and forget the last play remember the good, but also learn from the bad and move forward, so a ton of credit to those guys in that locker room for having that maturity and that mental toughness and that togetherness to not not lose trust in their training and lose trust in the system and each other.

As far as myself, I mean, I'm always going to look at myself first. I think I can put guys in a lot better positions to make plays and finish plays and simplify it down for them. That's one of the first things I look at, especially having the secondary background that I have. Things get moving fast back there in the back end, and you don't want those guys hesitating, right? So belief in what they're seeing, belief in the call and what they're looking at, that's one thing. I'm trying to alleviate that hesitation with how we call it and how we train it throughout the week, and how we progress that teaching but through five games, we have a talent for winning, you know, I'll give us that. I've made that comment before about a lot of teams I played against, like man, that's a championship program, like they just don't go away. They have a talent for winning, and however it looks, whatever the score and the stat sheet looks like at the end of the day, they're there to give themselves a chance to win at the end of the game. So again, a ton of credit to those guys in that locker room, especially, I mean, I'm still a newbie, right? They're having to take my word for it on a lot of things and still be able to go out there and execute in some high-tense, high-stress environments. So good enough to win so far.

On what is the next step is for the defense…

“I think you've got to be careful during these bye weeks of, well, that hadn't been a great call for us. Let's just scrap it. Let's throw it in the trash, and let's see what we can do, fundamentally technique-wise, eye control-wise, to clean up some of the self imposed issue plays. I've got some great guys, older guys on that, that defensive staff that say, Hey man, it's all good. They hit us on that one. Don't throw that call away. It's a good call for us. Which one thing you're never going to accuse me of is, well, just continuing to do the same thing and getting hurt by the same thing. We're going to make changes. We're going to make the necessary changes to put ourselves in better positions, be successful, and play the style of defense we want to play. At the same time, we do need to take a look at ourselves first during this bye week, and that's what we've spent all day the past couple of days doing. I haven't even peeked at Virginia Tech yet. Their time will come. We will. We'll get some work in on them this week, surely, and get a jump start there. We need to look at ourselves first, just technique, leveraging the ball, getting off blocks, tackling, finishing plays whenever we're there to make them. We can say we need to make more plays or we need to do this or do that, but we can put them in better positions as coaches, and that starts with me.”

On Rodney Shelley and working in other guys with the injury to Shelley…

“Yeah, it's kind of a blessing in disguise that we get a chance to see who else can do what right in big moments, right, um, those first couple games to where Rod was out. You don't just lose the ability of that player, you lose the experience of having played a bunch of snaps, um, and so I think we answered a lot of questions about that room. I'm pleased with where that room is at um, some of the little things that don't always show up in a corner stat sheet, but how they're tackling, how they're coming to support the run, and how they're communicating. We ask a lot more of our corners communication-wise to make things right, to work in cohesion with the safeties and linebackers, instead of a lot of systems may ask those guys just be quiet, sit over there and cover number one. We ask a lot more of them.

So it's not easy to get thrown into the fire like Zach Toby was, some of those young guys that have had to be on the ready. Now that Rod is back, we've developed some of that depth that we were a little uncertain about going into the season, right? It was Ahmari and Rodney, and then, okay, we got talent behind them, but what are those guys going to do when the lights turn on? For Rod specifically, and I think he'd tell you the same thing, it's kind of like a swimmer losing the feel for the water after they don't get in the pool for a couple of days. There are some things that I know he's kicking himself about, the few games that he's been back. Eye control things or simple technique things that's just part of it. You know, there's a little bit of growing pains getting back in the swing of things, but I think we're settling into a nice place in that room.

On complementary football and how the defense has been an important unit of the team…

“I appreciate you saying we've been playing good. We've got a job to do, and we do talk about that a lot. We need those guys on the other side. The whining and complaining of you know why they turn it over here, whatever, like that that hasn't shown up at all in our locker room, that's something we addressed back in January when I got here. We've got a job to do, and it really doesn't matter where that series starts or what the circumstances are. I think that just shows again the maturity of our team, that okay, a turnover happens, right? Like our season started coming off a turnover, you know? It didn't work out great in that opening series, but then it happened a couple more times. Well, our guys have an ability to be even-keeled and not get so emotional and get overcome by the atmosphere and the stadium and the momentum that is so important in college football. I'm continuously impressed by those guys' ability, like their self-talk, how they deal with each other. At first, I'm like, okay, after a turnover, it's like, all right, we got to get them going. We have to reset their focus. I hadn't had to do that this year. They know. Like, we go into halftime, 17-3 or whatever it was this past weekend, and there wasn't any yelling.

There weren't any throwing chairs, anything in the locker room. It's like, this is what they're doing. This is what we're going to do. We got to make this play. I got to make this call. I got to trust our guys to make this call. There's really no room, there's no time to consider, you know, well, this wasn't a great situation to be put in. In my mind, that's the opportunity for greatness, right? If the ball gets turned over deep in your zone, right, our guys have shown up a lot in those scenarios. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. We got a lot of growing to do. Nothing says you can't grow during the season. You'd better grow playing in this league at this level to get to where you want to be. You'd better get better as the season goes on. I like where that group is, just maturity-wise, and there's no pointing the finger.

It's not always that way and it's not just a snap of the finger and your guys are all sudden mature and your guys all of a sudden deal with adversity at the level you want them to our guys have put in work to be in the position that they're at and you put in that work for hard times right when it's easy it's easy everybody can go out there right right? When everything's going your way and the ball's falling into your hands and all that good stuff, but when it's hard, that's where the character of your team shows up, and I feel good about what our character is in that locker room.”

On if he had a good feeling about the two point conversion and what could happen…

“We watched tape, too. There are tendencies that you play based on a lot of factors. I felt really good about the call we had and us executing that call. You play the tendencies, and like on that play, okay, everything told you sprint out to the field, but then they also had the wide delay coming off of it, right, that Kyle Effort and Zach Tobe on the backside were there to capture. So it's all 11 working together, and that's where I've seen a lot of growth in our team because we can only do so much as coaches. Whenever we call that timeout, you know, to send them out there to go win the game, those guys are telling each other, watch this, watch that, alert for this, they're going to do this. A lot of it is the self-awareness of what has worked for that offense previously in the game. The wide delay had worked twice before in the game. They know that teams are going to come back to what works. So you got to be honest with yourself and know what's worked against you and how are they're going to try to take advantage of you individually and our defense as a whole.

Credit to our guys executing in that moment when we did not play a great game. I mean, just up and down. I don't know if we made a single tangible goal on defense in that game other than red area defense, right? They were something one for five scoring touchdowns in the red area, and that's something we look at, right? All the other stuff is fluff. Yeah, we want to stop them down there on the other 25 yard line three and out punt but it doesn't always work out that way so if they did march it down the field or they were given the ball down there that low or in a two-point conversion scenario if we don't let them in that painted area we're still going to be pleased at the end of the day so So our guys have a pride in, like I said, that painted area and keeping them out of it. So it was good to see some growth in that moment."

On dialing up blitzes and getting home more …

“It's a combination of a lot of things, me calling it aggressive at the right times, practicing those exact moments. That's one of the hardest things that you have to do, simulating the pressure and the anxiety of that moment on a Tuesday practice, because you know what's going to happen on a Saturday night. But again, we have some maturity to be able to handle those moments. Now, from my standpoint, it's taking a long look at ourselves again this week during the bye week. You have a chance to do it. Do we have the right guys on the field, and do we have them in the right positions? Right? Am I so stuck in my ways as the coordinator that, well, this is what I've done before and this is how it's looked before, that may not fit our guys the best? So I know we've got the right guys. It's on me and our coaches to get the right guys on the field and in the right positions and trained the right way. So, a combination of a lot of it. I can probably be more aggressive. By nature, I want to be sound, and so I never want to sacrifice that.

I want to have bodies on bodies, and I want guys to go win their one-on-ones. A lot of times, Coach Key talked about it this morning in the team meeting, that's really the best you can hope for, a lot in football is to win your one-on-one. It's not always the time that where you're going has a free blitzer running scott free at the quarterback. Something messed up from the offensive standpoint for that to happen. A lot of it is winning one-on-ones, and so again we could point the fingers as coaches that our players say, well they got to make more plays. We're coaches. We need to coach them into better situations coach them into better situations, coach them into better techniques. I'm a big believer that a lot of those techniques are decided pre-snap based on the picture the offense is showing and what your film is showing individually. So why is every offensive tackle I'm playing against this year setting me this way? What are you showing on film? There's something that they're attacking. There's a weakness of yours that they're attacking. So we're looking at all that stuff right now. But to answer your question, it's a combination of technique, eyes being in the right place, and alignment being right. When it comes to pressuring the quarterback, especially with the front four alignment, it can make or break those moments. So we've got to make sure we hammer down on the details, and details are what win.”

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