Say Hello to Derrick Smith: The Newest Defensive ‘Freak’ at Illinois
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- It’s not often you get a nickname before you ever play a single snap of action but more than one of his Illinois teammates already have a one-word description for Derrick Smith.
“He’s kind of like a freak because he’s a big guy, 6-2, playing back there at safety,” Illinois defensive back Tony Adams said. “He moves very well. He’s picking up the defense kind of like a freak. I think the biggest thing you see, even without the pads, is he’s going to bring it every time. You can just hear it, the way he speaks, the way he talks just a fearless approach. You kind of like that as a player."
What Brown is trying to describe is the newest member of the safety meeting room this season and a 220-pound athlete who is sure to see the playing field in several different ways in Lovie Smith’s 2020 defense. Smith’s athletic gifts is something that has been missing from the run fits of an Illini defense that, while leading the Big Ten in 2019 in takeaways with 28, was 13th in a 14-team league in stopping the run as opponents averaged 195.94 yards on the ground.
“His size is definitely something that’s going to help us in the secondary," Illinois junior safety Sydney Brown said. “Derrick brings a different physicality to our secondary that’s going to be extremely helpful this season. I can’t wait to see him out there."
At 220 pounds, Derrick Smith is uniquely qualified to play in the Illini secondary, which he played as a freshman at Miami (Fla.) and at Trinity Christian Academy in Jacksonville, Fla., but after transferring to Illinois prior to the 2019 season, the Illini head coach and defensive play-caller wanted to see him in practice at linebacker.
Fans of Lovie Smith’s defenses in the NFL should be familiar to how he likes to use this body type in his secondary with comparisons of how Adam Archuleta, Mike Brown and Danieal Manning were used by Lovie Smith in his time in the NFL. The difference between Derrick Smith is he is at least four inches taller and carries 10 more pounds of weight than those three critical former NFL veteran safeties in Lovie Smith’s 4-3, Cover-2 defensive scheme.
“The prototype at strong safety and outside linebacker, it’s a similar athlete that we play with,” Lovie Smith said. “When you’re new coming in, we’re going to move you around a little bit and see where the best place for you will be. That’s just kind of standard on what we do. After we’ve had a chance to work with him, we feel pretty good about him being where we have him now, and that’s the safety position.”
Derrick Smith is seen as one of the biggest recruiting wins in Lovie Smith’s tenure of turning Illinois into the Power Five Conference version of ‘Transfer Portal U’ as the former Miami four-star recruit choose the Illini in Aug. 2019 over immediate offers from Florida, Texas and Nebraska. After sitting out last season due to NCAA transfer regulations, Smith's biggest asset to an already crowded Illinois secondary comes in the form of physical pain.
“He’s a hitter,” Lovie Smith said. “As far as his skill set, he’s a little bit bigger safety. That would tell you he should be pretty good in run support, which he is. We’re expecting big things for him that way. He also has a good skill set as far as passes are concerned — good hands.”
Not a bad skill set to have when you’re going to see a downhill rushing attack in the opening week as Illinois opens Big Ten football on Friday night at No. 19 Wisconsin and their running game that has averaged over 200 yards per game every year since 2016.
“I really like any type of contact. Anything with contact, I love it. I’m just a very physical person in general,” Derrick Smith said. “I still box in the offseason. I put the gloves on sometime here and there, just for a little conditioning.”
Yes, Derrick Smith’s father brought him to a boxing gym starting in middle school to get his son used to physical sports and to get solid consistent conditioning workouts.
“All that came in as a part of football," said Smith, a junior safety on the Illinois football team, who will make his Illini debut on Oct. 23. "Baseball helps with tracking the ball. Boxing can help you with jamming the offensive player or anything like that — and you’re physical. My dad was big on putting me in everything to build my attributes up."