LB Jake Hansen citing struggles as missed assignments along with tackling
Ask Lovie Smith what’s wrong with the defense and he’ll see first and likely multiple times that it’s all about missing tackles.
The Illinois fourth-year head coach has mentioned the multiple missed tackles immediately after the 40-17 loss at Minnesota Saturday, repeated his point Monday afternoon and said it once more Tuesday morning following a practice.
“I’ve talked about tackling a lot lately,” Smith said Monday. “How do big plays happen? Missed tackles. It’s something we’ll continue to work on.”
Illinois (2-3, 0-2 in Big Ten) currently sits 98th among Football Bowl Subdivision schools in rushing defense by allowing 183.2 yards per contest on the ground, which includes 346 to Nebraska and 332 to Minnesota in the last two games.
Illinois head coach Lovie Smith cites missed tackles as the reason for his team's defensive struggles.
Smith, the defensive guru who led the Bears to the Super Bowl, certainly isn’t wrong but his senior co-captain at linebacker said Monday he sees something else too.
“We did miss one-one-one opportunities and missed tackles in the open field but honestly, we were also out of our assignments a lot as well,” Illinois junior linebacker Jake Hansen said. “It’s hard to make the tackle when you’re not where you’re supposed to be and the way the coaches practice for us to be through the week.”
On Sunday, we at Illini Maven at Sports Illustrated looked into this idea of the Illinois defense doing a poor job of holding the perimeter edge and allowing Minnesota’s big runs to get outside the tackle box before a tackle was also missed.
Hansen stressed heavily Monday that practice, where the Illini (like most college programs) rarely ever allow tackling to the ground or even anything more than thudding throughout the week to limit injuries, is where these problems can get the problems with the run defense fixed.
“The attention to detail and doing your job needs to be there more and yeah, put that on captains like myself to get that turned around,” Hansen said. “Not tackling in practice is the risk everybody and all coaches take to maintain depth throughout the season.”
One example Hansen mentioned Monday of Illinois defensive players taking the practice drills to the playing surface on Saturdays is turnovers. Lovie Smith’s defenses have historically always practiced the idea of creating turnovers and turning those opportunities into points. Hansen leads the nation in forced fumbles with four and fumbles recovered with three entering this weekend’s matchup against No. 16 Michigan (11 a.m., ABC) For the first time since 2010, Illinois had multiple defensive touchdowns. Smith and Hansen both said the linebacker’s strip-sack that resulted in a defensive score for Milo Eifler is something drilled every time they’re on the practice field.
“I hope it is contagious,” Smith said. “Jake Hansen has made play after play for us. (It was a) great pass rush and when you get to the quarterback to not think ‘oh, I made a sack’ but to also get the football out. But it’s so much more than that. When you don’t play the run well, it offsets some of the positives that come from (turnovers created).”