Clay,
I enjoyed reading your tackling report concerning a new emphasis on the most important thing in defense, tackling.
If I am reading it right, according to Ramirez this is the first time that tackling has really been drummed into them since he has been on The Hill. Can that really be?
We have a head coach that is a defensive guy. We have had some highly regarded defensive coaches. So it is hard to understand how this can be true although the results on the field certainly support the lack of focus on tackling. In fact it is the pathetic tackling that makes it so hard to buy into the idea that this same group of lbs and dbs is suddenly going to be good this season.
I would love to hear what Coach B would have to say about this and I am curious about your thoughts.
Every time I read a story like this that same type of question comes to mind. What the heck have you been doing all this time if suddenly there is a new emphasis on something so fundamental and crucial as tackling?
Your thoughts please.
It seems like when coach Smith first started we read something very similar about all the emphasis on tackling and how it was not done in the past and now was key and what great tacklers they would be. Could be wrong about that, but I think that happened. One for for certain, they could not tackle anybody last year. I think a lot of that is desire and want to. Did not see much of that. Hopefully, this will help. No doubt, Coach Rhoades knowes his stuff.
In listening to Paul Rhoads and the players last night, they didn’t say this is the first time Arkansas has focused on tackling; they said it was the first time they have done tackling drills during the summer.
To be honest, I never had thought much about tackling outside of practice. You hear about how quarterbacks and receivers work together during the off-season, but you rarely hear anything from defenders other than that they run and lift weights. We’ll see if it works out, but it’s an interesting concept.
The fourth period of practice (form tackling) is an all hands on deck drill for the defense, from the coaches to the players.
I’ve never heard of ANY team doing tackling drills in the summer. It’s a first as far as I know. I’ve never heard of it anywhere, any place. Generally, there are no pads (tackling dummies) out there that I’ve ever seen with any team, any place and any time. I think it’s a novel idea. I’ve never heard of it before. And, I’m not just talking about at Arkansas.
Robb Smith emphasized tackling to the point that he had a circuit with pinpoint drills for every aspect of tackling and they did it to start every practice. Different coaches emphasize it in different ways. If you have followed my writing of the Razorbacks during Robb Smith’s time, you should clearly have read the emphasize of that tackling circuit training that he did.
I probably should have explained that more in depth in the story I wrote yesterday. If you are left with that question then I did a poor job of writing it and comparing it with the past – at any level of football.
I think Paul Rhoads is reaching for new tools to improve the tackling. Using the dummies to practice footwork and hand placement (palms always up) is a good summer technique. Of course, Rhoads can’t be out there with them in the summer when they do that, but Santos said they worked on it anyway.