From theory to action: Trust of coordinators is part of Miles’ ISU plan

By Todd Golden
The Tribune-Star

TERRE HAUTE August 05, 2008 09:53 pm

— Have you ever wondered what is the football equivalent of the farm-to-market story?
You know the kind, the type of story or film on how milk makes it to the store or how mail goes from your mailbox to someone else’s.
How does a new football staff take offensive and defensive theory and map out a plan to put it into action? That’s a task any new coach faces and it was no different when Indiana State hired Trent Miles in December.
The nuts and bolts of it really starts with the coordinators. When Miles hired offensive coordinator Bill Diedrick and defensive coordinator Shannon Jackson, he had men he felt he could trust, and that’s half the battle.
“I know them as people and I know them as football coaches. We have the same philosophies. They know what I want, they know how I want to go about getting it done and they’re experienced,” Miles said.
“I’m not going to change their style. We come to a conclusion on how we want it done and I let them do it.”
But like any management team in any vocation, every coach works with his subordinates in a different way. It’s one thing to join an established staff and fall in line, it’s another to start from scratch.
Jackson and Diedrick offered some recent insight into how they fit into ISU’s blueprint.
DEFENSE
Jackson is not new to ISU, but his coordinator position is. Jackson was a Sycamore defensive lineman from 1995-99, a graduate assistant under Tim McGuire in 2000, and a defensive assistant coach from 2000-04. He subsequently spent three seasons at Eastern Illinois as a defensive assistant.
“You kind of form ideas you have as a coach after working with three different coordinators. I took something from each of them. Trent has been a lot of places too, so he brings what ideas he has for defense,” Jackson said.
Jackson had not worked with Miles before, but Miles was familiar with him because of his ISU lineage.
“Once I got here, we just sat here and talked. We talked about philosophies, techniques and expectations on defense. What do we want to be as a defense? Then it goes to the personnel. What personnel do we have? These are the guys we have now, so when we recruit our first class, these are the kids we want on the defense. Those are the kinds of things we talked about,” Jackson said.
It helped that the system Miles and Jackson wanted to run, Jackson calls it a 4-2-5 with 4-3-3 principles, was already put in place by interim coach Dennis Raetz in 2007. That doesn’t mean the defense was ready to run right out of the box. Due to graduation among the linebackers and a general paucity of quality defensive line personnel, recruiting sheer numbers was vital if a defensive foundation was to be laid in 2008 for the future.
“I thought when we got here, our secondary was OK number-wise. Up front? We were short on defensive line and linebackers. So we had to recruit. It’ll be the same thought process for next year’s class,” Jackson said.
With so many bodies absent during spring drills on both sides of the ball — 42 new Sycamores hit the practice field last week when fall training camp began — laying a defensive foundation required a soft touch. If the coaches hit the players with too much, it ran the risk of being counter-productive.
“During the spring, we kept it simple. We put in two coverages and two fronts. We wanted to be sure that this is our philosophy as we go forward. We wanted to establish what our character is going to be on defense,” Jackson said.
And what will that character be? Given that the Sycamores conceded 49.1 points per game in 2007, they’re starting from scratch. But the immediate goals are to improve defense against the run (the Sycamores gave up a whopping 329 yards per game), force more turnovers and just force more three- and four-down situations.
“The key for us is not to go off our plan or vision. This year is about laying the foundation and not getting off course. It’s exciting to lay the foundation and in a couple years, we’ll see what work the coaches and players put in becomes,” Jackson said.
OFFENSE
Unlike Jackson, who is working with Miles for the first time, Diedrick and Miles are long-time cohorts.
The pair began their working relationship in 2001 at Stanford when Diedrick was the offensive coordinator and Miles was the Cardinal’s wide receivers coach. When Diedrick was named offensive coordinator at Notre Dame in 2002, Miles went with him and coached the receivers for the Fighting Irish until 2004.
The pair were split when Miles became the tailbacks coach at Washington from 2005 to 2007, but the bond never disappeared. The offensive plan was a matter of re-establishing symmetry between the two men.
“It was an easy transition, Trent and I have known each other and worked together for a while. We don’t have to figure each other out. There’s an understanding there. We each have a similar type of philosophy, not only of what we want to do, but how we want to do it,” said Diedrick, who has been a recipient of the American Football Coaches Association Lifetime Award.
It was easy, in part, because Miles’ way of working with his assistants was heavily influenced by working under Diedrick.
“I think as a coordinator, I’ve always wanted the rest of the offensive staff to be very involved in the decisions, the game-planning, the scouting and all of that. It’s our offense. It’s not my offense,” Diedrick said. “I think Trent is very much like that. He gives input, he’ll add what he wants to the gameplan, but using that philosophy gives him freedom to do other things. That’s why I look so forward to working with him.”
So what is that philosophy? ISU will run a multiple offense with an emphasis on the run. Personnel was added to bring that along, notably quarterback Calvin Schmidtke, who is competing with Charles Dowdell for the starting spot, and tackle Zach Duke, who joins an almost completely new offensive line. Beyond that, Diedrick won’t accept quick fixes.
“We won’t take any short cuts. There’s no quick fixes, especially with the situation the program was in. It was about as low as you can go,” Diedrick said. “You can build a house, but if it doesn’t have a foundation, it won’t last long. We want to build a program that will be successful for a long time.”
Laying the foundation becomes a mix of keeping things simple in the short term.
“Instead of giving the receivers 25 goals, like last year, I want them to give effort every play, consistently. Can they do that every play? Probably not, but can they get close to that? Yes. The closer they get, the more it gives them a chance to be the football player they’re capable of being. You challenge them individually, but you challenge them as a team,” Diedrick said.
Jackson and Diedrick have been given the freedom to challenge the players on their units as they see fit. Miles doesn’t think it’s productive to do it any other way.
“I’ve been with some coaches that weren’t willing to listen. I think you need to communicate, be on the same page at all times, and just do it. The coaches I worked with that weren’t willing to listen to anybody, what are [the assistant coaches] there for? Why are you paying them to be there?” Miles said. “In the long run, [the vision of the program] is exactly what I want done, but I’m smart enough to listen if there’s a different suggestion. I’d be stupid not to listen. I know what I want, but there’s different ways to go about getting it.”

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