CINCINNATI — A swarm of students returned to the Cincinnati campus this weekend to mark the end of winter break and the start of the spring semester. That included several Bearcats football players, many of whom hadn’t been in town since returning from the Fenway Bowl on Dec. 17.
Head coach Scott Satterfield and the team held a return meeting Sunday, which offered the first opportunity for some of the recently hired coaches on Satterfield’s staff to meet with players in person.
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That was not the case for new defensive coordinator Bryan Brown and much of Cincinnati’s returning defensive line.
“They were here working out over the break, here every day getting it in,” Brown said Tuesday, speaking with local media for the first time since arriving in Cincinnati. “I haven’t seen anything like it.”
The Bearcats’ defensive line group is laced with Cincinnati and Ohio natives, many of whom hung around campus during the holidays. Seniors Jowon Briggs and Malik Vann are both Cincinnatians who announced they will use their bonus year of eligibility to return in 2023, along with Colerain graduates Dontay Corleone and Eric Phillips, Cleveland native Justin Wodlty, Columbus natives CJ Doggette and Tyler Gillison and Dayton native Derrick Shepard, among others.
Even Maryland native Dominique Perry was around during the break, with collections of those players regularly popping into the football office for film study or hitting the weight room for voluntary workouts.
Jowon Briggs (right) was a first-team All-AAC selection in 2022. (Katie Stratman / USA Today)“The D-line has been in the office pretty much every day during this break, just learning and trying to be sponges,” said Briggs, a first-team All-AAC selection at nose tackle in 2022 who will be back for a fifth season. “We’re starting to grasp a couple things.”
It gave the position group a jump on the Bearcats’ new defensive system under Brown, which uses the same three-man front Cincinnati employed for much of Luke Fickell’s tenure but with more shifting and movement along the line of scrimmage and a more aggressive, downhill style of play.
“We want to be an attacking-style defense,” Brown said. “We’re going to rush the passer as much as we can. We’re going to drop at times, but we’re going to be a really attacking-style defense here at Cincinnati.”
It’s a notable change from the knockback style the Bearcats played up front under Fickell and defensive coordinators Marcus Freeman and Mike Tressel, which focused more on holding the point of attack along the defensive line and having linebackers fill the gaps. The defenses for Cincinnati and Louisville produced similar results when it came to harassing quarterbacks in 2022, but the advanced metrics show how both teams went about it in different ways.
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The Cardinals were second in FBS with a pressure rate of 40.8 percent on opposing dropbacks, and the Bearcats were fourth at 40.1 percent, according to TruMedia statistics. Yet Louisville achieved it by blitzing on 41.5 percent of dropbacks (seventh most in FBS), and UC blitzed at a rate of just 22.9 percent (88th). Both teams had stellar defenses, but Louisville’s approach did yield more splash plays, recording 50 sacks (first in FBS), 97 tackles for loss (seventh) and 30 turnovers (third), compared with 35 sacks (27th), 92 tackles for loss (16th) and 20 turnovers (43rd) for Cincinnati.
“I think (the new system) gives the D-line a lot of freedom and opportunities to be aggressive and really put your hands on someone and get going. I think all the D-linemen will be able to benefit from that,” said Briggs, who recorded 60 tackles in 2022, including three sacks and 4.5 tackles for loss. “You don’t really get that many chances to be aggressive and just go as a D-lineman, but it seems like here we’re going to be able to play a bit.”
The defensive line has an additional layer of continuity with former Bearcats player Walt Stewart’s being retained as the position coach under Satterfield, joining Kerry Coombs as one of Cincinnati’s two holdovers from last year’s on-field staff. That collective familiarity, along with the return of players like Briggs, Vann and Corleone, should make the position a point of strength amid the transition.
“Right now, that’s probably the strongest point of this defense. We’ll continue to try to add to it and get some guys out of the portal to add to that defensive line, but I’m excited about those guys,” Brown said. “And Walt, it’s great to have a guy who played here, put his blood and sweat and tears into the university, who laid it out there on the line for this community. Great coach, great teacher, understands our scheme already. He’s doing a great job of just learning on his own. I think he has a great future ahead of him not just as a position coach but as a coordinator at some point.”
Stewart and his group will provide the foundation for what should be a new-look defense in Cincinnati, one Brown describes as “a 3-4 team with the principles of a 4-2-5, because we have five DBs on the field at all times.”
(ESPN)
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It should be noticeably different from the 3-3-5 formation the Bearcats have used since 2019, which often featured a true 3-3 stack at the first two levels and in 2022 regularly included unanimous All-American Ivan Pace Jr. blitzing from the middle linebacker position. At times against more spread and up-tempo offenses, UC would play in almost a 3-2-6 look, with the dollar linebacker (Deshawn Pace, Ty Van Fossen) dropping back as an overhang safety.
In Brown’s system, the Bearcats expect to use a more traditional outside linebacker/rush end to the boundary, a player who usually will bring pressure but can also drop into coverage to offer a different look. Yasir Abdullah played that role for the Cardinals in 2022, recording 63 tackles, 9.5 sacks, 14.5 tackles for loss, two interceptions and four forced fumbles on his way to first-team All-ACC honors. For the Bearcats, that spot likely will be filled by recent transfer addition Daniel Grzesiak from Utah State or could feature Jaheim Thomas at times.
The outside linebacker to the field side usually will be the fifth defensive back Brown mentioned, more of a nickel cornerback and ideally a player who can tackle well, rush the passer and play in man or zone coverage.
“We’ll blitz him at times, but especially going to the Big 12, you get teams now where it’s like basketball on grass. They’re throwing the football all over the place, so you want to get a little more athletic guy to the field to be able to do some different things coverage-wise,” Brown said. “It helps you make the offense question themselves. Are they bringing him? Is he in zone? In man? That’s what the 3-4 gives you — you have no idea where the fourth rusher, the fifth rusher, maybe even the sixth rusher is coming from.”
That outside linebacker/nickel cornerback could be a traditional cornerback, but it could also be a more versatile, hybrid defender like Deshawn Pace or Cincear Lewis, who both played the dollar position in Cincinnati’s 3-3-5. Brown spoke glowingly about Pace, who stopped by the football offices to talk with the coaches earlier this week.
“I’m looking forward to working with Deshawn for sure. He brings a different dynamic to the game, especially within our scheme,” Brown said. “We think he can play free safety, he can play the nickel position to the field, blitz him, do a great job in coverage, zone coverage.”
Greg Gasparato and Derek Nicholson, who joined Satterfield and Brown from Louisville, will coach the outside linebackers and inside linebackers. Cardinals transfer Dorian Jones should also give the Bearcats some reinforcements at the position from someone familiar with the system, likely as an inside backer.
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Despite the departures of defensive linemen Jabari Taylor (NFL/pro) and Noah Potter (transfer) and linebackers Ivan Pace Jr., Wilson Huber and Van Fossen (NFL/pro), Cincinnati is set to return significant talent and experience in the front seven alongside the transfers. The biggest remaining roster needs are in the secondary, where the Cardinals played a mix of man (62.7 percent) and zone (31.1 percent) coverages in 2022, according to TruMedia statistics.
Gone are cornerbacks Arquon Bush (NFL/pro), Ja’Quan Sheppard and JQ Hardaway (transfer), as well as safety Ja’Von Hicks (NFL/pro). At the same time, the Bearcats are set to return safeties Bryon Threats and Armorion Smith and cornerback Sammy Anderson Jr. and added Arizona State transfer DJ Taylor via the portal. But Brown — who will coach the defensive backs along with Coombs — knows the team must continue replenishing those secondary coffers, in addition to cultivating more depth to go against power-conference competition.
“I don’t think we’re far off with the talent either. Depth, that’s the biggest thing,” Brown said. “Being able to rotate, especially on defense against up-tempo teams.”
It’s one of many challenges and adjustments the Bearcats will face in 2023, but with a defense — and a defensive line in particular — that is already working to set the tone, courtesy of a little extra work and some valuable continuity.
“I like to use the analogy of being on a ship in a storm. You don’t want everyone to be all on one side of the ship — you’re going to fall off. Huddle in tight, wait the storm out,” Briggs said. “That’s what we did (on the defensive line), and we ended up keeping a lot of great guys who just happen to be from Cincinnati and other places. We held tight, weathered the storm, and now we’re ready to go … I think it’s going to give a lot of opportunities for a lot of guys to go out there and eat.”
(Top photo: Timothy D. Easley / Associated Press)
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