Evolution Creates New Breed of Safeties
Anyone watching Wake this season could see that Cyhl Quarles is having a good year. I didn’t realize how good until I checked the defensive stats and noticed he has almost twice as many tackles as anyone else on the team, with 53. Scott Betros, Mike Olson, Nikita Whitlock and Riley Haynes are tied for second with 28.
We’ll have an article on Quarles in Friday’s Journal, detailing his comeback from a less-than-stellar junior campaign. One element that didn’t make the cut was an observation by coach Jim Grobe on the vanishing stigma that comes with a defensive back leading a team in tackles.
We sportswriters once snickered whenever we saw a safety or cornerback as a leading tackler, immediately concluding the team didn’t have anyone up front capable of stopping the runner until he reached the secondary. At Tuesday’s gathering to eat chicken and talk football, Ben Doster of Rivals.com asked Grobe if he was bothered by the fact that Quarles is the runaway leader in tackles and cornerback Bud Noel is sixth on the team with 26.
“No, no, I don’t think that’s unusual—especially with football today,’’ Grobe said. “I think there was a time when everybody was kind of smash-mouth football where your outside linebackers were really more big defensive ends and you played three deep and you took your safeties and stuck them back in the weeds and deepest was deepest—nobody gets behind you.
“Now those two safeties are both up there about seven (yards behind the line of scrimmage) and they’re rocking down and getting into the action. And now you’re getting so much perimeter throws, bubble screens, rocket screens, so much is out on the perimeter. Now your corners are having to get involved. They’re forcing the guys that were typically seen as cover guys to be tacklers. You’re just seeing the evolution in offenses, and defenses are involving the safeties more in the run game inside and then you’re getting so much more involvement out of the perimeter guys because so many balls are thrown out on the perimeter now. It’s not necessarily that people are running out there, but they’re throwing so many of the bubble and rocket screens that if your corners aren’t good tacklers you’re in trouble.
“I think it’s just more of a type of focus on the type of offenses we’re facing now and how we’re playing our safeties.’‘
As I was typing Grobe’s response, I kept thinking of a play that really helped get Virginia Tech’s offense going last Saturday, Logan Thomas’ bubble screens to his receivers, Danny Coale especially. Coale finished with four catches for 30 yards, but I have to think he helped stretch the Deacons’ defense horizonally, allowing probably the best opposing receiver I’ve seen this season, Jarrett Boykin, to find holes downfield.
And by the way, a quick review of the Wake media guide reveals that the last defensive back to lead Wake in tackles was safety Chip Vaughn, with 105 in 2007. Before that it was Caron Bracey with 2003, though the bandit position played by Bracey that season could be seen as somewhat of a hybrid safety/linebacker.
Players who have led Wake in tackles since Grobe became head coach in 2001 were linebacker Marquis Hopkins in 2001 (125), linebacker Brad White in 2002 (94), Bracey, linebacker Jon Abbate in 2004 (101), Abbate in 2005 (76), Abbate in 2006 (120), Vaughn in 2007, linebacker Aaron Curry in 2008 (105), linebacker Dominique Midgett in 2009 (79) and linebacker Hunter Haynes last season (77).