Mustangs bolster defense with coaching hires
Rush defense was a struggle for the Grapevine football team last season.
The Mustangs allowed, on average, 245 yards per game on the ground and held opponents to under four yards per carry twice on the season. Three times, opponents averaged double-digit yards per carry.
New defensive coordinator Mike Alexander’s message to the team as they head into fall practice is simple.
Keep it simple.
“My philosophy defensively is to be extremely simple so our kids don’t have a lot to think about when the ball is snapped and utilize the skills and abilities that God has given them to go out and be good ballplayers and react and play, not be over-thinking,” Alexander said.
It’s a system that’s worked for some of the best programs in the state, such as Abilene and Rockwall, two past coaching stops of Alexander’s.
Grapevine head coach Randy Jackson pulled Alexander out of East Texas, where he was the head coach at 3A Mount Vernon for the past four years.
“I really feel like I hit one out of the park when I got Coach Alexander to come help us,” Jackson said.
Alexander joined the team right before spring practice, but spent that practice time building relationships and laying a foundation for his coaching style rather than attempting to plot out too many X’s and O’s.
The result was positive momentum heading into the offseason as the defense was never on its heels against Grapevine’s strong offense, Alexander said.
“They aren’t going to listen to you and let you show them how brilliant you are until you show them that you care about them,” Alexander said.
“We got in there and I taught them how to play base defense and we just spent our time just learning how to play hard and play for each other and just get to know these kids.”
Grapevine will base out of a 3-4 defense, allowing for its two returning linebackers, Brennan Davis and Kareem Mohamed, to have space to be aggressive around the outside.
Alexander also brings four years of experience as a head coach, which is an aid to Jackson in the day-to-day running of the program.
“That’s my job to help Coach Jackson, to take some pressure off him and help him do his job,” Alexander said. “That’s one thing I tried to tell him is, you’re not going to have to worry about the defense.”
Jackson also bolstered his defensive coaching staff in the spring with the hiring of defensive line coach Carlus McBride, formally from Lake Worth.
This week, Jackson promoted McBride to assistant head coach after the departure of Keri Timmerman for the head-coaching job at Lake Worth.
As assistant head coach, McBride takes care of a lot of the administrative duties and paperwork that surround the program.
“He’s one of those guys you’d want your son to play for,” Jackson said. “Just a real solid person.”
Travis L. Brown can be reached at tbrown7137@gmail.com and on Twitter @Travis_L_Brown.
This story was originally published August 3, 2015 at 2:50 AM with the headline "Mustangs bolster defense with coaching hires."