SB Nation - Phelon Jones

5 Keys To A Successful Season, Part 4: The Revamped Secondary

Richard Pittman — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 09:30:08 -0000

I think everyone can point to the two biggest things that went wrong with the 2008 season. [Aside: I would say there were three things that went wrong; the two usually named things, and a very inconsistent pass rush.] In the coaches' quest to exorcise the demons of 2008, they have been forced to make a lot of changes to the secondary, which was, of course, one of the two things that went horribly wrong in 2008.

The opening game of the 2008 season saw a starting secondary of RCB Jai Eugene, FS Curtis Taylor, SS Harry Coleman, and LCB Chris Hawkins, with Danny McCray at the nickel and Chad Jones as sort of a utility player. Only one of those players was a senior, but there is no guarantee any of them will see significant snaps in the same role for the 2009 season.

The opening night lineup of the 2009 season will see Patrick Peterson at one corner position and Chad Jones at free safety. These are two very athletic and very promising players, but after this the spots are open for competition, and it is anyone's guess who will occupy the nickel and dime back positions, or if those positions will even exist as we currently understand them.

We have been over the secondary is great detail once before in this offseason,and I won't repeat those articles here except to the extent I already have. You can go back and read Part 1 and Part 2 of the Spring Preview: The Secondary series. Some of that information is quite outdated (Phelon Jones transferred and Harry Coleman is definitely a linebacker now). But for the most part the information we had back in March is still solid today, and we'll do a formal update on the position after Fall camp starts.

Suffice it to say that there have been wholesale changes in the coaching and in the personnel in the secondary. If one was being uncharitable, one might compare it to a game of poker in which we did not like the hand we were dealt and so we reshuffled the cards and dealt a new one. I prefer to think of it as learning from mistakes.

I don't know who will start at strong safety, but I was a HUGE fan of Karnell Hatcher's play in spot duty last year. The other prime candidate for the position is Ron Brooks, who got the most press of any up-and-coming player in the Spring. Danny McCray certainly isn't conceding the race, and he is the most experienced safety we have who isn't moving to linebacker. Plus he's actually well-suited for the role of strong safety, where he was not well-suited for his prior role as nickel back.

At corner it appears to be a battle between last year's starters, Jai Eugene and Chris Hawkins, but I would keep an eye out on true sophomore Brandon Taylor, who impressed the heck out of the coaches in practice as a true freshman and figures to be in line to improve as much or more than anyone on the team from last season to this season.

Whatever the personnel groupings, the unit absolutely has to play better than it did last year. I don't mean, "they have to play better in order for us to win." I mean there is no possible way they couldn't play better, as they played so poorly last year. Some of the worst passing teams in the conference looked competent against us. For example, Chris Todd of auburn went 17 for 32 for 250 yards against us (OK, he had 2 interceptions). Tyson Lee went 17 for 26 for 165 yards. Stephen Garcia went 14 of 26 for 215 yards.

Don't ask what the good passing teams did to us.

It's hard to do worse than that. Hopefully with more suitable personnel groupings and fresh coaching, the situation in the secondary will right itself. Taking Danny McCray off of the slot receiver almost can't help but improve the defense.

Offseason reports have Patrick Peterson and Chad Jones reportedly ready to blow up into the All-America calibre players they were recruited to be. I am always skeptical of offseason hype machines, but we will have to see. We should be finding out a lot more about this in the coming weeks. If those two are really that good at their respective positions, a huge negative could become a huge positive.

Let's talk numbers...

outsidethesidelines — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:00:19 -0000

As we all know, Alabama needs attrition in order to make the 2009 signing class fit under the NCAA mandated maximum of 85 players allowed on scholarship. Of course though, precisely how we get to that point remains uncertain, and as of right now all we can do is speculate. With a speculative mindset, let's see if we can get a better picture of where we are and exactly how much further attrition we have left.

To begin our little inquiry, let us begin with the rather obvious assumption that we were at 85 or fewer scholarships last season, and for the sake of speculation, let us just assume that last year we had exactly 85 players on scholarship. So, who has left the program? From the outset, we did have nine seniors graduate from the 2008 team. That puts us with, at most, 76 players on scholarship. Furthermore, two other players declared early for the NFL Draft (Glen Coffee and Andre Smith), so that puts us at 74 players.

Since that point in time, however, seven more players have left the program as well, which puts us with, at most, 67 players on scholarship. Those players include:

Corey Smith: Transferred to West Virginia
Prince Hall: Transferred to Central Washington
Jennings Hester: Medical scholarship with hamstring injuries
Evan Cardwell: Medical scholarship with a back injury
Charlie Kirschman: Graduated and gave up football
Chris Jackson: Transferring due to playing time issues
Brandon Fanney: Transferring, likely to North Alabama

On the other hand, however, we have also added four players since the end of the 2008 season. Those players include Kerry Murphy, Jermaine Preyear, James Carpenter, and Chance Warmack. Those four additions puts us with, at most, 71 players currently on scholarship. To be sure, we also added Phelon Jones, but despite what his father has said to the media, he is widely expected not to go onto scholarship until 2010, so he does not affect the numbers. Thus, with, at most 71 players currently on scholarship, that leaves the Tide with room to add only 14 players come Fall.

Now, with that said, there are currently 24 players in the 2009 class who hope to enroll. We originally signed 27 players, and since then two have already enrolled (Carpenter and Warmack), and another has signed with a junior college due to academic shortcomings (Quinton Dial). That leaves, again, 24 players still hoping to enroll from the 2009 class, and at the moment we can only say that we definitively have 14 spots available. As a result, on the surface, we need to create room for 10 more players in the coming weeks.

So, we have 24 players out there and only 14 spots currently available... how do we make it work?

To begin with, two of those 24 players are still on the fence academically, and those two are, of course, Eddie Lacy and Darrington Sentimore. In the past I've considered Lacy as unlikely to qualify thanks to Clearinghouse concerns (even if he completes his remaining coursework to satisfaction), and I'm afraid to say the most recent reports on Sentimore have been increasingly bearish. This may not turn out to be the case, and one of these two (or both) may end up and qualify, but I'm afraid to say that the smart money is probably not on it at the moment. So, in other words, those 24 players looking to enroll may in all likelihood be only 22.

And if you trim to 22 players, you can actually still trim further. Even barring unforeseen injury concerns that we are currently unaware of, three potential candidates for a greyshirt are clearly in play, and they are Kellen Williams, Kendall Kelly, and Rod Woodson. Williams tore his ACL playing in a charity basketball game and will not play in 2009 regardless, Kelly had some pretty serious hip surgery and was still on crutches as the summer months approached, and Woodson recently underwent arthroscopic shoulder surgery. Of the three, Woodson seems most unlikely to greyshirt because he should be physically fine by the start of Fall camp and he could make a big contribution on special teams (at least) in 2009, but even so he likely remains in play. Williams does not want to take a greyshirt (who does?) and I imagine Kelly does not either, but again both are in play. All three could feasibly greyshirt, and that could drive the number down as low as 19 players looking to enroll.

Furthermore, on the opposite side of the equation, we can also take two more cuts without necessarily losing anyone. Prior to the 2008 season, Coach Saban found himself with a couple of additional scholarships at his disposal, and awarded them accordingly to kicker Leigh Tiffin and punter P.J. Fitzgerald. However, neither Tiffin or Fitzgerald performed particularly well in 2008, and it is widely expected that both of those players will go off of scholarship for the 2009 season. Those two cuts alone could currently give us 16 spots available.

In other words, while the 24/14 ratio indicates that we may need to trim another 10 players from the current ranks, the real numbers right now may very well be 19/16, and we may need to only clear another three players in order to get in under the 85. Long story short, all of the aforementioned notwithstanding, all of the doom and gloom talk of massive amounts of attrition to come may very well be overblown, and in all actuality we are probably closer to making the 85 than imagined. Now of course all of that isn't necessarily going to happen (I figure, realistically, at most we get two greyshirts), but nevertheless the point remains that we are most likely far closer to getting in under the limit than is currently recognized.

So, with all of that in mind, exactly how do we get there from here? Obviously, we are going to have some more attrition from the current ranks, but frankly I do not think it will be a major issue. Just browsing the official roster at RollTide.com, without explicitly naming names, I can find six players on scholarship who simply do not seem to be legitimate SEC caliber players. And frankly, we have reached a point where, as Chris Jackson showed, we are going to see some kids transfer simply because they cannot get any playing time, and if you look at the current roster from that perspective, things really open up. It's very easy to find kids who, while solid players, do not look to get any meaningful playing time any time soon (if ever), and those kids are obviously going to be potential candidates for attrition as well.

One way or the other, it will work out in the coming weeks. I imagine we'll probably lose another four to six players from the current crop, and that will be that. Some of them will be the so-called scrubs that we all expected from the beginning as potential casualties in the war of attrition, but no one should be surprised if there is a surprise player or two who ends up biting the dust. Nevertheless, despite all of the doom and gloom talk by some, the Tide will get under the 85 once again after a long summer of speculation, and if my guesstimation is correct, the road to getting to where we need to be probably will not have near the number of casualties as many expect.

Sprints // 04.28.09

cocknfire — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 05:19:40 -0000

More photos » by Carlos Gonzalez - AP

Comes with the Cornelius Ingram Seal of Approval. Sort of.

Browse more photos »

Day after the Draft. A little bit here and there on the players who went high. Year 2 has your free-agent signings here.

Matthew Stafford rolls out his Top 10 draft-day thoughts for David Letterman. One of the unlisted ones better have been "Can I get another makeover from Maria Sharapova?"

Cornelius Ingram comes to Percy Harvin's defense -- after Harvin is already drafted. Which seems a bit late. In any case, he says the criticisms of Harvin are unfair "to a certain extent." Hooray equivocal endorsements!

Yes, the SEC had the most picks in the NFL Draft -- but the ACC had the second-most. So read into that what you will.

For some, it's already time to look ahead to 2010. Swamp Things has Tim Tebow going in the first round.

You mean to tell me Matthew Stafford and Mark Sanchez will be that much better at the next level than Tebow? I know the throwing motion scares people, but Stafford threw 30 collegiate picks and Sanchez had a decent -- nothing more, nothing less -- one season as a USC starter.

Okay, let's go through this again. You know it makes no sense for Tebow to fall below the first round. I know it makes no sense for Tebow to fall below the first round. This is exactly why Tebow will fall below the first round. These are NFL GMs; nothing they do is rational or sane. Remember: Al Davis will have a pick, and he's just as likely to pick a 1994 Toyota Tercel (great 40 time!) as Tim Tebow.

What did he do, drink after Lane Kiffin? Urban Meyer had some fascinating insights in his latest visit to the Central Florida Gator Club. To wit:

"We want former Gators to come back, but loyalty's a two-way street. If you want to be critical of a player on our team or a coach on our team you can buy a ticket for seat 37F, you're not welcome back in the football office.
"You're either a Gator or you're not a Gator. It's real simple. For those who are not Gators keep buying tickets, critique, but if you're a real Gator, get to know our players. Let's enjoy the greatest era not just football of Gator athletics."

Urban, a bit of friendly advice: Stop using "greatest" and "era" in the same sentence. It just doesn't work for you.

But wait. There's more.

"We're evaluating Gator clubs, everybody wants to evaluate me. I'm going to evaluate you. We've cut our Gator clubs down because it's very important I'm a father. We want to go to the best.

"For example, I've been to some horrible Gator clubs with a couple hundred people. They hand me a mic like I'm Johnny Carson. We're not going to do that. This is the way it's supposed to look. We're not going to places that aren't very good anymore."

Johnny Carson's got nothing on Urban Meyer. How many national championships did he win? And did Carson look as good in a leather jacket as Meyer does? I thought not.

That's, um, special. Auburn's brilliant new idea -- send all their assistant coaches to the same recruiting stop at once! In a tricked-out limo!

Wow. Just wow. I've seen classier Clemson fans.

Now, I'm no mathematician. But it seems to me that you would have more of a strategic advantage by send each of the seven coaches to different places, no?

I still can't believe that Gene Chizik didn't manage to win a national championship at Iowa State.

What do the Vols and the Tide now have in common? The wrath of Brian Cook. Observe:

Lane Kiffin caused defections at Tennessee are up to a spectacular nine now, which is a lot more folk a lot faster than Rodriguez "ran off," to use the parlance of people who don't know what they're talking about. ...

Relevance to Michigan? Slight. I guess he's taking a lot of heat that might otherwise be directed at Rodriguez.

For those of you who don't remember mgoblog's classic war with Roll Bama Roll, you're far better off than the rest of us. But it started sort of along a similar track -- Rich Rodriguez was taking heat, but Saban wasn't taking heat for this trangression, etc. In any case, Vols fans, I'm sure Todd has plenty of ideas for how to strike back at Brian, if you're so inclined. Granted, I'm not quite as sure that Tennessee fans are as -- what's the word I'm looking for? -- ~~rabid~~ passionate as Alabama fans, so we'll see what happens.

Nick Saban's old programs still fall under his sway. Exhibit A: Phelon Jones. Exhibit B: Michigan State .

Just confirming what you already knew. Larry Munson is headed to the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame. Well, duh.

Phelon Jones Leaves the Team

Richard Pittman — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 11:30:10 -0000

Rising sophomore defensive back Phelon Jones has decided to transfer out of the LSU football program. It is being discussed that he may transfer to Auburn. Coach Les Miles has given him his unconditional release, which means he can transfer to wherever he likes, including within the SEC. He will be subject to the ordinary transfer rules, meaning he will have to sit out one year. He will be a junior in the 2010 season, when he can play again.

Phelon Jones played a fair bit last year as a nickel back. He was part of the 2007 recruiting class, a class which was considered a great recruiting class at the time, and Jones was one of the gems. He was out of the Alabama gulf coast, and decommitted from Miami to sign with LSU.

When Jones was redshirting, rumor had it that he was impressing coaches with his ability. Then LSU signed Patrick Peterson in 2008, and Jones took a backseat in the depth chart to Peterson. Word out of Spring camp is that he fell behind 2008 recruit Brandon Taylor as well. With the nickel back position being phased out, and with the emergence of Ron Brooks, the handwriting was on the wall that it would be very hard for Phelon Jones to break into the rotation.

Through his career, Phelon Jones and his family (particularly his dad) have been very good soldiers for LSU. Attrition due to depth chart issues happens for every program, and it should not be a surprise that it is happening here. Also, no one should be down on Phelon Jones deciding to find a place where he can be a bigger contributor.

The two big stories here are the dangers of getting too excited about a recruit, and the fact that Les Miles took the unusual step of not limiting where Jones could go to school. On the first point, here is what I said of Jones back in 2007:

This kid looks like he has NFL written all over him. He's the perfect size for a cornerback, with the great speed you want at that position. His videos and credentials are incredible, including reportedly shutting down 2008 5-star wide receiver Julio Jones.

...

If all goes well, I think Phelon Jones becomes the third member of the 2007 recruiting class who will eventually be a starter at defensive back, along with Chad Jones and Stefoin Francois.

Count everything wrong with those passages. I got overexcited about a recruit, more than one recruit in the quoted passages alone actually. Sometimes a guy comes in and struggles more than anyone could have guessed (Francois). And sometimes a good player just falls behind players who come behind him (Phelon Jones).

Hey, at least I was right about Chad Jones.

It just goes to show that these things don't always work out the way you think they will. Phelon Jones was one of the headliners of a highly ranked recruiting class. But, it just didn't work out for him here, because as good as he was there were people younger than him who were better. It happens a lot.

The second big story is a testament to how much this coaching staff respects Phelon Jones despite his decision to leave. It is a coach's prerogative to either choose not to let a player out of his scholarship (rarely does this happen) or to put conditions on his release. Ryan Perrilloux had conditions on his release (he couldn't transfer to a school in Louisiana or to another SEC school). Robert Marve of Miami was famously not allowed to transfer to Tennessee, LSU, or any Florida school, a vengeful move for what Miami officials thought was tampering by those schools.

The most likely scenario right now is that Phelon Jones will transfer to Auburn. He could end up playing us twice in his career. Who knows, he may even end up making a play that beats LSU. Miles has decided to take that chance, in order to let a good kid do what he thinks is best. I imagine that Miles could let Jones play this year, he would let him do it, but the rules don't give Miles that option.

Attrition is an inevitable, and even necessary, development for any program. College football is a brutally competitive business, and Jones wasn't really in the plans for the future. Now he's getting on with his life. We will probably see more attrition at defensive back, as more players see the writing on the wall.

Spring Preview: The Secondary, Part 2: Who Else Wants to Play?

Richard Pittman — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:30:06 -0000

Yesterday, we talked about Chad Jones and Patrick Peterson, who we at ATVS (the royal "we") expect to make up the nucleus of the Tigers' starting secondary. Now, we talk about the other players who want to be in that starting group.

First, the veterans:

From left to right we have junior cornerback Jai Eugene, senior cornerback Chris Hawkins, senior strong safety Harry Coleman, and senior safety Danny McCray. Hawkins and Coleman started all year last year and appear to be the odds-on favorites to start this year as well, though that is far from certain.

Chris Hawkins led the team in interceptions last year with three. On a defense that recorded a paltry 8 interceptions the entire year, Hawkins did his legitimate share of turning the ball over. He even scored what I think was our only defensive touchdown of the season: a fumble return for a touchdown against Tulane. Of all our corners, he was the one who was left one-on-one with opposing receivers the most often, and he occasionally got beat, most famously on the last-minute 4th down touchdown pass by Casey Dick that gave Arkansas the winning points against us. Hawkins played alright, but on a defense that seemed hopelessly lost quite a lot, he did not stand out as a bright spot. While he got his interceptions, he also gave up his share of plays. At the end of last season, he was starting opposite Patrick Peterson, but he will face a challenge from other corners to keep that spot.

I thought that Jai Eugene played pretty solidly, if unspectacularly. He did not get an interception, but he was a willing tackler in run support, and he broke up 3 passes (as many as Patrick Peterson, but with more playing time to get them). Eugene was a bit more physical of a corner than Chris Hawkins was. He lost his starting job as Peterson emerged, and he is fighting to get it back, but he might have to move to a nickel- or dime-back position to get it.

Harry Coleman, surprisingly, led the team in tackles last year with 71, but he was also one of the mainstays in the safety group that struggled all season in pass coverage. Coleman looked slow and out of position a lot. Once again, some of my commenters are of the opinion that this is entirely a result of coaching and scheming, and I will keep an open mind on that subject, at least for now. He will try to win back the strong safety job that is up for grabs, after he apparently lost it to Danny McCray during preparation for the bowl game. He may end up moving to linebacker to make room for a young player to move up.

Danny McCray catches a lot of flak for his struggles in pass coverage, having spent the last two years as our nickel back, where he was asked to cover speedy wideouts one-on-one a lot, and got beat a lot. One can hope that the new coaching staff will learn from the mistakes of the previous staff and not put him in that kind of position this year.

When McCray was used differently in the bowl game last year, when he moved to strong safety opposite Chad Jones who was getting the start at free safety, McCray played much better. He just seemed to be in his element, and his size and strength was a benefit rather than the liability his size became when he was trying to chase Percy Harvin and A.J. Green around the field. Put him at safety and ask him to give over the top help and run support, and he'll be fine. Ask him to play like a corner and he'll struggle. He could end up being our strong safety, or he could move to a linebacker position, or he could have trouble getting on the field. It's hard to know. The numbers at safety will make it difficult to win a job no matter who you are.

Those are the juniors and seniors who are trying to win starting jobs in this secondary. the young players will not make it easy on them:

From left to right and then down and left to right again, we have cornerback Brandon Taylor, corner/safety combo Phelon Jones, cornerback Ryan St. Julien, corner/safety combo Derrick Bryant, corner (?) Ron Brooks, and safety Karnell Hatcher. All of those guys will be sophomores except for Ryan St. Julien who will be a redshirt freshman.

Coaches and commenters have been very high on Brandon Taylor (younger brother of last year's starting free safety Curtis Taylor) since his high school days. He got some playing time as a true freshman last year, playing some dime back, recording 4 tackles and a pass breakup. Starting cornerback Chris Hawkins missed a couple of practices earlier this Spring, and Taylor moved up into the starter role in his absence. He appears to be the heir apparent at the position once Hawkins graduates, if he doesn't win the job outright this year.

Phelon Jones played some last year as the nickel-back, and sometimes as the dime. He got his most playing time against North Texas and against Troy, recording 6 tackles and getting a pass breakup against UNT and 6 tackles and 2 pass breakups against Troy. In the Troy game, he was getting playing time because of an injury to McCray. Jones showed promise, but also struggled at times.

Derrick Bryant played mostly on special teams, finding a role as the forward return man in front of Trindon Holliday on punt returns, to either block for Trindon or to discourage directional or pooch kicks away from him. Other than that, he didn't really play all that much and it's hard to know what's expected of him.

Ron Brooks is a sophomore who is probably getting the most press of anyone in this group right now. Apparently the new coaches are very high on him, and so is Les Miles. According to Les, "I think the secondary is coming along pretty nicely. Ron Brooks is getting an opportunity. I don’t know whether he’ll be at corner or at safety, but he’s really earned the opportunity to get a great look." Brooks is a very athletic guy who also reportedly has a very high football IQ. He can be trusted in a lot of situations and could adjust to a number of different roles. He will probably be actively involved in the return game as well.

The thought of Brooks being moved to safety from cornerback brings to mind something I said in the infamous article on linebackers. I said at the time, "If you need an outside linebacker who can cover receivers, how about converting a cornerback? Or your combo corner/safety nickel back? That's the theory behind the idea of converting Phelon Jones into your line-nickel-back player."

I was thinking about converting a big corner to linebacker, if the linebacker is going to have increased coverage responsibilities. The other, perhaps more logical thing to do is to move a corner into a free safety role, then move your regular free safety to "strong safety", and consider moving your regular strong safety to linebacker. When you go into a "nickel" alignment, you don't change personnel, but let your free safety (who is a natural corner) line up with the slot receiver, give your "strong" safety responsibilities that mirror a free safety's, and let your linebacker play more of a strong safety role, playing a nickel-like package without changing personnel or creating any major mismatches.

It appears that if a change is to be made, it will likely be moving Ron Brooks to safety. I'm not sure how much I like the idea, as Brooks is a pretty small guy. He's listed on LSUSports.net at 5'11" and 175#. While he would be a valuable asset in coverage, he could create problems when trying to tackle some of the more powerful runners in the conference. Chavis seems set on not having a true "nickel" personnel group, instead using his base grouping as a modified nickel package. If you're going to do it that way, this seems to be the logical move.

Moving along, I really wanted to highlight Karnell Hatcher. In the post on linebackers, I mentioned that the safety position looked slow last year and appeared to be in need of an overhaul. A number of people disagreed with me, and that's fine. I don't claim to have a monopoly on insight into the football program. Some said it was all about coaching and scheming.

In response to the "it was the coaching" argument, I present Karnell Hatcher as Exhibit A. He was the primary backup to Curtis Taylor at the free safety position last year, and I thought he was excellent whenever he got into the game. In particular, I remember watching him against Georgia when the game had gotten kind of out of hand. He made a hard, sure, confident open-field tackle on Knowshon Moreno to stop what could have been a big play, which is no easy feat for a true freshman to do. He closed on Moreno, who had broken through the line, and put him on the ground without difficulty. When I saw that, I said to myself, "I haven't seen Curtis Taylor or Harry Coleman do that in two years." The kid can play, which surprised me a lot, as I had said of him before the season, "I wouldn't expect Hatcher to play as a freshman, unless he really makes himself invaluable as a special teams player. I think one way or another Hatcher is going to be an excellent special teams player one day, and he has a real shot at being the heir apparent at strong safety when Harry Coleman leaves."

It wouldn't surprise me at all if Hatcher is our starting strong safety this year, even though he played free last year.

Also reporting for duty this Spring is incoming freshman Rockey Duplessis, a speedy athletic head-knocker who signed with LSU with the 2008 class but sat out the Fall Semester to get academically eligible. I don't know what his future is, but I'd expect him to contribute pretty quickly on special teams.

And let's not forget 5-star recruit Craig Loston, who will be hard to keep off the field.