Tavon Lawson (4) and the UTC defense celebrate a big play during the 2017 season opener against Jacksonville State. Matt Feeney, who's entering his first season as defensive coordinator at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, remembers his final season as a college football player. It was 2013 at John Carroll University, and he was introduced to Brandon Staley, who was in his first year as the Blue Streaks' defensive coordinator.
Staley had come to the Division III program in University Heights, Ohio, with a new, complex defensive scheme he wanted to implement.
At first, Feeney's mind was blown by it. Now, he's a proponent of it.
"When day three of the install hit, and it was a whole new deal, I absolutely thought I was the dumbest football player of all time," recalled Feeney, who was awarded the Gene Slaughter Award as the top linebacker in the Ohio Athletic Conference that season. "I was relaxed by Coach Staley, and he gave me the courage to understand this is how it is for everybody. He always had my back that year and helped strengthen me to realize I can do it.
"We eventually got to that point (of understanding) and had a great year."
There's no real name for the Mocs' defense, although there were multiple references to "The System" prior to Wednesday's practice at Scrappy Moore Field. Tom Arth, who's in his second season as head coach at UTC after leading the Blue Streaks from 2013 to 2016, knows it has been successful over the past five seasons since Staley first introduced him to it. Despite last season's inconsistent offense that put added pressure on the defense, the Mocs still led the Southern Conference in total defense, allowing an average of 326.4 yards per game.
In the final three games, UTC allowed averages of 238.7 total yards and 82 rushing yards, holding East Tennessee State to its lowest total yardage output of the season, Samford to its least efficient passing performance of the year and Wofford to its fewest yards of the regular season.
What makes the defense unique is its versatility. The Mocs aren't beholden to any specific scheme. They can run with multiple packages, offering multiple fronts, multiple coverages and multiple pressures to throw off the opposing offense. There's no limit to the number of players they can and will rotate in for playing time, depending on which package the opponent employs.
"For it to work, you need everyone to be locked in," Arth said. "They really have to understand what personnel is in the game so that we can match up appropriately with the offensive personnel. From there, there's a lot of different calls, lot of different adjustments because we don't want to give up any easy plays, any cheap yards. We want to be in the ideal call every snap; it takes a lot of communication and takes everybody being on the same page and tuned in to what the calls are."
That responsibility falls primarily on the inside linebacker. Tavon Lawson was one of those guys early last season as a junior, starting the first six games before an injury sidelined him the final five. At the time of his injury, he was leading the team in total tackles. Now healthy and with a year in "the system," he believes the defense could be even better.
"We're more comfortable. We're not thinking," he said, meaning the Mocs understand the defense well enough to play almost by instinct.
"We're playing faster and just playing football, because with a year under our belt in our system, people are picking up on things they may not have picked up on last year, so now it's easier and we can cut loose and play football."
When Feeney took over as coordinator after the departure of Tom Kaufman for Kent State in the offseason, he chose not to make any sweeping changes. He believes in "The System," so only tweaks - at most - were made. With experienced personnel on all three levels of the defense now, he can let the Mocs play with only minimal teaching so that players this season aren't as overwhelmed as he felt as a senior at John Carroll.
"The style of defense we like to play, it's adapted over the year, but it's the same core concept and philosophies," Feeney explained. "It's just done a couple different ways. What we did before is never the same as what we do now; we adapt to the personnel we have. We're not running the same stuff we've done last year or three years ago. We have different people, so we do different things, and that's the beauty of the system.
"We're not that locked into a certain scheme. That's the beauty of our defense - that there's not one great answer for everything."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.