BOCA RATON – It’s not an accident that cornerbacks filled practice reports from this year’s FAU fall camp with interceptions and pass breakups.
It’s by design.
“That’s pretty much what we do – get the ball, attack the ball, attack the ball,” cornerback Raekwon Williams said. “We hear it every day, all day, every day before we come out of practice. There’s not time to take no rest, because we’ve got more depth behind us so it’s like a trial every day.”
Yes, this story has been written before. Every defense talks about wanting to force turnovers.
Last year’s FAU coaches entered the season preaching an aggressive attitude that would produce more turnovers.
The result? FAU’s defense forced only 15 turnovers, tied for No. 99 in the nation.
This year, FAU players say, coaches are offering more than simple slogans as inspiration. The Owls practice stripping the ball. Coaches drill into players the necessity of creating turnovers.
“If you preach it every single day, it’s going to happen,” linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair. “If I say I’m going to do such and such and such, and every day you practice and practice and practice, it’s going to happen.”
Sure, some of the interceptions thrown during camp can be attributed to the struggling Owl quarterbacks. But there’s also a different attitude on this defense.
“I can definitely say they’re just drilling it more into us,” Williams said.
No player has made more things happen this fall when the ball is in the air than Shelton Lewis.
The junior cornerback has yet to nab an interception in a game, but he began fall camp with three interceptions in the first three days. He couldn’t fulfill his interception-per-day goal, but Lewis did spend camp making acrobatic interception after scintillating pick.
“Shelton is having a great camp,” Williams said. “He’s going to have great season.”
In recent years FAU defensive backs Keith Reaser, D’Joun Smith, Cre’von LeBlanc and Sharrod Neasman have worked their way on NFL rosters.
There are some potential pros on this year’s squad, too, but all would benefit boost in turnover production.
Defensive backs currently on FAU’s roster have combined for only14 interceptions. Ocie Rose, who likely won’t begin the season on the two-deep, holds five of those. Safety Jalen Young also has five.
Williams is the only current true cornerback who has tallied a collegiate interception, that coming against Charlotte last season. Herb Miller, a corner who moved to nickel back during the spring, also has one.
Williams is getting his hands on passes during camp, but he hasn’t enjoyed the level of ball hawking success as Lewis has.
Like Cre’von LeBlanc before him, Williams has done such a lockdown job on receivers during camp that there haven’t been as many balls coming his way.
This camp, he’s been refining the technique for baiting quarterbacks into throwing his way, letting the quarterback see what appears to be a window for a completion only to burst through that window and take the ball the other way. Lewis used a similar tactic on his interception of a De’Andre Johnson pass in the end zone during a mid-camp scrimmage.
“The picks that I’ve made in practice, I’ve baited the quarterback,” Williams said. “I can definitely say its a great thing and it’s going to help.”
Defensive coordinator Chris Kiffin’s aggressive new scheme figures to put the Owls in position to snare more interceptions this season. An influx of talent on defense should afford the Owls the ability to remain fresh by rotating their cornerbacks.
Second string corners Chris Tooley and Korel Smith have also produced during camp, as have true freshman safeties James Pierre and Zyon Gilbert, and freshman nickel Quran Hafiz.
“With the new coaching staff everybody knows that they had to get better and that they had to do something,” Williams said. “Everybody took it as a business every single day. They felt like, I have to make plays, I have to make plays. When you are continually telling yourself that you have to make plays, every day you are going to make them.”
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