New Mexico State Defensive Coordinator Joe Lee Dunn has a reputation of being one of the finest defensive minds in the nation. On both the high school and college level, Dunn has used a pressure scheme that has been successful at all levels. While the Defensive Coordinator at Memphis, he transformed a defensive unit that was ranked 101st to one of the top ten teams in total defense in a two-year period. Dunn has been a DC at Memphis, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Arkansas and South Carolina and was a former head coach at New Mexico. Now, he’ll try to perform his magic for the Aggies. GS writer Mike Parker recently spoke to Coach Dunn.

GS • Why did you start using a pressure scheme?

JLD • I started out coaching in high school and I was the offensive coordinator. We had a defensive coordinator, Bob Nellums, in Columbus, GA back in the late 60s who was a very creative person on defense. He basically did blitzing all the time and I just picked it up from there. And then later on when I was a defensive coordinator I took the things that he did that gave us problems on offense and started using that on defense. It comes from a long time ago.

And even now when we have our guys stand up and everyone dances around at the line of scrimmage, he did that a long time ago. I figured if that gave us trouble in practice, then I might as well use it when I started coaching on defense.

GS • What is your objective in using pressure?

JLD • I think the big thing, in doing what you do, is to try and confuse the offensive people. If you can confuse the offensive line, you will probably have a good night against them. And that is what we basically try to do. We try to get a look on them early in the ball game and make the linemen start thinking. And if you can get them thinking instead of reacting, then you have a better shot at ‘whupping’ them.

I think people have better players everywhere today. If you can help yourselves out by confusing the offense then you are going to do well. And if you can blitz, it is a lot of fun. But you have to test them and try and see if the players can do it in practice. That’s because some people can’t blitz. They are just so bad at it that you don’t want them to do it. You just have to move the players around and mix up everything. That is what we are usually doing.

GS • Why do you believe in a 3-3 scheme?

JLD • The thing about the 3-3 look came about because we really didn’t have the personnel to run four defensive linemen. We couldn’t get but two or three defensive linemen at the places where I’ve been and so we had to do something else. We could get defensive backs and linebackers. We just couldn’t get enough of the upfront folks. The Floridas and the Tennessees could get them, but we couldn’t. So one day I started doing it, and it worked out. Now a lot of folks are really running that defense.

GS • What is important to know as far as coverages are concerned when trying to use a lot of pressure packages?

JLD • The big thing is that we don’t do a whole lot in the secondary. We do a bunch of things up front. We move people around. We get them in different looks. But, our basic coverage in the secondary is pretty much always going to stay the same. We are going to play a man-to-man coverage, or man coverage with a safety or a three deep zone. You have to make sure that your guys can do the zone well because they have to be able to break to the ball. You probably work on that in practice more than you do man.

The worst thing to see in football is to see a receiver running free down the field and no defender within 20 yards of him. That means you haven’t done a really good job of coaching. You’ve got to make sure before you go into a ball game that everybody knows, based on the offensive formations, what they will run against you and who your man is. We spend a lot of time with the secondary, making sure they know who their man is. Because, if there is a bust in the secondary, it could mean a touchdown. We work at that quite a bit.

GS • What do you think is the most important skill in a defender? What do you look for when you are evaluating your players?

JLD • We make sure that we get them all on film and give them an opportunity to show us that they can tackle. The biggest thing to me in football is tackling. No matter how you tackle, if you have guys that can get them on the ground there is no ugly tackle. An ugly tackle is a missed tackle.

We do a lot in the spring to find out who can tackle and who can’t tackle. That is very important to find out. I promise you that the offense will find that guy on defense that can’t tackle. I’ve had that happen down through the years. I’ve had to play a guy that wasn’t a very good tackler and sure enough, they ran the ball right at him. You’ve got to put them all on tape and do drills with them. We don’t really believe that kids can learn to tackle if they didn’t do it in high school. If a kid can’t tackle in high school, he dadgum sure can’t tackle in college. We won’t sign anybody that hasn’t shown on tape that he has a knack for getting somebody down on the ground.

GS • What is your schedule during the season? How do you prepare/game plan? JLD • I get in real early just because of the fact that there isn’t anyone there. So I can do my work and get it done, and go backwards and forwards on the tape without people telling me, ‘Hey, run that back… Run that back.’

After a while of watching somebody on tape, you get a feel for them. Then I go through the game film and try to find out exactly what they are going to try to do to us. Everybody has a plan, and they usually show it early in the ball game. That is basically how I do it.

I break the films down myself and then I try to figure out what they are going to try to do to us. Then I put them on cards and we go through and spend an hour each day before practice preparing the kids on Tuesday and Wednesday. And then, hopefully, they will know what to do, who to cover and what the other team’s plays are. We give them a scouting report as well, early in the week.

GS • How do you put pressure on a team that uses four and five wide receiver sets?

JLD • I think you always have to try to outnumber the offensive line. If they spread out and they don’t have a back in the backfield, then basically you just send one more blitzer than they have blockers. If they have a back in the backfield, you have to see if they have six blockers; then you have to send seven guys. And if you do that, someone is going to come free. The numbers are on your side.

But, you also have to have a fast guy that can blitz; if you don’t then you are defeating your purpose. You are trying to get to the quarterback. If you can’t get to him, you shouldn’t be blitzing. The quarterback should only be able to look at just one guy. You should know who that guy is before you go into the contest because he has already shown that in other ball games.

If you have any questions you can email Coach Dunn at JoeLeeDunn@GridironStrategies.com