Published: March 31, 2008 03:03 pm      

Important spring for ECU

Nichols' club will have all new look heading into this week's workouts

Ada — Spring is traditionally a time for rebirth and renewal, and Kurt Nichols is entering his third spring practice as East Central University’s football coach with virtually nothing the same as a year ago.

ECU, coming off a 2-9 campaign in which the Tigers were the only team in the Lone Star Conference North that DIDN’T tie for the division title, will have a new defense and a new defensive coordinator, eight new starters on defense and a revamped offensive line and receiving corps.

Quarterback Marcus Johnson — the LSC North’s Offensive Player of the Year as a sophomore last fall — is back, but he also wasn’t eligible last spring and didn’t take part in the camp.

For the second spring in a row, Nichols will again have only about 65 players on hand for Monday’s first practice, but he said he expects high school recruits and “three or four more junior college guys and a couple of Division I transfers” to double that number by the time the Tigers start two-a-days in August.

Although he doesn’t have numbers, Nichols said he has upgraded at almost every position since the 2007 season ended, adding that he and his staff will spend the next month (ECU’s spring game will be held on Saturday, April 26) trying to decide where his new players fit into his spread offense and his new-look 3-4 defense.

“We’ve got a lot of new people to evaluate this spring, and I’ve got some people who have become eligible because of transfer rules, plus we’re installing a new defense,” he said. “As a staff, we have to find out what we can and can’t do right now because of personnel.

“We’ll have more eyes on the defensive side of the ball — I want to get more people involved,” added Nichols, who has replaced longtime ECU defensive coordinator Todd Fugett (who will coach inside linebackers this season) with Robert Rubel (Nichols’ former defensive coordinator at Cisco Junior College) and has added Andrew O’Neill (an all-conference linebacker for the Tigers in 2005 and 2006) and David Pensyl as graduate assistants to help coach the outside linebackers in the new defense. “We’re going to simplify and try to iron out some things as far as our five-step passing game, we’ll emphasize the new personnel on the offensive line who should help us, and we’ll try to emphasize running the ball. I think it’s a good thing that we don’t have a lot of starters back on defense, because everybody is starting on the same page.”

Cornerbacks Lionel Young and Derrick Suggs and linebacker Tait Langston are the only returning defensive players who started for the Tigers last season, and no member of that trio started every game. Nichols will fill out his secondary — which lost safeties Chris Mims and Shane Richardson and their back-ups — with Dominic Brooks (“he was ineligible last year”) and Dionte Dean.

“Dionte is a really good athlete,” Nichols said. “I was sorry we never really found a place for him last year.”

All seven starters on the defensive line and at linebacker from the 2007 season opener have either graduated or left the team, but Nichols said he is expects his new front seven to be more physical and athletic than the outgoing group.

Junior Darnell Barnes will start at nose guard, with juco transfer Jeremy Lee his back-up, and the rest of the defensive line will be a mix of returnees Homer Joiner and Jared Lebetter and newcomers Craig Roark (an All-American high school player at Ada High who transferred from the University of Nebraska last fall but was injured in his first practice and missed the season) and Jared Garrett (a transfer from Southeastern).

“Going into camp last fall, Darnell Barnes was probably our best defensive lineman, and we found out halfway through camp that he was ineligible,” Nichols said. “Jared Ledbetter and Homer Joiner saw a lot of playing time at end last year, but this defense will be very different in what I ask them to do.

“All of our defensive linemen should be able to play all three positions.”

Despite showing marked improvement late in the season, ECU’s defense ranked last in the LSC in most categories in 2007, and Nichols said the 3-4 should help the Tigers eliminate some of the breakdowns they suffered through a season ago.

“The 3-4 is a defense where the offense doesn’t know where linebackers are coming from,” Nichols said. “It’s a very balanced defense and it’s a fill defense. That simplifies a lot of things. We’ll be simpler in the secondary, too.

“I want to worry less about schemes and more about athletic ability and running to the football,” he added. It was time to change defenses. We weren’t very productive last year, and we needed to improve on that side of the ball.”

Linebacker has always been a glamour position at ECU, and this year’s group will include Langston, juco transfer Robby Prescott, former Ada standout Ty Gower (who transferred from Southeastern and could play both linebacker and safety), former OU walk-on Lee Blankenship (who transferred from Northeastern), and Stuart Bishop, a former star at Fossil Ridge (Texas) High School who, because of injuries, hasn’t played a down of college ball.

Offensively, the Tigers will open camp with as much talent as perhaps at any time in this decade. Johnson threw for over 2,500 yards in his first season as a Division II player and has a solid back-up in fellow junior Josh Phillips. Although the receiving corps was decimated by graduation (losing its top three pass catchers from last season), Nichols returns three solid performers from 2007 in Keewan King, Nigel Cooper and Justin Goolsby and will have some promising new wideouts in camp, and the offensive line appears to be deep and talented and should give Nichols some options.

Jay Reaves, a second-team all-conference tackle last season, is one of three returning starters on the offensive line, joining junior Justin Nail from Ada (who has started all or part of the last two seasons) and Tim Bills. John Ramos, a juco transfer who sat out last season with a knee injury, is the front-runner to join Nail at guard, and Chad Roark (another former Ada All-American who, like his brother, transferred to ECU last season and sat out a season) will start at center.

“I think this is the best group that’s been here collectively in the last five years,” said Nichols, who, in contrast to last season (when he opened camp with only six offensive linemen), has 14 offensive linemen on his roster to start the spring. “We’re going to be young and good on the defensive line this year. I think we’ll have the best offensive line in the conference.”

Jazz Holland, the team’s leading rusher last season, didn’t return to school for his senior year, leaving the tailback duties this spring to redshirt sophomore Larry Carter-Holmes and a pair of newcomers — Kyle Wood, a former standout at Stratford High School who transferred from Northeastern — and Josh Dutton.

“We’ve got a lot of talent coming back on offense, so we just want to polish what we’re doing offensively and we want to get the line to mesh together,” Nichols said. “I think the biggest thing we need to do this spring is to learn the defense and start playing with confidence.”

The Tigers will practice in shorts and headgear Monday and Tuesday before putting on pads for the first time Thursday. Nichols said the team will have one scrimmage (on Saturday, April 19, at 2:30 p.m.) prior to the Orange and Black Game (at 1 p.m. on April 26).