Three areas of concern for the Wisconsin football team last year were tackling, special teams and secondary play. If they remain problems in the upcoming 2002 season, don?t blame the team brass for not trying to fix them.
This past offseason, the athletic powers-that-be cleaned house, firing special teams/outside linebackers coach Darrell Wilson and defensive backs coach Todd Bradford. In their place, Brian Murphy and Ron Cooper have stepped in to head the special teams/outside linebackers and defensive backs? duties, respectively.
Over the last several seasons, Murphy acted as an administrative assistant to the Badger football team, serving the squad in five different capacities. Despite serving full-time assistant stints in the past at Lehigh, his alma mater, and the University of San Diego, this will be Murphy?s first full-time coaching role at UW, something he is very pleased to have been offered.
“It?s a goal that young coaches work for,” Murphy said. “It?s all part of stepping up. No one gets a full-time job right away, and you have to pay your dues and work your way up.”
After a 2001 season filled with special-teams blunders that cost the Badgers dearly, most notably in the heart-wrenching loss to Michigan, Murphy is taking the 2002 special-teamers back to the basics in spring practices.
“Right now we?re starting with the fundamentals of punting and punt returning. That?s what we?ve worked on the past five days,” Murphy said. “We?re just building. We?re going to start from the bottom and eventually work our way up, and after fifteen days we want to see the results that we want.”
Cooper brings to the Badgers what very few assistant coaches can offer right away — tremendous experience, something head coach Barry Alvarez feels will be one of the great benefits to adding Cooper to the staff.
His resume includes two head-coaching stints, at Alabama A&M the past four seasons and at Louisville in 1995-97, where he brought the Cardinals all the way up to No. 4 nationally in both rushing defense and total defense. He also coached several players who went on to star in the NFL, including Jeff Burris of the Colts and Bobby Taylor of the Eagles.
“It?s up to me right now to get [my players] better in technique and fundamentals,” Cooper said on preparing players for both the rigors of college play and the expectations of making it to the NFL. “We?ve got a great strength program here, so everyone can get bigger, stronger and faster, but you have to be able to play with the technique and fundamentals that it takes to be successful at the position in the secondary.”
Cooper cited man coverage as the biggest area the UW secondary needs to improve on.
“We have to improve in man coverage,” he said. “[We need] to be able to play the man and stop him from catching the ball and if he does catch it, tackle him. We have to get better at [not] giving up big plays.”
Cooper sighted B.J. Tucker and Michael Broussard as the early leaders of the new secondary, which lost senior starters Mike Echols and Joey Boese to graduation. If the fast play and hard hitting of the secondary in early spring practices is any indication, Cooper is already making his mark on the program.
The third new assistant to join the Badger coaching staff this spring is three-time Badger letterwinner Paul Chryst, who will take over the position of tight-ends coach after former tight-ends coach Tim Davis gained a promotion.
Chryst previously spent time coaching in the CFL and at UW-Platteville. He was recently part of Mike Riley?s staff at Oregon State and then with the San Diego Chargers in the NFL. He was instrumental in developing the Chargers? Freddie Jones into a top-notch tight end.
“Every year you coach you learn things and pick up things,” Chryst said. “Mike [Riley?s] been a great mentor and role model, so you?re always picking up stuff everywhere you go. Each person you coach with you learn things, and it?s been a great experience.”
Upon the firing of Riley and subsequent release of his staff following this past NFL season, Chryst fell right into the hands of Alvarez.
After losing Mark Anelli to graduation, the Badgers are stocked with a bevy of new tight ends. With a new coach guiding them, Chryst stressed that the most important part of the current spring practices was for he and his players to get acquainted.
While Murphy, Cooper and Chryst will all need time to get acquainted with the 2002 edition of the Wisconsin Badger football team, their impressive amount of combined experience will exempt them from having to get acquainted with their coaching methods. This experience is something Barry Alvarez is banking on to help improve areas the team struggled immensely in last season.
