Clark Lea Notebook | August 15
Te’von Coney was challenged – and challenged himself – to become a better player in pass coverage as part of his return to Notre Dame for the 2018 season and first-year defensive coordinator Clark Lea put part of that challenge upon himself.
“I have been really pleased with him and it hasn’t been perfect and it will never be perfect,” Lea said during the Irish’s Media Day on Wednesday. “It’s an evolution. I think we’ve added situations for him to have more responsibility in coverage and I think – I hope at least – that my work in the offseason to coach it better has helped his improvement.”
Lea was the linebackers coach last season, his first in South Bend, and looked at himself as much – if not more – than Coney as to where the change was needed.
“For a player to execute in coverage, obviously he needs a skillset, but it’s my job to enhance that skillset and not just the skill, but also the concept and understanding what he needs to do to be successful,” Lea acknowledged.
“I feel like I came up short and truthfully, maybe I’ve come up short in my career in general that way. You’re always looking for a chance to reset as a coach and improve and that was my charge this offseason.”
Lea said Coney was “absolutely” a similar player as Marquel Lee, a linebacker Lea coached to First Team All-ACC honors at Wake Forest in 2016.
“Te’von is as explosive of a player as I’ve coached,” Lea said. “I’ve described it this way before, it’s like he’s been struck by a lightning bolt on gameday, there’s so much twitch and innate football instinct in that body. He’s got the potential.
“That year at Wake, Markell started out slow. He was pressing, he was trying to do a lot and he wasn’t getting the production and he was frustrated. We took a moment to reset there and say, ‘Hey listen, it’s not about that. It’s about going out and executing and the play will come to you.’ Once he embraced that approach, he found a level of success that obviously thrust him forward to the career he’s having now.”
TRANQUILL WILL BE HEARD: What will Lea be counting on from fifth-year senior Drue Tranquill in terms of leadership this fall?
In a word, “Everything.”
“He’s a consistent worker,” Lea continued. “He’s the model for what a football player is. He lifts hard, runs hard, plays hard. He cares a great deal about what we’re doing and who we are as people.”
The staff will certainly encourage Tranquill to take on as large a leadership role as possible.
“He’s got so much invested in this program that you just want to equip him with the perspective to be that voice and knowing he’s going to be heard,” said Lea. “I would say the same for Te’von and Jerry Tillery. Part of training camp is the physical tools, the schematic tools, but a big part of it is the bond we’re trying to create and the fabric we’re trying to create.
“I’ve never been through a perfect season, but if we can just keep coming back to, ‘This is our identity. This is what we want to accomplish together and above all else, let’s have fun doing this the right way.’ That’s the message I need those guys to carry day in and day out.”
Tranquill, 23, got married over the offseason.
“So he’s got things he’s balancing in his life,” Lea added. “I think more than anything from Drue, I just want that consistency and mental approach, never too high, never too low. I need him to carry the message to the group. As I’m in the box, he’s down there steadying the sideline and keeping us focused on the next play.”
LEA WILL BE LOOKING ON FROM THE TOP: In his first year running the defense, Lea is going to miss the action of being on the sideline during games, but he sees it as his responsibility to head up to the coaches’ box.
“I think it’s always great to be on the field because you’re sharing in the experience of gameday with your players and you can read the emotion and you can give and take as you need,” he explained. “I don’t know how I’d accomplish the things I need to be able to accomplish for these guys as a play-caller with all of that emotion in front of me. I feel it’s important that I remove myself from that fray a little bit so I can be calm and collected as I look at the next step. For me right now, the box seems to be the best place.
“Obviously, many people have done it either way, but that’s where I’m leaning.”
ASMAR TAKES OVER AT ROVER: As Coney moves from Buck to Mike and Tranquill takes over Coney’s spot at Buck, that leaves Asmar Bilal to replace Tranquill at Rover. Lea is confident all of the changes will work out well, including Bilal's.
“I expect him to take that Rover spot and run and have a great, productive season,” Lea said of Bilal. “I think he’s playing his best football since I’ve been here, which is encouraging.”
Lea called splitting Bilal’s reps between Rover and Buck during the spring “a little unfair to him.”
“I think once we got him locked in to the Rover spot, he was able to build on the reps he took last season,” he continued. “I’ve been really pleased with his progress. I hope he can have a year that he’s proud of, but also a year that he’s able to play effectively on the field for us.”
Seeing how Tranquill prepared and played the position should help Bilal, but so should the close friendship between the two.
“I know that relationship is very important to both of them,” Lea said. “At Drue’s wedding, there’s Asmar up on the stage. It’s a bond. In playing behind Drue, he got to see a guy who’s a pro in the way he approaches his work and keep his priorities aligned the right way. I think Asmar experienced growth in that respect. Asmar is anxious to have his turn and I’m anxious for him too.”
Lea is convinced Bilal has the physical ability to make a huge impact, it’s just about him playing free.
“He has got speed and he has got power,” the defensive coordinator said. “Both of those things might be as good as anybody on the team. What I would like to see from him and what I feel like he’s displayed to a certain degree at this point in fall camp is letting his football instinct take over too. Don’t be robotic out there.
“It’s about executing, but it’s also about using that strength and speed to go make a play and cut loose sometimes. I think Drue was really effective that way in some of those perimeter screens to the field last year where he just swallowed up a block on the perimeter. I want to see Asmar think less about, ‘Do I go inside or outside?’ and just go through. I think when he does that, he’s going to experience all of the preparation in the weight room and on the field will come together for him and he’ll have a great year.”
WATCHING THE WOLVERINES: While Lea’s unit is going through plenty of change, his first opponent will look plenty different itself.
Transfer quarterback Shea Patterson is expected to be the Michigan’s starting quarterback and the Irish won’t have any solid indication of how Jim Harbaugh plans to tailor his attack around the former Ole Miss signal-caller.
“There’s a balance there because there can also be paralysis by analysis,” Lea explained. “We can’t prepare for eight offenses. We have built-in structures and have worked on those and evolving those in the offseason and have installed them through fall camp. We’ve spent time on heavy personnel sets, we’ve spent time on spread sets, so there is a base structure that we can get to.
“I think anytime you’re in the opening game, especially with all of the new parts and pieces that we’re looking at, we’re going to need to be able to stick and move and adjust on the go and figure out exactly what that personality. For sure, there’s a study of Patterson. For sure, there’s a digging into what Michigan has been and Coach Harbaugh has been in the past. Then, you look at the coaching parts and pieces he’s added. You’re also researching those guys’ background too to try to get the best picture you can to know what you’re going to need to adjust to Sept. 1st.”
ALMA MATER JUST ANOTHER GAME: A couple weeks after his debut against Michigan, Lea will be facing off against his alma mater, Vanderbilt, but there won’t be much added importance, according to him.
“They’re all personal,” he said. “At this point, you cease being a fan. I don’t want to spit back coachspeak, but literally, it’s, ‘Who’s the next opponent? How do we best prepare for them?’ I’m sure I’ll have an extra group of friends and family for that game, which is always special to share in that.
“At the end of the day, what Coach (Derek) Mason has done at Vanderbilt, what he’s doing and has done there, I’ve been able to appreciate from afar, but that just becomes another opponent when we line up against them.”
Lea spent three years as a fullback for the Commodores from 2002-2004.
“I was on a team that won six games in three years,” he said. “It was formative from the standpoint that there was a nucleus of players that never flinched even though we weren’t having the success we wanted. We never stopped. We never relented. That was special.”
While there wasn’t a ton of on-field success, Lea traces his motivation to become a coach to those days.
“The seed was planted in me of how special it is to be a part of a team and a brotherhood that fights for things,” he said.
To this day, he remembers the “burn” he had walking into his team’s weight room one December day only to find another team using it in preparation for the Music City Bowl in Nashville.
“Truthfully, the sting of not accomplishing thrust me into coaching. That sting is what drove me into saying, ‘I want to be able to do this at a high level. I want to win a national championship. I want to be able to compete for big games.’”