Football
Linebackers Hoping to Play Faster in 2007
By John Porentas

OK all you I-can-quote-everybody's-40-time football fans out there, pull up a chair and learn something. There's a difference between being fast and playing fast.

At least that's what a relatively young crop of Buckeyes linebackers are saying these days. What's interesting is that the group we're talking about is for the most part players who are entering their second year in the lineup, and it is just now that they are discovering what we're trying to tell you about 40 times and playing fast.

When 40 times are measured there aren't a whole lot of variables. You have a runner, a start line, and a finish line. When the timer says go, the runner runs as fast as he can from the start line to the finish. Pretty simple. It isn't all that simple on a football field.

When the ball is snapped, players, and we're talking specifically about defensive players here, and even more specifically linebackers, have to determine a whole lot of things before they can take that first step to show off that great 40 speed, and that's where the difference between being fast and playing fast starts. It doesn't matter how fast you can run. If takes you forever to determine just where to run, you're going to get there late no matter how fast you are. That's what players like Larry Grant, James Laurinaitis and Ross Homan learned last season.

Ross Homan
Photo by Jim Davidson

"It definitely feels more comfortable (to be a second-year player), knowing all the schemes, things have definitely slowed down more," said Homan who saw considerable action last season as a freshman. "It's a whole different stage being a second-year player than coming in right away and being lost.

"You just grasp everything instead of thinking before the play. Now you're just playing," Homan said.

And that, said Homan, is something different for him. Last year he spent so much time thinking about the scheme, his responsibilities within that scheme, all the other things that linebackers have to know that he just could not play as fast as he needed to.

"Oh my gosh, every play, that's what was slowing me down so much. I'd think about what I had to do, who I had to guard, and then the snap and I'd be lost," Homan said.

Larry Grant had a similar story. He too was in his first year as a Division I football player last season, and he too saw action last year. He also had trouble playing fast, but like Homan, is doing much better with that whole concept this time around.

Larry Grant
Photo by Jim Davidson

"Last year I had to think before I reacted. Now since I know what I'm doing I can just react to situations instead of thinking before I do something," said Grant.

"You can never play fast when you're thinking. Now since I'm not thinking as much I get to move as fast as I want to move."

It turns out that at linebacker, the less thinking you're doing, the better off you are, if that makes any sense at all to you given the complex nature of football today.

"At linebacker, when you're on that second level of defense, you have to be able to play off the d-linemen and to play fast and make moves off them to get to the ball," said Grant.

"We just have to play faster. Play faster and get off blocks and push our front-four to play harder as well," Grant said.

OSU's linebacking corps was highly touted and talented last season, but was young. Luckily for those linebackers, they had a veteran defensive line playing in front of them, a line that both made plays and also made it a bit easier on the linebackers by keeping blockers off of them and giving them more time to react.

Things will be different this season. The defensive front will be young, and will likely have their own issues with playing fast, so this year it will be the linebacking corps turn to stand tall while the defensive line is trying to get it all figured out. The linebackers feel like they are headed in the right direction to do just that.

"This year I'm a lot more comfortable, things have slowed down so it's a lot better," said Homan.

"I'm playing faster. Last year I was kind of hesitant during the play, but now I know where I'm going, know my responsibilities now so I can just flat-out play."

James Laurinaitis
Photo by Jim Davidson

Even James Laurinaitis, who had a very good season as a first-year starter last year, sees a difference in how fast he can play the game this year after a year of seasoning.

"It just allows you to relax and play faster," said Laurinaitis.

"When you know what you're doing and you can calm down you can just kind of fly around. You don't have to worry about 'What am I doing on this play? Who am I dropping off? Where do I fit?' You just go run around, try and make plays and do your job."

So playing fast is different from being fast. Now we're going to give you a real headache. Trying to play fast when you really can't is a bad thing. Just ask OSU linebackers coach Luke Fickell.

"There's a fine line between playing fast and being out of control. I always stress to be under control first and the speed will come," said Fickell.

That's what the OSU linebacking corps was doing last season, and it could play that way because it had the luxury of having that veteran and effective defensive line in front of it. This season, however, the linebackers think they are going to be able to let it all hang out and play faster.

Homan, Laurinaitis and Grant are three linebackers who return with experience and should be playing faster this year. Marcus Freeman and Curtis Terry also return and are players who have been on the field enough to play fast, not just be fast, and that bodes well for the Buckeye defense. Also in the mix this spring is fast-improving Austin Spitler who is currently the number-one backup to Laurinaitis at the inside linebacker position.

Austin Spitler
Photo by Jim Davidson

"I watch Austin to see what he does because he does a lot of stuff a lot better than I do and vice-versa," said Laurinaitis. "It makes you go harder in practice."

"Austin had a very productive jersey scrimmage," said Fickell.

"Austin has been playing great. Austin has stepped up big time," agreed senior linebacker Curtis Terry.

Fickell likes what he is seeing in all his charges this spring, so much so that he's having a tough time deciding who should be playing. As a matter of fact, he's seriously considering ways to play all six of them.

"When we did that in the Texas game we were successful and it takes some of the pressure off some of the other guys," said Fickell.

"I mean just wear and tear, hits and things, because you want to be at your best at the end of the year. I think that's our focus this year. I don't know a whole lot of people who have rolled six linebackers, you don't see it done in the NFL, you don't see it done a lot of places, but I really want to see if there's a way we can do that," Fickell said.

Fickell was asked if he could see subbing his linebackers as a whole unit throughout the entire season.

"Like Hockey? Line changes?" quipped Fickell when asked if he was considering a platoon system for his linebackers.

"I don't know. There's a way to do it. The offensive line can do it, the defensive line can do it.

"Sometimes it's hard to do it with a guy that's calling the defense. People roll quarterbacks, but sometimes it's not successful.

"I think if we have six deserving guys, and the gap between the ones and twos is not that big of a difference, I think in the long run it would help you, because now all of a sudden you get an injury and a a guy has some experience, you get a guy who has wear and tear on him, it takes a lot of the hits off a guy and it gives the guys all an opportunity," Fickell said.

There are a couple of other fast linebackers in the OSU camp this spring, linebackers like Thaddeus Gibson and Mark Johnson, both of whom sat out last season. Both are making strides, but both are in the mode of learning how to play fast and not just being fast.

"I think they're learning," said Laurinaitis of Gibson and Johnson.

"They're running around and trying not to become too slow with stuff. Sometimes when you're learning new stuff you slow down a little bit in your head. They have a ways to go as well some of the other guys, but they've improved," Laurinaitis said. \

Linebacker Notes:

Curtis Terry
Photo by Jim Davidson

* Senior linebacker Curtis Terry has missed most of spring drills with a foot injury, much to Terry's chagrin.

"I just need to rest it," said Terry.

"I keep trying to jump out there too soon. I'm going to rest it and see what that does for me. The trainers ask me every day why I go out there, that I'm just going to mess it up again, but that's my family. I just want to go out there and compete and be with them."

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