FORT DRUM, N.Y. — At 4:55 p.m., a horn sounded.

The bustle of practice halted. Players took off their helmets and put them on their sides, and coaches removed their hats. The patriotic gesture, seemingly out of nowhere, served as a reminder that this practice was on an army base. But after a few seconds, a voice loud enough for the whole field to hear called out, “False alarm.”

Syracuse head coach Scott Shafer, standing in the middle of the field, turned to his defensive backs and said with a laugh, “Get back to practice.”

Defensive backs

Pass defense was the lesson taught to the Syracuse defensive backs on Tuesday afternoon.

After working his players through backpedaling drills and honing their tackling technique, defensive backs coach Fred Reed delved into zone coverage. Off a snap, he had his cornerbacks bump their fellow corners — acting as wide receivers — 5 yards off the line of scrimmage, before dropping into zone coverage.

When he whistled a play dead, Reed wanted his corners to have their backs to the sideline, 3 yards off of it and about 10 yards from the line of scrimmage. Junior Julian Whigham needed more explanation from Reed during the portion of practice open to the media, but sophomore Corey Winfield, a newly converted wide receiver, seemed to please Reed with his grasp of the scheme.

Later in the practice, Reed split his group into safeties and cornerbacks. The corners held their hands behind their backs and covered a wide receiver, isolating just their footwork and ability to stay with their assignment.

The safeties went back to backpedaling drills and then picking off out routes from Reed.

Linebackers

A few yards downfield, linebackers coach Clark Lea instructed drills for fumble recovery, rolling a ball on the ground for his charging players to either scoop or fall on.

“Scrape the ground,” Lea told them. “Bend those knees, square up the ball.”

After picking off out routes thrown by Lea, the linebackers worked on throwing aside blocks and tracking down ball carriers. Then Lea upped the ante, bringing a dummy onto the field and placing it down with his linebackers approaching, training them to make solo tackles in the open field.

They completed different variations of the drill, including a drill when the linebackers went forward, backpedaled, then tackled the dummy from the side. Another drill entailed two linebackers starting off next to each other, moving 5 yards away from each other to opposite sides, and then converging back to meet the ball carrier.

Published on August 12, 2014 at 7:43 pm

Contact Phil: pmdabbra@syr.edu | @PhilDAbb