Northwestern University Athletics
Photo by: Stephen J. Carrera
The Skip Report: Three Units, One Heartbeat
9/16/2015 5:00:00 PM | Football
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
They have yet to surrender a touchdown in this young season and their performance has catalyzed their team to its 2-0 start. Yet they recognize, all of those on the Wildcat defense recognize that just a hair's breadth separates such spectacular success from unremarkable mediocrity.
"Football's so detail-oriented that if you lose your focus for just one second, a team's going to gain an advantage on you," explains one of them, the defensive tackle Max Chapman. "So we really have been focusing on making sure we're paying attention to details, making sure we're doing all the little things right. That builds up. That adds up."
"It's the difference of an inch," echoes another of them, the defensive end Deonte Gibson. "So this year we strive for, 'If it doesn't look right, fix it. Every time.' If there was something that was wrong, or something that we felt wasn't great, we fix it. Our whole mindset is we're not walking off the field unless we can get everything near perfect."
That is their mindset now, pursue perfection, and here they are their own toughest task masters. Take what they did up in Camp Kenosha; where they set goals for themselves before each practice. If it was to cause three turnovers, and if they did not manage that, they--on their own and with no coach's involvement--would do pushups or run gassers or punish themselves in some way.
"We'd do something to hold ourselves accountable," recalls Chapman.
Consider too what they still do now, even with the season upon them. Say, explains Gibson, "We had an outside zone, and the defensive end was supposed to stay outside, and he went inside, and the running back got outside. In practice, you're like, 'Oh, it's practice. That's a mistake.' We don't take that as a mistake. We take that as a big play. So we run, or do pushups, or pay some kind of retribution for what happened on the field.
"We don't allow ourselves to get beat in practice. If we get beat, you feel pain."
Be the first to know what's going on with the 'Cats -- Follow @NU_Sports on Twitter, become a fan of Northwestern Athletics on Facebook and check us out on Instagram. For more information on following specific Northwestern teams online, visit our Social Media page!
They certainly felt pain last January, which is when their pursuit truly began. Now, for the second straight winter, they were nothing more than bowl-game observers, and here they faced the starkest of choices. "After a 5-7 season," says Gibson, "either you're going to get mad about it, or you're going to say, 'All right. Whatever.' You're just going to pass it off. We didn't. We started to grind. We got a real positive mindset and we got real aggressive, especially on defense. We attacked everything. Everything was a competition. So we built that mindset in January, which carried us through to June when we got the freshmen. It was about rebuilding the culture. That's what we see (now) and that's what's promising about the potential aspect of the team. But other than that, we're only in week two. So we've just got to keep working."
And what was that culture and where did it go missing?
"The culture consisted of physicality, working hard," says the defensive tackle C.J. Robbins. "In the early Fitz (Pat Fitzgerald) era, before we got here, it was just a fast ball team that ground teams down and teams got tired and we still had to motor to keep going. I don't even know if the mentality tapered off. But the motor tapered slightly. We had to get that foundation back, re-establish that foundation."
That is what they did here in the dark days of winter; just what they did in all those competitions that now filled their days. At the start of each week, for one example, a D lineman would be matched against his offensive counterpart, and over that week each would try to outdo the other in bench presses and grip exercises, in sled pulls and cones drills and some dozen other challenges. "That's a one-on-one battle against someone you're already going against in practice, so you really don't want to lose," remembers Chapman. "That competitive nature really helped us build our intensity and our focus and our attention to detail and to giving great effort."
And how's that translate to Saturdays?
"We treat every game like a practice," he said. "I remember, I was feeling kind of weird after the Stanford game. It felt like everything we'd practiced. Then afterwards we got in cold tubs again. Our routine was the same. You go out there. You do the best that you can. You recover. Then you get ready to do it again. So whether it's a practice or a game, we're just trying to be the very best we can be."
Now this 'Cat defense, to be sure, is physically talented. Its line goes 10 deep and is festooned with estimable veterans like Gibson, Robbins and Chapman. The sophomore Anthony Walker, a nascent star, anchors its linebackers. Its final four, its DBs, are all experienced, and across the board they have the team speed to run down their mistakes.
But those are not the biggest reasons it is so different from its immediate predecessors, who themselves had talent. Those reasons are its approach, which attends to the most prosaic of minutia, and its mindset, which looks to rinse away the rancid aftertaste of a pair of 5-7 seasons. "Honestly, it's not like a big gap. It wasn't like, 'Oh, the difference is so big,'" Robbins will say when asked the difference between those seasons and now. "Te's (Gibson's) alluded to the difference is an inch, so it's not one thing you can point to. It's just putting it all together that's making the difference. It is believing in each other. It's little things that make a difference. We're the same players. We've had the same capabilities the whole time, the same potential. It's all being together and making sure everything's right."
"We didn't come to Northwestern to be average," Chapman will later say when asked the genesis of that change. "So when we have all these opportunities in front of us, we really want to make the best of those opportunities. So it's been from the ground up. Of course we have great leadership from our coaches. But honestly the catalyst has been the players. The senior leadership. People having that true desire to make Northwestern great. So everyday we come out the best that we can. Whether it's in the weight room, whether it's during a run, whether it's out at practice, we're trying to bring the best that we can to every day.
"We're trying to win every day."
Three seasons ago, as the 'Cats worked their way toward a victory in the Gator Bowl, their D line rode the Fun Train, a creation of the former tackle Will Hampton. Last year it envisioned itself as The Bad Boys, as successors to the roughneck Pistons of the late '80s, and this fall its label is the Savage Patch Kids. "The D line adopts a mentality at some point, and we wanted that savage mentality," explains Robbins. "The Savage Patch Kids was something that flowed, it was funny, it kept the game light, it kept us having fun, and it was something that stuck."
The linebackers, in turn, call themselves The Renegades, a label adopted by David Nwabuisi and Damien Proby when they manned that position. "You have to be aggressive as a linebacker," explains Walker. "You have to have that whatever-it-takes attitude. The renegade does everything."
The DBs, in conclusion, are The Sky Team, a name handed down from the days of former corner Jordan Mabin. "We just rule the sky," explains safety Godwin Igwebuike. "Anything that goes up in the air, we expect it to either come down in our hands or hit the ground. So you might as well not throw it."
Together this group calls itself The Black Squad, after its jersey color in practice, and through two weeks it has been impregnable. Still. Despite its success, and despite the felicitousness of its various names, there is about it yet a singleness of purpose, a recognition that its pursuit of perfection continues. Here is why.
A baseball player, on a hot streak, often says he is seeing the ball so well he can hit anything thrown his way. And a basketball player, on a hot streak, often claims the hoop looks as big as an ocean to him. But Gibson and Robbins, when asked if its own hot streak makes the defense feel unbeatable, forcefully demur. "No. Never," Gibson then says. "Anybody can be beat. That keeps you humble."
"Being realistic keeps you hungry," Robbins now concludes. "It keeps you motived and your eye on the right thing."
NUsports.com Special Contributor
They have yet to surrender a touchdown in this young season and their performance has catalyzed their team to its 2-0 start. Yet they recognize, all of those on the Wildcat defense recognize that just a hair's breadth separates such spectacular success from unremarkable mediocrity.
"Football's so detail-oriented that if you lose your focus for just one second, a team's going to gain an advantage on you," explains one of them, the defensive tackle Max Chapman. "So we really have been focusing on making sure we're paying attention to details, making sure we're doing all the little things right. That builds up. That adds up."
"It's the difference of an inch," echoes another of them, the defensive end Deonte Gibson. "So this year we strive for, 'If it doesn't look right, fix it. Every time.' If there was something that was wrong, or something that we felt wasn't great, we fix it. Our whole mindset is we're not walking off the field unless we can get everything near perfect."
That is their mindset now, pursue perfection, and here they are their own toughest task masters. Take what they did up in Camp Kenosha; where they set goals for themselves before each practice. If it was to cause three turnovers, and if they did not manage that, they--on their own and with no coach's involvement--would do pushups or run gassers or punish themselves in some way.
"We'd do something to hold ourselves accountable," recalls Chapman.
Consider too what they still do now, even with the season upon them. Say, explains Gibson, "We had an outside zone, and the defensive end was supposed to stay outside, and he went inside, and the running back got outside. In practice, you're like, 'Oh, it's practice. That's a mistake.' We don't take that as a mistake. We take that as a big play. So we run, or do pushups, or pay some kind of retribution for what happened on the field.
"We don't allow ourselves to get beat in practice. If we get beat, you feel pain."
Be the first to know what's going on with the 'Cats -- Follow @NU_Sports on Twitter, become a fan of Northwestern Athletics on Facebook and check us out on Instagram. For more information on following specific Northwestern teams online, visit our Social Media page!
They certainly felt pain last January, which is when their pursuit truly began. Now, for the second straight winter, they were nothing more than bowl-game observers, and here they faced the starkest of choices. "After a 5-7 season," says Gibson, "either you're going to get mad about it, or you're going to say, 'All right. Whatever.' You're just going to pass it off. We didn't. We started to grind. We got a real positive mindset and we got real aggressive, especially on defense. We attacked everything. Everything was a competition. So we built that mindset in January, which carried us through to June when we got the freshmen. It was about rebuilding the culture. That's what we see (now) and that's what's promising about the potential aspect of the team. But other than that, we're only in week two. So we've just got to keep working."
And what was that culture and where did it go missing?
"The culture consisted of physicality, working hard," says the defensive tackle C.J. Robbins. "In the early Fitz (Pat Fitzgerald) era, before we got here, it was just a fast ball team that ground teams down and teams got tired and we still had to motor to keep going. I don't even know if the mentality tapered off. But the motor tapered slightly. We had to get that foundation back, re-establish that foundation."
That is what they did here in the dark days of winter; just what they did in all those competitions that now filled their days. At the start of each week, for one example, a D lineman would be matched against his offensive counterpart, and over that week each would try to outdo the other in bench presses and grip exercises, in sled pulls and cones drills and some dozen other challenges. "That's a one-on-one battle against someone you're already going against in practice, so you really don't want to lose," remembers Chapman. "That competitive nature really helped us build our intensity and our focus and our attention to detail and to giving great effort."
And how's that translate to Saturdays?
"We treat every game like a practice," he said. "I remember, I was feeling kind of weird after the Stanford game. It felt like everything we'd practiced. Then afterwards we got in cold tubs again. Our routine was the same. You go out there. You do the best that you can. You recover. Then you get ready to do it again. So whether it's a practice or a game, we're just trying to be the very best we can be."
Now this 'Cat defense, to be sure, is physically talented. Its line goes 10 deep and is festooned with estimable veterans like Gibson, Robbins and Chapman. The sophomore Anthony Walker, a nascent star, anchors its linebackers. Its final four, its DBs, are all experienced, and across the board they have the team speed to run down their mistakes.
But those are not the biggest reasons it is so different from its immediate predecessors, who themselves had talent. Those reasons are its approach, which attends to the most prosaic of minutia, and its mindset, which looks to rinse away the rancid aftertaste of a pair of 5-7 seasons. "Honestly, it's not like a big gap. It wasn't like, 'Oh, the difference is so big,'" Robbins will say when asked the difference between those seasons and now. "Te's (Gibson's) alluded to the difference is an inch, so it's not one thing you can point to. It's just putting it all together that's making the difference. It is believing in each other. It's little things that make a difference. We're the same players. We've had the same capabilities the whole time, the same potential. It's all being together and making sure everything's right."
"We didn't come to Northwestern to be average," Chapman will later say when asked the genesis of that change. "So when we have all these opportunities in front of us, we really want to make the best of those opportunities. So it's been from the ground up. Of course we have great leadership from our coaches. But honestly the catalyst has been the players. The senior leadership. People having that true desire to make Northwestern great. So everyday we come out the best that we can. Whether it's in the weight room, whether it's during a run, whether it's out at practice, we're trying to bring the best that we can to every day.
"We're trying to win every day."
Three seasons ago, as the 'Cats worked their way toward a victory in the Gator Bowl, their D line rode the Fun Train, a creation of the former tackle Will Hampton. Last year it envisioned itself as The Bad Boys, as successors to the roughneck Pistons of the late '80s, and this fall its label is the Savage Patch Kids. "The D line adopts a mentality at some point, and we wanted that savage mentality," explains Robbins. "The Savage Patch Kids was something that flowed, it was funny, it kept the game light, it kept us having fun, and it was something that stuck."
The linebackers, in turn, call themselves The Renegades, a label adopted by David Nwabuisi and Damien Proby when they manned that position. "You have to be aggressive as a linebacker," explains Walker. "You have to have that whatever-it-takes attitude. The renegade does everything."
The DBs, in conclusion, are The Sky Team, a name handed down from the days of former corner Jordan Mabin. "We just rule the sky," explains safety Godwin Igwebuike. "Anything that goes up in the air, we expect it to either come down in our hands or hit the ground. So you might as well not throw it."
Together this group calls itself The Black Squad, after its jersey color in practice, and through two weeks it has been impregnable. Still. Despite its success, and despite the felicitousness of its various names, there is about it yet a singleness of purpose, a recognition that its pursuit of perfection continues. Here is why.
A baseball player, on a hot streak, often says he is seeing the ball so well he can hit anything thrown his way. And a basketball player, on a hot streak, often claims the hoop looks as big as an ocean to him. But Gibson and Robbins, when asked if its own hot streak makes the defense feel unbeatable, forcefully demur. "No. Never," Gibson then says. "Anybody can be beat. That keeps you humble."
"Being realistic keeps you hungry," Robbins now concludes. "It keeps you motived and your eye on the right thing."
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