It’s more than a little rough around these parts for assistant football coaches, particularly defensive coaches.
Of course, when things aren’t going right, it’s often hard to find players on the roster who can get them right, and no logical head coach is going to bench himself. It has to be something, some detail or some disconnect going wrong in the meeting rooms, and it’s playing out on the football field.
We saw Prairie View A&M coach Tremaine Jackson demote his offensive coordinator and secondary coach. Texans coach DeMeco Ryans reclaimed defensive play calling a few weeks ago after his team started the season 0-4.
And last week, with his team amid a five-game losing streak, Texas Southern coach Cris Dishman announced that he had taken over defensive play-calling from defensive coordinator Scott Vestal.
“We changed a lot of stuff, and we dug deep into what we were doing wrong, looked into what we were doing right,” Dishman said. “And let’s try to do more right than wrong. We changed some responsibilities of coaches and are just trying to get the best winning combination on the field.”
When in doubt, change ’em out!
“We still have a lot of games ahead of us to win. This is just one of the games we had to win. Now we have to go into next week and win next week.”
Cris Dishman, TSU head coach
What’s interesting is that in each situation, there was an immediate positive return. The Texans won two straight before Sunday’s disastrous loss at home to the New York Giants. After losing consecutive SWAC games, the Panthers are back at the top of the SWAC West standings and even recorded an impressive out-of-conference FCS win this past weekend against East Texas A&M.
Coming out of their bye week, Dishman’s Tigers stopped the hemorrhaging with a much-needed 24-21 Homecoming win over Southern University.
The Tigers’ offense made enough plays. The defense got just enough stops. It was all just enough for freshman kicker Miguel Arana to nail a game-clinching 46-yard field goal as time expired at Reliant Stadium to add to the Homecoming festivities.
It was exactly what the Tigers needed if it’s in the plans to salvage what has been a disappointing season. Dishman, of course, a one-time defensive back great for the Houston Oilers and defensive coach and defensive coordinator in his post-playing career, admits that stepping back into a defensive coordinator role and calling defensive plays for the first time since 2022, when he was with the New Jersey Generals of the USFL, came with a lot of challenges.
“It was rough for me,” Dishman admitted when I asked him how making the defensive plays went. “But I had help from other defensive coaches. We were all in this together. I didn’t make the calls by myself. I made a call and (asked), `Do you guys like this call?’ So, everybody was all in together.”
Collectively, the defensive unit came through against a dangerous Southern team. That’s not to suggest that the Tigers didn’t give up some plays because they did. They gave up 318 total yards on 66 plays and played a part in the Jaguars winning the usually telling time-of-possession battle, 33:45 to 26:15, with running back Trey Holly gashing the defense for 156 yards and one touchdown on 35 carries.
But what was most important was that the defense made big stops late in the game and got off the field on third downs, limiting the Jaguars to 6-of-14 on third downs.
What had prompted Dishman to pick up the defensive coordinator headset was that the unit had been giving up way too many yards, particularly on third down, when it was uncommon to see opposing offenses convert third-and-forevers.
So Dishman took over and went back to basics.
“We were giving up too many long yards on third down,” said Dishman, who made the switch during the bye week with the team in a rut at 0-3 in the league and 1-5 overall. “We weren’t tackling right. So all last week, our defensive backs did tackling circuit. We didn’t do back peddling or planting and driving. We didn’t do nothing because they know how to do all of that. We did tackling circuit… to bring everything back to the basics and tackle.
“We shouldn’t be able to give up a third and 19. Somebody should be able to get that guy down.”
Up front, the defense needed to be more aggressive in pursuing the quarterback. And rush the quarterback, defensive end Josh Dorsainvil and middle linebacker Donovan Jones did with each player accounting for a sack on Southern quarterback Christian Johnson.
Johnson was given little time to set up and find open receivers, resulting in just 124 yards and two passing touchdowns on the day.
“They brought a little bit more pressure. In previous games, their defensive line kind of hovered more around the line of scrimmage,” Southern coach Marshall Faulk said. “(Saturday), they kinda got after it a little bit. I don’t know whether that was because Coach Dishman got a little bit more involved or if they saw we had problems with different blitzes and stuff like that.
“For the most part, they did the things that we thought that they were going to do.”
While the Tigers’ defense did seem to take steps in the right direction, calling the defensive plays and preparing for the next defensive series took Dishman away from paying attention to his total team.
“I don’t see the rest of the game,” said Dishman, whose team improved to 2-5 overall and 1-3 in the SWAC with another big home game coming up against Grambling State on Halloween night at W.W. Thorne Stadium. “I don’t see the offensive plays, the specialist, or nothing like that. I don’t see the kickoff team. I’m so locked into calling the defense and making calls and stuff like that. I don’t see the rest of the game.
“I lose my coaching ability from seeing the rest of the game. And decisions get up on me fast, and I have to make decisions very quick.”
But Dishman was in on one of the most controversial offensive play calls when the Tigers decided to go for it on fourth-and-two at the Southern 43. TSU converted and kept moving the ball down the field for the game-winning field.
But had it not worked, it would have given the Jaguars the short field to break the 21-21 and likely win the game.
Apparently, Dishman and his staff had already decided if they faced fourth down, they were going for it. And if they didn’t convert, it was on Dishman to make defensive calls to prevent Southern’s offense from winning the game.
“If we didn’t make it, then I have to call blitz where we can get them behind the sticks,” Dishman explained to me. “You want teams to catch up. You want to get teams behind the sticks, so therefore they have to catch up.
“If we didn’t make this, then my defense had to come back get stops.”
For now, the coaching staff looks smarter, and Dishman appears to have made the right call in taking over the defense. But unlike Jackson and Ryans, Dishman isn’t committing to keeping things the way they are the whole season.
“I don’t know how long I can do this,” he said. “I’m going to try to go at least two or three more weeks and see what happens.”
