Jump to content

Coach Woodson "AU has the best CB duo in the country"


ellitor

Recommended Posts





Marcus Woodson, Wes McGriff hope a new coaching dynamic in DBs room pays off for Auburn’s secondary

By Tom Green | tgreen@al.com

There was something notable about the press release from Auburn’s athletics department on Feb. 20 announcing the return of assistant coach Wes McGriff.

The hiring itself had been expected for some time, with McGriff returning to Gus Malzahn’s staff, this time replacing Greg Brown after spending the prior two years as defensive coordinator at Ole Miss. While Malzahn specifically stated last spring that Brown would focus on the Tigers’ safeties in 2018 while Marcus Woodson worked with the cornerbacks, there was no such label when announcing McGriff’s return.

He was simply identified as a “defensive assistant.”

That ambiguity was intended and not an omission, as Auburn planned to move forward with a new dynamic in the secondary. There would be no designation of roles between McGriff and Woodson, corners and safeties. Instead, the two would work in tandem as defensive backs coaches this season.

“The one thing is that Crime (McGriff) and I are on the same page,” Woodson said. “We always get together prior to meeting with the players to make sure we are speaking the same language. And because of the fact that we are like-minded, that makes things a lot easier. It’s healthy when you speak the same language and you're on the same page.”

This minor change in roles on the coaching staff was done with the intent to better unify a secondary that should be one of the strengths of Auburn’s team this season, with the entire two-deep at safety returning — including two senior starters — as well as two experienced starting corners and a rising star at nickel.

Some days this spring, Woodson would work with the corners while McGriff spent time with the safeties. On other days, they’d switch it up. Every day, though, they worked in step with one another to make sure everything was in unison among the defensive backs.

Communication, above all, was central to this new dynamic.

“We want to make sure that we use both of our experiences and expertise to make sure we have those guys game-ready,” McGriff said. “We definitely work well together. We’re not going to pigeon-hole one another. It’s going to work out great. It was a great spring. I leaned on his background. He leaned on mine. And the main thing is just to make sure those guys are ready for competition.

“I think when you get my age and you coach this long, I think you realize, there is nobody in America that is going to buy a ticket to watch you coach. They’re going to come watch those guys play, so get them ready to play.”

This spring marked the first time McGriff and Woodson’s careers crossed paths, but the two were not unfamiliar with one another prior to McGriff’s return to the Plains. After the 2017 season, when the NCAA voted to allow schools to add a 10th assistant coach, McGriff — then the defensive coordinator at Ole Miss — wanted to make a run at Woodson, the up-and-coming defensive backs coach at Memphis.

Ole Miss, of course, was Woodson’s alma mater. He played two seasons as a safety for the Rebels in the early 2000s before knee injuries cut short his playing career. The chance to return to his home state and his alma mater as an assistant appealed to him.

“He was the first guy on our list,” McGriff said.

Woodson also had a healthy respect for McGriff, whose coaching career he always followed from afar — whether it was Coach Crime Dawg’s tenure as defensive backs coach at the University of Miami from 2007-10, his time with the NFL’s New Orleans Saints or his prior stints at Ole Miss and Auburn. McGriff, who has been coaching since 1990 — “longer than I’ve been living,” Woodson joked — has always been a veteran in the profession that Woodson admired as he embarked on his own journey as a coach.

“When you start in coaching, you research the best in the business at what they do,” Woodson said. “And being a young and inspiring secondary coach, I identified several guys. He was one on the shortlist of guys that you watched perfect their craft and you heard good things about them before you met them. That's exactly what it was for him.”

The two had some mutual friends in the coaching industry, but they never met until McGriff approached Woodson about the 10th assistant opportunity at Ole Miss. The opportunity was attractive to Woodson, but the Rebels weren’t the only SEC program seeking his services.

Malzahn and Auburn defensive coordinator Kevin Steele were also interested in luring Woodson away from Memphis, where he worked under Mike Norvell — a close friend of Malzahn’s in the coaching business. Ultimately, Woodson chose Auburn as his next stop and joined the Tigers’ staff last January.

“You know, (McGriff) did try to twist my arm and get me to come back to Ole Miss,” Woodson said. “But I just thought — and still do — that with Auburn, I made the right choice. If I could do it all again, I would make the same decision, and it worked out exactly how it was supposed to happen.”

A year later, Woodson and McGriff again find themselves with an opportunity to work on the same staff, this time at Auburn, and the transition thus far has been a seamless one as the two likeminded defensive backs coaches coexist in the Tigers’ secondary.

McGriff has already grown an appreciation for Woodson’s attention to detail and energy, describing him as a “phenomenal” up-and-comer in the business. Woodson, in turn, has enjoyed McGriff’s intrinsic knowledge that has come with nearly 30 years of coaching, and along with helping develop the Tigers’ defensive backs, McGriff has also worked to develop Woodson — showing him the ropes and taking him under his wing as somewhat of a protege while still being equals in the defensive backs room.

It’s a dynamic the two hope pays dividends on the back end of the defense this fall.

“My two kids at home, they like to know mom and dad is on the same page,” Woodson said. “The players are the same way, you know, when they know the staff is on the same page. Camaraderie trickles down from us to the players, not from the players to the staff. So, they can feel that, and you can't trick them. They know when you're genuine and when it's a good relationship, and when it’s not.”

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...