Stevenson Q&A: Defensive Coordinator Ed Sweeney

You can’t say it enough: Defense wins football games.

's inaugural football game is just a few weeks away, and the man controlling the first defense in school history will be Ed Sweeney.

A longtime head coach at the collegiate level, Sweeney will lead a completely new defense with a new philosophy and all-new personnel.

Patch caught up with Sweeney to see how he plans on shutting down opposing offenses.

Patch: How were you hired as the defensive coordinator?

Ed Sweeney: Well, Coach Hottle played for me at Frostburg State University. He played for three seasons and then after he graduated, I made him a graduate assistant, and he coached defensive line for me.

So, that’s kind of where we started. And then I moved from Frostburg up to Mount Ida College as the head coach, and he stayed at Frostburg and then went to Wesleyan College, then the high school, then Gallaudet, and we stayed in contact.

And we talked about different things concerning football, being a head coach, and all those sorts of things over the years. So, when this started to develop, I was in a situation where I had taken a year off from coaching with the idea that maybe I was going to retire. But I was too antsy to get back, so Ed [Hottle] got hired and approached me with "would you be interesting in being the d-coordinator?"

And I said that’d be fantastic. After being a head coach for 25 years, I was looking for a change. I wanted to coach, but I didn’t really want to have to deal with all the other stuff the head coach deals with. So, it’s been great.

Patch: What type of defense will you be running?

Sweeney: It’s an eight-man front. Years ago, everybody called it a 4-4; now they’re calling it a 4-2-5. I think that’s evolved just because of what the offenses are doing with the spread formations and throwing the ball. The West Coast initially, and then the spread attack.

Patch: Where over the years did you pick up your defensive philosophy?

Sweeney: The early stages of the defensive philosophy go back to Boston University. I served as a secondary coach there for eight years, and my last three as the defensive coordinator.

And I’ve had packages I’ve stayed with over the years, and obviously we’ve had to develop somewhat, but I feel very comfortable with it.

Patch: What did you try to accomplish during the developmental season with the defense?

Sweeney: We just tried to get a philosophy of attacking the offense, pursuing the football, being efficient tackling, causing turnovers, give the offense a short field—those sorts of things that are built into your philosophy as a coach, and how you want your defense to perform, and you’ve got to teach the kids how to do all that.

And then, on top of that, you have to teach them the X’s and O’s part of the defense. We’ve got a lot of things to work on, and hopefully the kids pick it up quickly.

Patch: How was recruiting on the defensive side of the ball?

Sweeney: I think we got an excellent group of kids that we’re working with. I’m pretty excited about the kids we have. The toughest part about it right now is we’re a week and half away from starting, and we don’t really know what we have.

You can watch a high school film, but it’s really hard to evaluate what the competition is, what’s he going to do at the next level, physically are they ready to come in and match-up against seniors. So that’s where the challenge is.

Patch: What is the first thing you try to teach each defensive player?

Sweeney: Probably the first thing is that defense is all about attitude. You have to want to play defense, and you have to be aggressive, so you have to get that point across right away.

We’re working [on] being an aggressive, physical, attacking style defense and that’s the mentality that the kids have to learn.

Patch: Will you be playing more man-to-man or zone defense?

Sweeney: That’ll depend on personnel and situations. You can’t play man-to-man and stunt if the kids physically can’t do it.

If the kids cover pretty well, then you can be much more aggressive with your linebackers. And, depending on the situation, you’re behind in the game sometimes, you have to pin your ears back and try to make something happen; cause some turnovers and try to get back in the game.

Patch: Will you have the same philosophy as far as blitz packages?

Sweeney: Yeah, and again, I think we have enough in our package to be able to play a zone, play some man, do some different things, but we’ve got to see what we have as far as talent. You want to use the defensive things you have that fit your talent.

Patch: Do you have an idea of who your starters might be?

Sweeney: No. We have a couple kids back from this past year that we think are pretty good football players. But a lot of unknowns.

Patch: What are your expectations for the inaugural season?

Sweeney: My expectations are, if we show up and play to our best ability and do the things we’ve been taught to do, we should be in every game.

And the chips will fall where they fall. If we go in and we do what we’re supposed to do, we come ready to play mentally and physically, we’ll be successful.

Again, successful may not be wins and losses, you play a lot of freshmen; someday they’re going to be juniors and seniors with a lot of experience.

Patch: What’s been the most exciting part about the process?

Sweeney: Just helping Coach Hottle build a program from scratch; start something that wasn’t here a year and a half ago.

And now we’ve got a stadium going up, we’ve got 150 kids coming to camp, and there’s a lot of excitement on campus and in the community.