First Look At The Defense, Special Teams

Recent remarks by head coach Sammy McCorkle after the first few days of camp about the Big Green's 2024 defensive personnel, (edited for clarity and in places for brevity):

HANOVER (Sept. 3) – We have experience at the linebacker position –  probably the best depth we've had at the linebacker position in a long time. (Linebacker coach) Donnie Dobes is really excited and feels good about that. Depth builds competition, and competition helps us become a better football team. We’re across the board on that.

We’ve got Braden Mullen leading our linebacker position. Thaddeus Gianaris has had a great, great preseason. And Cam Lee's a guy who things are starting to slow down for. He’s starting to figure it out.

Nico Schwikal is our Sam linebacker. We’ve moved him inside. He’s learned a lot of positions but he's really feeling comfortable with that  inside position. At Will linebacker we’ve got Micah Green and Zion Freer-Brown. At Mike linebacker we've got Danny Cronin and Nico and Yomi Babalola. …We’ve got John Ballowe, we’ve got Steve Simpkins and Cam Lee. 

And then our first year guys. We’ve got three linebackers: Sean Chester, Tyler Kessel and Johnny Riley. All three of those guys have hit the ground running and we're really excited about that.

On the D-line, Coach Duane Brooks does a phenomenal job getting those guys to pin their ears back and come after the ball. They're going to create havoc. They’re probably one of the quickest defensive lines in the league.

We’ve got Josiah Green, Jabari Johnson and Joshua Johnson. We’ve got Derrell Porter, who it feels like has been here 20 years. We’ve got Dakota Quiñonez, who just brings great energy. Ejike Adele – The Doctor – was injured last season in the spring and he's back 100 percent and I tell you what. He’s better than he was before.

We’ve got Joe “O” (Onuwabhagbe) who's a guy who can definitely create some havoc off the edge. And we have Keoni Perkins and Bruce Williams.

The new first-year guys are coming – Jackson Ashford Aidan White, Taylor Faalele,  “Big Baby” Ben Devall from Louisiana, and Khari Mayeux. On the D line we definitely got better across the board.

In the secondary we've got experience, we’ve got playmakers and guys that can change the game. Sean Williams is back at the safety position. He’s an experienced guy who will be a three-year starter. We’ve also got Jamal Cooper from Alabama who played a lot of special teams for us last year and he's ready to step into that starting role. He’ll be a playmaker for us as well.

Carson Franks is a veteran who has a lot of experience and understands our defense. He and Harrison Keith caught my eye all preseason. You can just tell the game has completely slowed down for them. They're out there getting guys lined up and they're in the right position making plays. It's been huge for us.

Cam Best was banged up a little bit in spring but he's back. He’s a long guy that we had at the corner position and we're going to move him around in the secondary. He’s too good of an athlete not to be on the field so we're going to move him from safety to corner, but then potentially play him a little bit at nickel position.

And then we've got Sam Washington, a safety we moved to the nickel position. We’ve got Tyson Grimm, who will be back with a lot of playing experience last year. He’ll be our starter at that nickel position right now, backed up by Reese Spence and Dillon Holifield.

At the corner position we've got Jordan Washington and Patrick Campbell. Those are two guys who had phenomenal springs. Jordan Washington was a starter for us last year and has potential be an All-Ivy type player and Patrick Campbell, he's a known guy. He had a blocked punt last year. He had a little playing time last year on defense with a lot of special teams. By far he’s a guy who's going to make a huge impact at that corner position.

And we’ve got  Jordan Barnes, Ahmir Braxton , Zach Farris and KJ Edwards along with our first-year guys Niquis Ratcliff, Thai Brown, No’Koi Maddox, Christian Harris and Lou Lamar. We’re super excited about that secondary.

SPECIAL TEAMS
On special teams we've got  a lot of experience. We lost our starting snapper but Andy Belles is probably one of the better snappers we've had in a long time. He’ll take over the starting role at the long snapping position.

Owen Zalc will be back as our kicker, backed up my Matisse Weaver, who will do kickoffs for us. We’ve got Julian Coviello, who joined us in the spring and has done a phenomenal job. He was 100 percent perfect on field goals the other day in practice.

At the punting position we've got Davis Golick back for us. He’s a three-year starter. And Luke Armistead will come in. He's a guy who can punt with both legs, so it ought to be interesting to see how teams are going to try to figure out how to return against us.