On the attack with Jeremiah Johnson

When Louisiana Tech’s defense takes the field for the first time in 2024, the unit’s identity will be boiled down to one word: attack.

It’s how new defensive coordinator Jeremiah Johnson, who spent a decade turning the Northern Iowa Panthers into one of the top units in the FCS, operates. He doesn’t believe football, especially defense, can be played at 90% speed. It’s a violent game, and the more violent teams tends to win not only the line of scrimmage, but the overall game.

Johnson and his approach were brought in to refresh a Tech defense that’s ranked in the bottom third in the country in multiple categories over the last two seasons — a task he believes he can accomplish if he can gain the trust of his new roster and have them buy in to a no-nonsense philosophy in his system.

Regardless of structure, Johnson wants the Bulldogs to be the neighborhood pet enclosed with a warning on the fence. Teams should feel the presence and power of the Bulldogs, not dog-walk them on the ground and through the air.

How does Johnson plan to accomplish that mission? The new headman on defense spoke with the media for the first time Wednesday to explain further.

Execute with violence

Find your weeping couch, but football is a violent game — multiple car crashes popping into frame for three hours at a time.

Johnson wants the Bulldogs to embrace that and be the bully on the field and dictate action, not receive it, and react.

“The technical words are ‘execute with violence together.’ For the newspaper, let’s just say execute together,” Johnson said. “For you to be a great defense, your guys have to trust one another to be able to take care of their job, and you have to do that with 11 guys at a time. Offenses now are good enough if 10 guys do it and one guy is wrong, offenses are good enough to find that guy. You kind of want to have something in your DNA that the kids can hold onto and so we say ‘execute with violence together.’

“And when they think, ‘ what’s our DNA?’ The first thing they think is to execute together. Violence — not optional. The bottom line is this is a man’s game. It’s not played by little boys, so there’s some level of toughness or violence that you have to be able to bring to play defense,” he added. “That’s what we want. We’ve tried to clean up all of the rules and everything like that to where the guys can just line up, read their keys, and go. That’s what we want. ‘Attack’ doesn’t have anything to do with blitzing. It has everything to do with our mentality before the snap.”

Time for turnovers

Johnson hopes a byproduct of that aggression is a high volume of takeaways, an area the Bulldogs dipped significantly from 2022 to 2023.

In 2022, Tech forced 22 turnovers ( 11 interceptions, 11 fumble recoveries) — good for top 25 nationally. Last season, Tech managed only nine (5 interceptions, 4 fumble recoveries) — placing them last in Conference USA and 124th in the FBS.

Creating havoc and the turnovers that follow hasn’t seemed to be a problem for Johnson’s previous teams. In his 11 seasons as defensive coordinator, his defenses ranked top 10 in the FCS in turnovers forced six times (2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021).

“I think number one if you hit hard you can force fumbles, so there’s that,” Johnson said. “And the more hats you can get running to the ball, the first guy might not get him down but then when those other guys come hopefully they’re ball-searching and you can try and force some fumbles that way. The easiest way to create takeaways in the pass game is to get pressure on the quarterback.

“If you can get to the quarterback early, there’s one of two things that’s going to happen: the rest of the day he’s going to have his eyes down on the pass rush or he knows that the pass rush is coming so he’s going to try and rush the ball out which then gives your guys a chance to be aggressive on the ball before their guys can get to a position to where we can’t get to it anymore. I think sacks and takeaways really takes 11 guys. It’s not just the guys up front and the guys in the back end. It’s a full team effort,” he continued.

Talent evaluation

With just over two weeks on the ground in Louisiana, Johnson hasn’t met with every member of his defense quite yet, but he’s making it a priority to get there.

He’s already spent time with Michael Richard, the 2023 C- USA Freshman of the Year, and spoken with every defensive addition in the early signing period.

But perhaps his most instructive time yet has been his early conversations with fellow coaches about who the Bulldogs can build a champion with, not just get by in 2024.

“I talked with the coaches and I just asked them, ‘What guys can we win this league with? I don’t want to know what guys you like; I don’t want to know guys you think are going to be OK. I want to know what guys we can win this league with,’” Johnson said. “And that helps us determine what we still need to go get. We’ve had those conversations, but I’ve really tried to get to know those guys and figure out how they’re wired and figure out what’s important to them because ultimately once we get together and we can start to see them move, then we’ll be able to figure out where we’re going to play them and what our structure is going to look like.”

Adapting to Louisiana

Sixteen seasons at UNI. One year at Kent State. A native of Lawrence, Kansas. It’s safe to say Johnson still has to learn quite a bit about living in Louisiana.

Outside of remarking on the easier winter months, Johnson expressed that moving from corn fields to swamp land and piney hills isn’t as harsh of a transition as some might think.

“Eighteen-to 22-year-old kids in Louisiana are the same as 18-to 22-year-old kids in Ohio are the same in Iowa, same in Florida,” Johnson said. “What those kids want, I believe, is people that believe in them and people that care abot them. That’s why I’ve been able to do what I’ve been able to do in my career is because we’ve always been surrounded by people that treated kids the right way. When you treat kids the right way and you love on them, they’re going to produce and then all of the sudden you guys are looking at me like I’m some great coach. But it doesn’t have anything to do with me, it has everything to do with those kids and the way that they’re able to perform.”

Johnson, a 2000 graduate of the University of Kansas, did admit his first interaction with the team came with a realization he’s going to turn his ear to a new dialect.

“They probably think I talk funny, which is OK,” Johnson said. “The first day when I was able to meet with those guys, Coach Cumbie had them stand up and introduce themselves. And when you’re a young kid and you’re not used to standing up and speaking, sometimes you talk fast, and you mumble.

“And some of those cats from New Orleans area that’ve got that New Orleans accent and they’re talking fast, and I didn’t want to ask them, ‘hey, could you repeat that?’ But that’s probably the biggest thing is getting used to how these young men talk and communicate so that I can be a better communicator with them as we move forward,” Johnson added.