DC Tony Gibson: "Guys Are Getting More Comfortable In The Scheme"

NC State’s defense has been a mixed bag this year, with strong production over its wins but major issues in losses to Virginia Tech and North Carolina. The Wolfpack has enjoyed strong seasons from the likes of Payton Wilson, Drake Thomas, Alim McNeill, and Isaiah Moore. 

On NC State Athletics’ Wolfpack Weekly radio show with Tony Haynes and Jeff Gravley this week, NC State defensive coordinator Tony Gibson broke down the defensive perfomance thus far:

We know it can be a grind even during an open week, but at the very least can you come up for air and relax just a little bit? 
Just a little bit. The week started off for us Sunday. We came in and got the game knocked out. Yesterday, we had a very productive day. We got to self scout, see where we’re at after six games, look at statistics a little bit, look at personnel, look at calls, and try to figure out what we’re doing good and what we’re doing bad. We have some time this week in practice to fix those things. 

We’ve seen your defense play some excellent football during that three-game winning streak. The rushing defense was stellar. Then the Virginia Tech and North Carolina games were somewhat similar because they were both able to run the football. What’s your assessment at this point? 
I think if you look at the Virginia Tech game, and by no means am I making excuses, but your good players and your guys that have been there and played in football games, when they’re out there, what we’re seeing is we’re playing really well. Payton Wilson missed the Virginia Tech game. Does one guy make that big of a difference? A guy like Payton, yes. And then you fast forward to North Carolina. Our free safety issues, Tanner Ingle, one of our leaders, didn’t play. Does he make that big of a difference? I don’t know if it’s a 30-point difference, but he helps us. So that’s where we’re at right now. 

We’re a young team. We’re trying to get it right. The kids are practicing hard. They understand how to practice. And I like this group of kids, but we have to play smarter at times. The biggest issue Saturday was tackling. We missed 35 tackles, and that’s unacceptable.

Was it a case where they weren’t in the right spots, just missing tackles, or North Carolina making you miss?
A little bit of everything. We miss fit a few runs. We got big-boyed up front a few times. And that’s the front six. That’s linebacker, D-Line. Now the ball’s getting on the perimeter to our DBs, and they were breaking tackles, they were running through us, they were running around us. So that’s what you get when that happens up front.

Not a restful night for a defensive coordinator?
Not at all. It was disappointing. The most disappointing thing is we played 50 snaps in the first half defensively, and the score should have been 14-7, or we can say it should have been 14-14 at the half. It could have been, but it wasn’t. We came out in the third quarter and it was a bad quarter for us. We got behind, we started pressing, and the game started snowballing on us. 

You mentioned defensive backs, and that’s a position you played in college. Where has there been improvement this year? You’ve had different starters every game; how difficult is that? 
It is, and I’m very excited about our future with the defensive backs. We’re getting so many young guys valuable reps right now. Joshua Pierre-Louis, Devan Boykin. Some of those true freshmen are playing whole games. But what you’ve seen over the past few weeks is we’ve been really, really good on third down when people are throwing the ball on third down. We were top 17 in the country going into the North Carolina game. Coming out of that, I think we’re 27th right now in third-down defense. We haven’t given up the deep ball much, very few. 

I think our corners are getting better every week, Malik Dunlap, Shyheim Battle, Cecil Powell. And then the safety depth right now is hurting because of injuries, COVID, contract tracing, whatever it may be. But we’ve been in a few games, we were at Pitt the last drive and we had no more DBs to put in. We were out. It was very similar to Duke. We lost two of our starters in the first half to targeting and an injury. 

Isaac Duffy and Boykin go in and play a great game. So I’m very excited about those guys. We need to get better, but they’re getting thrown into situations where they shouldn’t have to right now. They’re overcoming it, and we’ve been able to try to get these guys better every week. The coaching staff, coach [Freddie Aughtry-Lindsay], coach [Brian Mitchell] and coach [Joe DeForest] are doing a great job with those guys. 

You mentioned third-down defense, and NC State was really doing a nice job, especially during that three-game winning streak, and then North Carolina and converted three on their first drive and maybe six of their first seven. Is there anything that raises the blood pressure of a defensive coordinator more than being that close to getting off the field and they’re able to convert? 
The sad thing about it is we did it to ourselves. It wasn’t what they were doing, it’s what we didn’t do. We lost contain on a corner blitz to the field, we’re bringing a boundary pressure. Our field defensive end comes under and the quarterback breaks contain and gets the ball out. So that’s the frustrating part. Then we get them in a third and six, we pressure again, and our corner’s playing nine yards off on third and six. So it was self-inflicted, and I don’t know if it was ‘We’re playing North Carolina, so let’s try something different.’ I don’t know what it was. We’ll get it fixed. 

You’ve got a really good linebacker room to deal with. You’ve got three of the top tacklers in the ACC. What’s the value Payton Wilson, Drake Thomas, and Isaiah Moore bring to this defense? 
They’re a special group.

I don’t know, in 26 years of doing this, and 20 years at this level, if I’ve ever had three linebackers that are as productive at one time as these three have been. There’s kind of a theme at one time. When you look, when those guys are statistically really good, we’re really good on defense. When they have breakdowns, that’s putting it on freshmen at times. And I told those guys, and I don’t mean to put a lot of pressure on them, but, ‘Boys you have the most experience, we have to be dominant at linebacker. When we are, we play really, really well and we usually win.

Like the Duke game, I think those three had 41 tackles between them. But the way this defense is set up, isn’t that the way it’s supposed to work? 
We’re playing a three-down front, sometimes four-down. We’ll jump in and it’s hard for D-Linemen in this system. They’re eating a lot of blocks; they’re getting double-teamed. We’re getting the ball to the guys that can tackle in space and then when it gets by us, now we have issues. But I really like the way those three play. And Levi Jones is also in the mix; he plays a bunch in there. He’s our utility guy. He’s played nickel, he’s played Sam, he’s played defensive end. So he’s done it all, too. And he can block punts. 

The 3-3-5 is something you had at West Virginia. You guys ran it here last year, as well, but you’re the defensive coordinator this year. Can you try to describe what the goal of a 3-3-5 is and where you have to be strong for it to succeed? 
You have to be really strong up the middle of the defense. Any time you play an odd defense, your nose guard, your mike linebacker, and your strong safety have to be the three core guys. The guys that are productive in this defense are our will linebacker, as you guys are seeing right now with Payton, our free safety, and our nickel. Those guys are important. Not that the other guys aren’t, but if you’re not any good at those spots, then you’re going to struggle. 

And I think you’ve seen when we’ve struggled at some of those positions, that’s where our issues come. And I think a lot of people don’t understand that about 70% of the NFL right now is in three down, and this is a space game right now. I get all the emails and everything from the fans, just to assure that I am reading them. I’m not listening, but I am reading them. But people complain about the three down that you can’t stop the run, you can’t do this, you can’t do that. 

It’s been on both ends of the spectrum for us. When we’re hitting on all cylinders and guys are doing the right thing, you can stop the run. It’s not an issue.

You’ve been around a lot of really good linebackers in your career. Payton Wilson has really come on this year. That 19-tackle game against Duke a couple weeks ago with two picks, how good a performance was that?
A reporter asked me last week about that, and as you’re watching the game, you don’t, I see the ball getting down, yeah I know it’s Payton here, the interceptions are easy to see. But then when you go look at the stat line after the game, you’re thinking, ‘Wow, 19 tackles, a sack, a TFL, two interceptions, a pass breakup,’ you’re just like ‘Wow, where was I? I didn’t see all that going on.’ And when we feed him the ball as well. A lot of our scheme is to knock the ball week where our overhang players are at and let them make the tackle. But that was as good of a game, and watching it on film and the effort that he plays with, he’s just getting better and better every week. He’s got a really bright future. 

Your son Cody is a defensive quality control coach. How fun is it for you to have your son on the defensive side of the ball? 
Last year he was the quality control on offense at Illinois. When he asked me about getting into coaching, I said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t get on the defensive side. Make sure you coach offense.’ He didn’t listen. My whole philosophy behind that is, when you screw up on offense, guess what you can do on fourth down? You can punt. On defense, you can’t punt. I wish we could at times.

Do you guys look at film sessions together?
Yeah, obviously he’s in every meeting with us. He has a good grasp of the next opponent. He gets ahead on the break down. Being an offensive guy and being in offenses, he can come to me with some great information. But it’s been great to have him. He’s a newlywed and he’s also going to make me Grandpa. 

Alim McNeill, you said in an odd-man front, first and foremost, you’ve got to be strong up front. He’s getting a lot of credit, and it’s certainly well-deserved. What are teams trying to do to limit his effectiveness? 
Probably about 90% of the snaps, he’s getting double-teamed. There are times where he’s been triple teamed. When that happens, obviously, it cleans it up for Isaiah, Drake, or Payton to go make that tackle. Obviously he’s been very, very unselfish with that. What we do for those zero nose guards, we give them production points for taking on double teams, and we get a guy to get a block, get a tackle off of that. But he’s very unselfish. Alim’s a very, very strong point in that defense, and he has to be. I think he understands his role. 

Did he really tell you in the Virginia game that he was going to have a pick-six, or is that just the legend of Alim?
We were talking about the dog bone, and he said, ‘I’m going to get that, I’m going to get that.’ And I don’t know if he said pick-six, but he said, ‘I’m going to get one.’ We had talked about getting our hands up all week. That quarterback, and that was their starter that we were talking about. We were talking about getting our hands up and tips would turn into picks. He made it come true, so it was great to see. 

You hear the word playmaker and you think offensive players, but you look at this defense and you have playmakers, too. I think that’s why you have six interceptions and you have tackles for loss and pass breakups. Do you see more guys making plays on defense?
We do, and obviously coming out of the Duke game we had more takeaways through five games then we did all last year in 12 games. So I’m very excited about that. Plus, how many have we dropped?  Jakeen Harris has dropped 12 himself. 

But you see guys getting more comfortable in the scheme. And we’re trying not to tie them up mentally to let their feet go, let it all hang out and go play fast. Because in today’s game, you have to be able to play fast. You cannot have guys thinking in a bunch of different checks. With the motions, the shifts, the tempo the offenses are playing at, let’s get lined up and be able. Let’s unlock that brain so our feet can move.