Everett Withers wants his defense to be 'hunting the ball' this season
After helping Stan Drayton get started as his chief of staff in 2022, Everett Withers left Temple to become Florida Atlantic’s assistant head coach and defensive passing game coordinator to get back into an on-the-field coaching role.
But when Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni hired D.J. Eliot to be his linebackers coach right around this time last year, Drayton was left without a defensive coordinator just a handful of days into spring ball.
Drayton quickly pivoted to Withers to ask him to return to the program as Eliot’s replacement, Withers accepted, and the idea was to not switch things up too much on his players.
A 3-9 2023 season saw injuries deplete Withers’ unit, but now the veteran assistant and former head coach will get a full offseason to rebuild the Owls’ defense in his vision. That will include a 2024 recruiting class that brought Withers a much-needed influx of talent at each level of the defense.
Of the 42 signatures Temple landed in December and February, 24 are defensive players. Seven of the 19 who signed last month enrolled in January and are already practicing with the Owls, as are key December signees like UTEP transfer cornerback Torey Richardson and safety Andreas Keaton, a transfer from Western Carolina.
“To be able to have an offseason and really do a good job of evaluating what was already on our roster and knowing what we needed to get to, I commend the coaches for doing a great job of evaluating and doing due diligence on character and love of football,” Withers said following Thursday’s practice, the Owls’ second of the spring. “ … It’s still early, but I think the coaches have done a good job getting guys in the program that could at least help us compete at a high level.”
Withers switched to a 4-3 during the offseason, a base defense with four linemen and three linebackers. Eliot had been running a 3-4 base, and changing that in March, as previously noted, wasn’t going to be ideal.
“I like running both packages,” Withers said. “Personnel-wise, we did not have a three-down package because we didn't have the personnel to do it. Then we had injuries (to players like defensive linemen Demerick Morris and K.J. Miles) and it made it even worse. … I want us to be a four-down team because I feel like we can find big inside guys and close off inside gaps to let the linebackers run and scrape.”
Drayton has used the ‘chip on their shoulder’ cliche more than once to describe the players who have been part of the roster overhaul. More than half of the players who signed in December were transfers, including three from FBS programs, two from FCS schools and five from the JUCO ranks.
And the hope for Withers and Drayton is that those players will feel they have something to prove.
“FCS guys aren't asking us for NIL money,” Withers said. “Junior college guys aren't asking us for NIL money. They just want to eat three squares and go to practice. If you go to junior college to play football, you're hungry to play football. If you're playing at Western Carolina [an FCS school] like [safety] Andreas Keaton is, who’s a three-time all-conference player at Western Carolina, he just wants a shot to play at this level. We were looking for hungry guys.”
And now they’ll have to be hungry to create turnovers in 2024. With just three interceptions and two fumble recoveries, Temple finished dead last in the nation in forcing turnovers.
“Last in the country,” Withers emphasized. “We were last in the country.”