Dan Scott Interview: John Lovett

by TigerNet Staff - Thu Feb 14 12:43:37 GMT-04:00 2002

CLEMSON -- New Clemson defensive coordinator John Lovett was the guest on SportsTalk with Dan Scott on Thursday. Lovett has been an assistant coach at the college level for 23 years, including 13 seasons as a defensive coordinator. He has

experience working with all levels of the defense, but has spent most

of his seasons in the game coaching the secondary and linebacker

positions.

SportsTalk can be heard from 10 a.m.-Noon, Monday-Friday, on WCCP-Fm, 104.9 in upstate South Carolina.

Listen to the full John Lovett interview Here: Real | Windows Media

Selected Quotes

On Lovett’s defensive schemes he has in mind for Clemson this year:

"They had been a 4-3 team here primarily. We are going to start with that, and then I am going to try to work into something a little bit different, just depending if we actually have the kids on the field that can do that. If that is the case we will continue, otherwise I will stay pretty close to where they were using the personnel.

What we are going to do is get the best players on the field, and the best players might not be 4 down lineman and three linebackers or it very well might be. So we are going to try to figure out what the best mix is to get the top eleven players on the field, not only for one deep but the two deep. If you go with a scheme, you need to make sure if someone gets hurts you can put someone in the game, and you don’t have to change everything to in order to do it.

We are going to be multiple. In other words, we are going to present a variety of fronts and coverages to people. You won’t necessarily see the same thing each week because we are going to predicate what we do on the package the offense runs. We have enough in our arsenal to change up to try to take advantage of strengths and weaknesses of the different teams we will see. We will play hard and we will play aggressive."

On the kids at Clemson:

"I think these kids are eager. I think there is a lot of talent here. However I was at a place last year that had a lot of talent. The one thing I am searching for is leadership. Just coming out of some of these workouts I’m starting to see a couple of guys that might be able to step up and take the reins of those. I am going to be looking very hard this spring to find a couple of leaders on defense. If we can get that done I think we will be in very good shape."

On moving Jack Hines to coaching Linebackers and Lovett taking over defensive backs:

"That was a move where I sat down at length with Jack, and I also spoke with the head coach. We all felt that just the change of personality might give them a fresh outlook on things. The second thing is I called one of my friends at Auburn, and Jack had coached linebackers down there at Auburn and had done a really good job down there. So I was comfortable he would be able to make that adjustment. He came in and was fine with it, but I wanted to make sure he was comfortable doing it and not just him saying it but someone that worked with him saying yeah he was comfortable and did a great job. So I think all of that is going to work out for the better. Plus I get the benefit of having his input on some of his kids he has coach here."

Listen to the full John Lovett interview Here: Real | Windows Media

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