Zac Alley is a firm believer that the best players still want to be coached.
In today’s college football climate, that seems more and more difficult with the rise of the transfer portal, but it starts with honesty and builds out from there.
“I want guys that want to be coached. You know, there’s a lot of places out there that maybe we don’t want to coach him hard because we might leave. He might do this and the other. Well, it’s probably not the right guy,” Alley told the 3 Guys Before the Game Podcast.
The defensive coordinator pointed out when he watched Calais Campbell for the Baltimore Ravens, who had spent 18 years in the NFL, he was upset with a coach at practice because he wasn’t being coached hard enough. That’s a testament to the theory that players, even with experience, still want to get better.
“They want to get better. They want to do more,” he said.
Much like what head coach Rich Rodriguez has said in the past, Alley said the biggest difference now is that many players want to know why and the key is having that ready.
“As long as you’ve got a good why, they’ll back it up,” he said.
Alley wants his defenses to be relentless and make opposing offenses feel like they have 13, 14, or 15 guys on the field with how they attack. And you get them to that point by challenging them daily.
The defensive coordinator always lives in the now and makes every single rep the most important. That means even the third period in the middle of June is the same as it will be with an actual game on the line.
“Then they respond well to that. They understand that the level, the intensity and how they have to be. And so, when they get tired or they think they can’t give anymore, well the standard doesn’t change,” Alley said. “And we play to a standard all the time.”
That comes naturally for some, while others have to be pushed. But when it melds together that’s when the defense can take the next step as a unit on the field.
“I know what it’s supposed to look like, and this is what we’re going to be every single time we take the field,” he said. “And if you’re not going to play or willing to play that standard something had to give.”
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