Just Because I Know You All Love Them So Much

[HawgGoneIt]

Curiosity killed the cat as it pertains to what kind of defense Colquitt will be running this year. New defensive coordinator that was a head coach last season has taken the helm. Probably a spring board job for him like so many others that come through Moultrie. Hoping to see a big impact from his direction.

 

http://www.moultrieobserver.com/news/ga_fl_news/dixon-getting-packer-defense-primed-for-new-season/article_d15362b0-78b1-11e7-9fdf-678c2ce4ae00.html

 

Dixon getting Packer defense primed for new season

• By Matthew Brown
•  
• Aug 3, 2017
•  
•  

 

 

First-year Colquitt County High defensive coordinator Mo Dixon discusses things with his charges.

Matthew Brown

 

     

 

 

MOULTRIE – When you have a former head coach in the role of coordinator, he knows full well how each side of the football helps out the other on the same team. Mo Dixon, just last season the head coach of Walton High’s gridiron squad, came into his new job as defensive boss for Colquitt County High School with a ton of respect for the main boss, Rush Propst.

As the months of summer workouts progressed into the first week of full contact practices for the 2017 season, Dixon built even more respect for the defensive staff as a whole … and the offensive staff as a whole.

There is a secret, though, to being successful on the defensive side.

 

“A lot of people say if you can keep people from scoring one more point than your offense, which is probably common sense,” said Dixon. “I think in a program like we have, every day when we come to practice we have a chance to go against the best offense. Hopefully we can be the best defense they go against all year. That’s going to make us better.”

While the Packer defensive unit has its college prospects in the senior class and players with a season’s worth of starts under their belt in not just the 12th grade but the 11th, Dixon still calls it young.

“(Thursday) was a big turning point,” he said about a session that took place mostly in late afternoon rainfall. “We just have to play hard, hard, hard, hard. We’re thin … we have good numbers, but we’re young. You start mixing young guys with less experience, sometimes that can have some mess ups. With young guys, they get down real quick. So you have to keep them up.

“(Thursday) should have been a bad day circumstance-wise with silly stuff. Nothing bad, but we pulled ourself out of it and played really hard. When you have a man like Rush Propst as your leader, it’s not really hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. For us to be good, we have to be able to run, run, run to the ball.”

The Packer defense under Dixon is not going to look conventional, not 4-3 or even 3-4. He addressed the unit as a whole after Thursday’s practice at Mack Tharpe Stadium, and he said it was about how the tools – “bolts, screws, washers” – are on, so now is the time to tighten things up. After all, in one week (Aug. 10), the team will be in game action, the preseason scrimmage, on Tom White Field against Coffee.

“I can play some man stuff I haven’t been able to play as much at other places,” said Dixon, who was defensive coordinator at North Gwinnett once under Bob Sphire, now head coach at Camden County. “I have to see what I think we do best, me and the staff. I started seeing that (Thursday).

“Our base, we’re a 3-5-3 or 3-3-5. We’re an eight-man front to old school people, a six-man front to the newer spread. Now it’s five- and six-man fronts instead of seven and eight. We are an odd front base, but we jump to even fronts. The base of what we do is just a couple of techniques at every position.”

While other terms used to describe defensive ploys are disguising or gapping, Dixon pulled out some American history from the Old West. He said Geronimo had 30 braves and was able to inflict fear in a troop of 5,000 soldiers by ambushing them.

“What he left behind was pure fear,” said Dixon. “People would see the result … 30 on 5,000, that’s something like how the story goes. That’s how we look at it. We’re trying to ambush you on every play.”

Lineman Brian Merritt, a junior, has what it takes to ambush a quarterback, a skill he showed Thursday often as part of the turnaround Dixon spoke about. He didn’t have senior linebacker J.J. Peterson that day as Peterson had wisdom teeth removed. But when people are out – and Colquitt County has had significant injury issues this summer – Dixon said the program’s full, and he said the coach that keeps the “machine rolling” is Shawn Sutton in the weight room.

“Not only does he drive those kids, he drives us,” said Dixon. “Being on the other side, he had a lot to do with some of us coming in. These are great guys. When we are in the weight room, those boys tear it up. These kids have some character, and we’ll get better.”

 

With Merritt, Dixon said the linemen is a corps of five to six established players followed by others with potential.

“We’ll have a fast lineup,” he said. “And we’ll have a big lineup. It’s a good mix. Courtney Sanders does a great job.”

With Peterson, Dixon said the linebacking group goes about six deep now with those playing hard. With the younger players at this position, Dixon said JV football games should be something to see.

“We have what we call a triangle: the rover, free safety and the dog,” said Dixon. “They are constantly moving to help make adjustments in the secondary.”

And that secondary has Appalachian State commit Kaleb Dawson plus Jarvis Christopher back at cornerback. With those players, you have staff mainstays Steven Figueroa and Dextra Polite.

“Nobody slips by with Dextra back there,” said Dixon. “Everybody’s on edge.

“This staff, it’s just an honor to be here with them. Joey (Bennett) up front with his linemen. This is big-time football and about to get bigger with the new facility. But behind the scenes, it’s high school football. I worked for some pretty good coaches, and there’s nobody like Rush. These boys are like sons to him. He’s going to push them, but boy does he take care of them literally 24 hours a day.”

[Bormio]

He crashed and burned at Byrnes - took a lot of blame for what was probably a lack of talent.  Or South Carolina is tougher than Georgia.  One of the two.

[HawgGoneIt]

A nice tid-bit shows up right at the end... Mo seeing the same thing that all of us Moultrie people already knew. Rush takes care of these kids. Actually a whole network of people do, but man, you guys just probably can't understand how much Rush and Stefnie do for these kids. 

I truly hope that there are other coaches out there that are as involved as Rush, but I don't think there are many that are as committed as he and his family is. 

[CCBlackhatter]

Rush believes Dixon will make a huge impact for the blackhats. He has tried to hire Mo since his arrival in Moultrie.