Signature Success: Talented Wake Secondary Responsible for Highest Highs
11/10/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 10, 2008
All football coaches face enormous pressure. Between fans, media, and, most of all, themselves, the burden of success weighing on a big-time college coach is a demanding mistress. But when you are responsible for overseeing the secondary, the stress level raises even higher for a simple reason: If you get beat deep, then emotionally, you get beat down.
"You always have to be convinced to coach the defensive backs," said Wake Forest assistant Tim Billings. "I always say, a defensive linemen gets out of his gap and it's five yards. A corner gets out of his gap, it's six points."
So when Billings, the wide receivers coach for the Demon Deacons in 2006 and 2007, was asked in the offseason to move to the other side of the ball, the hesitation to make the switch was natural. All things considered, however, the decision was easy. With the unbelievable talent Wake had coming back in the secondary, the option to handle all that experience was a serendipitous opportunity for a fortunate football coach.
With four returning starters and three fifth-year seniors among them, the backbone of the 2008 defense has been a secondary that is second to none and arguably Wake's greatest defensive backfield ever. With the flashy senior Alphonso Smith and the steady junior Brandon Ghee on the corners, opposing offenses rarely see a one-on-one outside matchup as an advantage. The two talented safeties, Chip Vaughn and Kevin Patterson, both came to Wake Forest to play different positions, yet have found a home as the quarterbacks of the defense. Despite pursuing a variety of different paths to success, the quartet has gelled into a cohesive unit, capitalizing on a special familiarity with each other than cannot be measured in stats.
"The biggest thing, I think, is they've all played together, they really have a good understanding of each other, and they've been in the system, most of them, for five years," said Billings. "So it's pretty neat to watch them work because they all understand each other, they make good calls, and they really do a great job of helping our defense because they can make so many adjustments depending on what they see."
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Every football season has a few signature plays, moments that you can point to down the road as substantial game-changers, or even mighty program-changers. A successful year on the gridiron will feature many memories, but the unforgettable sequences are often as great as they are infrequent. The three seniors--Smith, Vaughn, and Patterson--will all graduate from Wake Forest after four consistent seasons, yet each will leave the fans with a single highlight that stands above the rest.
Although Alphonso Smith's constant confidence is, at times, disturbing, his unwavering self-assurance came in handy during Wake Forest's darkest moment of the 2007 season. Losers of two straight to begin the season, the defending ACC Champs were 1-2 overall and trailing Maryland 24-3 in the final minutes of the third quarter when Smith, then a junior, picked off a pass on the goal line and returned it 100 yards for a season-altering score. The fact that Wake needed three more touchdowns to garner the 31-24 overtime victory was irrelevant; it was all made possible thanks to Smith's heroic interception, a play that actually may overshadow how unique a player Phonz has been throughout his career.
"He's certainly one of the better cornerbacks that I've seen, and we've had some good ones through the years," said Head Coach Jim Grobe. "But I don't know that I've ever been around anyone more talented who does more things than he does.
"I've had some corners in the past that were pretty confident, but they didn't know they shouldn't be. And I've had some that have had a lot of ability--really good foot speed and really good ability--but they weren't the kind of guys that were kind of saying `hey, I hope they throw it over here.' I think Alphonso's got good ability and some pretty good confidence. He's got good hands, he's got good ball-skills; he just has a knack for playing the position."
In regards to Smith's daring style of play, Billings admitted, with a smirk, that it keeps things interesting. But the secondary coach also was quick to acknowledge Smith's intense study and preparation as key assets to his overall ability.
"A lot of people say he takes chances," Billings detailed, "But he's a very intelligent football player. He watches a lot of film. So those chances are pretty calculated chances. He usually knows what's coming before it happens so that gives him a great advantage on how to take those risks. It's always risk-reward, and for him it's usually reward."
After Smith's interception against Maryland, the payoff for Wake Forest was substantial. The Deacons rolled to nine wins in their final 11 games, capped by the Meineke Car Care Bowl Championship, a satisfying confirmation that the 2006 run, and the signature plays that accompanied it, were no fluke.
Although 2006 began with a decent win over Syracuse, the optimism waned when Duke drove down the field in week two, seemingly poised to boot the winning kick and walk away from Winston-Salem with a shocking upset. While most Wake fans could not bear to watch, a relatively unknown backup safety leaped to save the season. When the ball thudded off Chip Vaughn's elbow, the Deacons somehow escaped with a 14-13 victory. Amazingly, Vaughn would not have been on the field if All-ACC safety Josh Gattis had not been banged up a few plays prior. Even more astoundingly, if Vaughn had done his job properly on the block team, the ball likely would have sailed through the uprights.
"Luckily, Chip didn't know what he was doing," Smith said while laughing. "The free safety never jumps and tries to block the kick. Josh got hurt I think two plays before that. Chip came in and did his thing and made the play and it turned out well...He turned around the season with that individual play."
While Vaughn contributed as a backup through most of his first two seasons, his prominence in the secondary arrived during his junior year, in which he led the team in tackles. After learning the ropes as Gattis' understudy, Vaughn came into his own.
"We knew he had a lot of talent," Grobe said. "We actually recruited Chip as a wide receiver. And his Mom happened to mention to me on his recruiting visit, `you need to play him in the secondary, he's a better DB than he is a wide receiver.' So when we got in that summer, we really felt like we needed some depth in the secondary, and so we went to Chip and said, `your Mom thinks you're a better defensive player, how about we move you over there?' And he's such a good kid he said `sure, I'll do that.'"
"And he's turned out to be really, really good for us."
"It was great because I wasn't trying to play receiver," Vaughn explained. "I was trying to play safety because I was allowed to hit people. I played both in high school, but I love defense."
Vaughn's season-saving play to down the Devils became a harbinger of things to come, as Wake Forest used a plethora of timely turnovers throughout 2006. The most memorable defensive play, however, may not have been a game-changer, but instead the icing to the Deacs' first win in Tallahassee in 37 years. When Kevin Patterson took an intercepted Florida State pass 48 yards for the final score of a rainy night, the Deacons had demolished the Seminoles 30-0 and created a new ACC hierarchy in the process.
"That's my only touchdown of my career," Patterson said with a grin. "Took it back at Doak (Campbell Stadium)."
The unbelievable evening at FSU was the individual zenith to a very solid sophomore season, in which Patterson started at cornerback alongside Smith. Despite his success, the coaching staff still felt the need to make a change.
"As a junior, we asked him to move to safety," Grobe remembered. "With Brandon Ghee, we felt like the best combination for us, with Brandon and Alphonso, we needed one of those guys to play safety. The problem was, when we moved him in there, he didn't start."
Although Patterson progressed as a strong safety, incumbent senior Aaron Mason exceeded expectations and took the starting job for most of the season, pushing a champion corner to the bench as a backup safety. Patterson's selflessness throughout the process is something that, to this day, Grobe continually marvels at.
"He really took a backseat to Aaron," Grobe said, "But I don't know if another guy on our team would have handled that very well. And he's totally about team. If you ever look at a guy that's a total team guy, that's Kevin Patterson... One of the most unselfish kids we've ever coached...One of the coolest kids we've had in our program."
