Stewart tries to make pieces fit

Two springs and a full season later, the Cougars are beginning to feel comfortable in defensive coordinator Brian Stewart’s 3-4 scheme.

“If you go back and evaluate where we were last year, the transition from a 4-3 to a 3-4 was maybe a little more difficult than I expected,” head coach Kevin Sumlin said. “It came from a personnel standpoint, where guys fit in different angles attacking in places.”

Stewart said he feels that the Cougars will have more success this year, now that players realize their roles and functions within the system.

“Now they understand,” Stewart said. “It’s a puzzle. It’s all about how the puzzle fits together.”

UH added more pieces to that puzzle in hopes of improving a defense that surrendered 433 yards and 32.2 points per game.

“There are three things that we were able to address,” Stewart said. “We were small last year. I think we’re bigger. I’d like to think that would make us a better, faster, stronger, bigger defense.”

Last season, the Cougars needed extra defenders to help with pass coverage, and that took away from their ability to defend the run.

“Quite frankly, we gave up too many touchdown passes,” Sumlin said. “Our corners didn’t allow us to load the box. It starts on the perimeter.”

The Cougars addressed their deficiencies in the secondary by importing junior cornerbacks D.J. Hayden and Chevy Bennett, who helped lead Navarro Junior College to the 2010-2011 NJCAA Championship.

“They have a chance to play the ball better,” Stewart said. “I’d like to think that equates to interceptions and less touchdown passes. I think that’s what they’re excited about. They’re long, they’re not little guys.”

UH will also have two new starters at both safety positions with sophomores Kent Brooks and Colton Valencia. Brooks started one game last season and recorded 11 tackles and forced a fumble. Valencia played 12 games as a freshman for Texas A&M in 2009.

“Colton’s effort is amazing,” Stewart said. “He makes an amazing effort to get to the ball. He plays hard, and the players respect that from him. They don’t know him as well, but he’s woven himself into a leader. He wants to push the guys, and he’ll work hard. He’ll ask them to work hard too.”

With an improved secondary and understanding of how the defense works, the UH front seven will be able to focus more on creating havoc in the backfield.

“Last year it was tough for us on defense,” senior defensive end David Hunter said. “But things that we can take from last year are that we need to get better at stopping the run, and be more aggressive. and going out there and focusing on making every play.”

New for this season are defensive line coach Carlton Hall from Harvard and linebackers coach Jamie Bryant from Vanderbilt.

“They have reputations as developmental coaches,” Sumlin said. “With the guys we’ve got coming back and the addition of some new guys we’ve got some work to do. But the good news is we’ve got some work to do with some pretty good players.”

Coming off his third straight 100-tackle season, senior Marcus McGraw will lead a solid group of linebackers.

“He makes sure everybody knows where to be, and what to do,” Hunter said.

McGraw will team inside with sophomore Efrem Oliphant, who was an All-Conference USA Freshman Team selection. Senior Sammy Brown and junior Phillip Steward will start at the outside spots.

Brown was active on the edge last season, recording 7.5 sacks and 20 tackles for a loss, the fourt-best per game average in the nation.

The Cougars also added depth with freshman Derrick Matthews and junior college transfer Lloyd Allen. Allen, 6 foot 4 inches, 240 pounds, was a teammate of Brown’s at Gulf Coast Community College and recorded seven sacks last season.

“Lloyd gives us a chance for some of our different packages that have a bigger guy,” Stewart said. “I think now we have a chance to have the two big guys, sometimes we can play both of them.”

The defensive line will welcome back sophomore Zeke Riser, who missed last season with a knee injury.

“Getting him back is a really big thing,” Hunter said. “He really helped us out his freshman year. He was a true freshman and played the whole year, so I’m really excited to see what he’s going to bring to the table this year.”

The defensive linemen rotation will include Hunter and Riser on the ends. Juniors Ameen Behbahanni, Tyrone Campbell and Kelvin King, along with freshmen Eric Braswell and Austin Lunsford will rotate at nose tackle.

“We want to be the best defense in Conference USA,” Hunter said.

“We just need to go out there with that mentality every single day.”