Secondary hopes year of experience pays off

Even Cam Cameron admits it's no secret that the IU football team's downfall last season was its defense.\nThe Hoosiers allowed 39 points per game and more than 40 points in seven of their eight losses.\nIt's also no secret that the defense's weakest link was its secondary.\nIU gave up 25 passing touchdowns and 271 yards per game though the air, while intercepting its opponents only four times. \n"We definitely know we have something to prove, no doubt," junior safety Joe Gonzalez said. "When you see what happened to our defense last year and the year before, there's no question that we need to improve in the secondary -- period."\nTo do that, the secondary has put an emphasis on one thing -- learning the system.\nWhat plagued the team last season, senior Sharrod Wallace said, was a lack of understanding. James Bell, defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach, brought with him a new defensive system when he came to IU last season.\nThe Hoosiers spent much of the season trying to learn the system and often got burned in the process.\n"Last year we had a lot of guys who were inexperienced," Wallace said. "It was just a lack of knowing the system. That's what it was. It wasn't really a lack of ability or anything like that."\nThe players have had time to fully adapt to the system this spring. A new rule allows for players to meet with coaches on non-practice days, and the defensive backs have used the meetings to go over Bell's system.\nThe defensive backfield will also have several new players, namely sophomore Michael Hanley and junior-college transfers Antonio Watson and Willie Northern.\nBell said Hanley was slated as a starter last fall, but he sat out the season to concentrate on academics. And Watson and Northern are Superprep's first- and third-rated junior college defensive backs in the nation.\nThe Hoosiers signed four other defensive backs as well, and Bell said the addition of so many players will help his secondary.\n"You'll be able to play more people, and that always helps you," Bell said. "The more people you can play, the better off you're going to be. The newness of doing something different was probably the biggest thing (last season), then lack of depth would be the second thing.\n"So many of those guys play on the special teams. So depth helps you. I feel we'll have more guys we'll be able to play."\nGonzalez said the secondary's improvement comes full circle with its improved attitude.\n"There's something new," he said. "And I can't put my finger on it, I can't tell you what it is, but there's something different about this defense, this whole team. I really can't explain it, but it's a different attitude, a different feeling about this team"