Column: Improved defense key to success for IU football

Everyone hates clichés.

Sports are some of the biggest repeat violators of this unwritten rule. The same catch phrases can be found across every locker room around the country.

“Play fast.”

“Leave it all on the field.”

“Defense wins championships.”

That one? That is the most important cliché to the IU football team this season.

It means you should be hearing it a lot from the coaching staff throughout the season, and reporters will eventually grow tired of hearing the same phrasing by about week three.

Senior wide receiver Kofi Hughes made a joke at Big Ten Media Day at the end of July when asked about what the job of the offense is this season. He said if the defense allows 100 points, it’s the offense’s job to score 101.

If you’re not following, this is where you insert the joke about another sports cliché: “The goal is to score more points than the other team.”

But no matter how great this offense is — and it really has the opportunity to be one of the Big Ten’s most prolific offenses — it won’t matter unless there is a dramatic turnaround from the defense.

Despite how much everyone hates to say it, (tip: you can always tell something is cliché because it is prefaced by, “I hate to say it, but ...), defense does win
championships.

IU has taken steps to make that become a reality this offseason.

Senior linebacker Griffen Dahlstrom said the weight staff emphasized everyone getting bigger in the offseason, and he thinks the team is already seeing the payoffs from that. Dahlstrom, who said he added 10 pounds in the offseason, noted that IU Coach Kevin Wilson always tells the team that the first word of Big Ten is “big,” and that’s what the team needs to be.

New linebackers coach William Inge said the increased emphasis is one of the biggest things he noticed about the team when he first arrived.

“Seeing some of the things that have gone on thus far,” Inge said, “you can tell there’s been a raised level of physical presence and a raised level of football knowledge and understanding.

“We know we’re ready in preparing ourselves to take the next step.”

But aside from the additional weight that players have put on, Dahlstrom said the biggest key he believes will help the defense make the jump this year is the amount of experience, and now competition, on that side of the ball.

Much has been said about IU’s four-star defensive freshmen, including linemen Darius Latham and David Kenney and defensive backs Rashard Fant and Antonio Allen.

However, not many people are talking about how 2011 four-star recruit Zack Shaw is returning for his third year with the program and is coming off a year in which he started nine games at defensive end and had 29 tackles and two sacks.

They aren’t talking about how six of the top seven tackling leaders return to the team.

They aren’t talking about how senior safety Greg Heban, who led the defense in both tackles and interceptions in 2012, is back.

There’s competition. That’s something the defense hasn’t had in a while.

“Everyone as a group has competed more all throughout the offseason,” Dahlstrom said. “We’ve been together for over a year now and we can do that at a consistent level day-to-day now, starting to be more aggressive at the snap, things like that.”

Perhaps the biggest change? This defense has confidence.

“This year,” Dahlstrom said, “we look around, and we see how much better everyone has gotten and we know we can compete. We’re not thinking anymore. We know.”

It’s no secret that the success of this year’s team lies solely on how far the defense can take it.

Why?

I hate to say it, but ...

­— robhowar@indiana.edu. Follow columnist Robby Howard @robbyhoward1.