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Jeff Hafley (DC Green Bay Packers)

Have to admit I was a little skeptical about his hiring but he has been very impressive whenever he speaks and on the recruiting trail. He was obviously key in reeling Phillips and Ransom into the boat. My apologies to the Hafley family, which I know they appreciate.

Still think we could have done better for the other DC job/ main play caller than tun's 70 year old d-line coach though.

When we get 5 star DT Damon Payne from Belleville,MI in 21 you might be apologizing to Mattison.
 
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RYAN DAY BELIEVED “FROM THE GET-GO” THAT JEFF HAFLEY WOULD BE SUCCESSFUL ON THE RECRUITING TRAIL

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Secondary coach Jeff Hafley uses NFL experience and a calm demeanor in all areas of his role in the Ohio State coaching staff. That includes on the recruiting trail.

When Ohio State safety Jordan Fuller was in eighth grade, his brother Devin was being recruited as an athlete by Rutgers, whose secondary coach that year was Jeff Hafley. Fuller still remembers the in-home visit Hafley made to the Fuller house.

Now, eight years later, Hafley has weaved his way to Columbus, where he took over the secondary coaching position in January. He's made a big impact on the 2020 recruiting class in the six months since his arrival. Defensive backs Clark Phillips, Lathan Ransom and Lejond Cavazos and New Jersey linebacker Cody Simon – one of the first prospects Hafley reached out to after joining the Buckeye staff – are all now committed to the Buckeyes, helping push Ohio State’s class to the No. 2 spot in the nation.

And in 2011, he almost had Devin Fuller (who ended up at UCLA), too.

“I met him my eighth grade year because he did an in-home visit with my brother. It’s kind of crazy how he’s my coach now,” Jordan Fuller said. “My brother was about to go to Rutgers if they had stayed through signing day. I knew if my brother loved Coach Hafley as a recruiter, that everybody else would. I know Coach Day only hires the best kind of people for their jobs.”

With his time with the San Francisco 49ers and growing up in New Jersey, Hafley brought recruiting ties to both sides fo the continental United States and immediately used them. Only two Buckeyes were from California when Hafley joined the staff, and now he’s brought in Phillips while continuing to recruit Kourt Williams from the state. Ransom and Simon are also both credited to Hafley, while Cavazos recommitted to Ohio State after getting to know Hafley and Ryan Day. The new secondary coach was also at the center of the recruitment for Cameron Martinez, who could play either safety or wide receiver at Ohio State.

He’s done these things without the luxury of a full recruiting cycle, which will change in 2021 – a class where he has already offered four California defensive backs and is developing a very close relationship with No. 2 cornerback Tony Grimes out of Virginia Beach.

A lot of the success he’s found on the recruiting trail is based on the fact that he’s level-headed on the sidelines and in living rooms, and he brings knowledge to a defensive backs room that few collegiate secondary coaches can bring, stemming from his seven years in the NFL coaching ranks.

“He’s just real,” Fuller said. “And you can tell, like if he cares about something, he truly cares. And he doesn’t care about the fluff. He just cares about real relationships and just real facts. So his facts speak for themselves. He’s a great guy and a great coach, very knowledgeable and just sitting down and talking with him, you can just get that feel. That’s Coach Hafley. He’s just the same guy all the time.”

Entire article: https://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio...e-get-go-knew-hafley-would-find-early-success
 
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HOW JEFF HAFLEY USED NFL EXPERIENCE TO GET OHIO STATE'S CORNERBACKS TO BUY INTO HIS SCHEME
Colin Hass-Hill on August 21, 2019 at 11:48 am @chasshill
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Playing high school football for Trinity Christian Academy in Jacksonville, Florida, Shaun Wade had an acute understanding – and appreciation – of press man coverage.

He developed into the second-ranked cornerback recruit in his class while playing in a press-heavy environment. Naturally, that style of play attracted him to Kerry Coombs and Ohio State, which had gained a reputation for having aggressive, pressing cornerbacks. The penchant for that physical cornerback play also helped the Buckeyes land Jeff Okudah, the top-ranked cornerback in that class.

For two years, Ohio State continued to rely heavily on pressing, first with Coombs in 2017 and then with Taver Johnson in 2018.

That philosophy changed when Ryan Day brought Jeff Hafley in from the San Francisco 49ers and made him both the co-defensive coordinator and secondary coach. In the NFL, Hafley didn’t rely on a single coverage scheme, rather believing teams need to mix up their looks in order to both confuse offenses and increase turnovers.

Sure, he still believes in playing press man, just like his predecessors.

“If you want to sit down and talk, I can talk to you about three hours about that,” Hafley said on Tuesday. “Love press man. Got to be able to play press man. Have to be able to. I think it's a fundamental technique that's kind of lost in football right now, and it's hard, and you've got to work it.”

But at Ohio State, that style will no longer be what defines the Buckeyes’ cornerbacks.

“You'll see us press,” Hafley said. “I just don't think it will be on every single play, you won't press.”

RELATED Shaun Wade's Versatility Makes Him A Key Cog In Ohio State's Secondary

With Hafley in charge and drawing from his NFL experience, Ohio State will play more zone coverage than in prior years. After so many years of relying heavily on press, it requires almost as much of a change in mindset as it does in how the cornerbacks play on the field. Every cornerback currently on the roster was recruited with the intention of playing press man coverage, and that’s what they did until this spring.

What would Arnette have said about possibly playing zone at this point a year ago?

“I'd be like, 'Man we're a press corner team. Like, we press. That's what we do,’” Arnette said.

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Not anymore. Now, that has completely flipped.

With the change in scheme came a change in attitude. Urban Meyer, Coombs, Johnson and the rest of the Ohio State coaches to pass through Columbus in recent years all had the players fully bought in.

But eight months after Hafley arrived in Columbus with assistant secondary coach Matt Barnes, the Buckeyes’ cornerbacks have completely changed their tune. They speak about playing press coverage every play as if it doesn’t make sense, even though they believed in that philosophy until January.

  • Okudah: “When you just play so much press man, you kind of really don't realize the toll it puts on your body on the course of a 14-game season, like just running back and forth and just always being fatigued.”
  • Wade: “If you play in press the whole game, they're going to know what you're going to do in the press all the time. So you have to mix it up.”
  • Arnette: “Every play, you can't do that. They don't do that every play in the league, so why do we got to do it every play?”
These aren’t just run-of-the-mill cornerbacks who bought into what Hafley was selling.

Okudah, the No. 1 cornerback recruit in the country in 2017, has already drawn significant buzz about becoming a first-round pick in next year’s draft. Wade was once the No. 2 cornerback recruit in the country, and he already has a season of experience playing starter-level snaps. Arnette, who was about as far gone as any college football player can be before deciding to wait another year on the NFL, has started more games than anybody else on the defense.

RELATED Brendon White, Jahsen Wint Embracing New Roles at Bullet Position in Ohio State's Defense

Their change in mindsets didn’t come immediately.

“I think when (Hafley) first got here, I didn't know we were going to play Cover 3 like that,” Okudah said. “I wasn't used to playing so much zone, so it was kind of difficult at first to, 'OK, we're going to play more zone than we have in the past.' But once we've seen the results that come from that, it's kind of hard to go back to 'Let's play press man nine out of 10 snaps.'”

Results, to both Hafley and the cornerbacks, mattered.

Ohio State had seven cornerbacks drafted into the NFL in the past six years, including five who became first-round picks. The emphasis on pressing clearly worked well enough that NFL teams wanted cornerbacks who played in the Buckeyes’ system.

Hafley had an NFL resume too, though, which helped him gain immediate respect.

“He's been in the league for seven or eight years,” Wade said. “You ain't got no choice but to trust him. He coached some of the best. Richard Sherman. He used to coach (Sevyn Banks’) brother (Marcell Harris) on San Francisco. He knows so many people. You have to trust him. How he came in here teaching us different things that we didn't know, and I've been in college for two years already.”

Hafley also didn’t walk into the Woody Hayes Athletic Center taking a blowtorch to the previous coaching regime’s thoughts on how to play defense, even though there’ll be noticeable differences in how they line up and play.

RELATED Jeff Hafley’s Former Players, Colleagues Envision Success at Ohio State

“The guys that have coached here before did an unbelievable job,” Hafley said. “So I’m not saying, 'No, we're changing.' No, that's not what we said at all. In our scheme, we need to be able to play some off. We need to be able to press. And what do I do? I show them it working. I show them why. If you show somebody why and you put it on tape and you show them that, I don't think the buy-in's hard. These guys trust us, which is awesome.”

In the spring, Okudah said, Hafley cut up a bunch of tape from Richard Sherman, who he coached in San Francisco. In order to show examples of how the Buckeyes will play, Hafley showed the defensive backs film from the Seattle Seahawks and Atlanta Falcons, along with what he did the past three seasons with the 49ers.

Hafley then translated that film work to the practice field where, Wade said, he’d predict offensive plays before they happened, showing the cornerbacks he’s trying to put them in optimal positions.

“If we're able to kind of recreate that at Ohio State, I think that we'd be considered a really good defense,” Okudah said.

https://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio...EwYMw20u-UZKEuzgpp30QEfPAxI2P1NQojrjaGs02D4Rs
 
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Preaching to the choir here....

I lost my mind on this board last year because of the commitment to press man every snap. Not forcing a QB to read the defense and giving away our coverage should be criminal.

I truly believe it mostly came from Urban who believed “our best will beat your best” mentality. I just hated giving our opposition such easy reads though.....true, the offense has to execute, but when the OC and QB know what the coverage is going to be, you’re starting at a major disadvantage. It was so frustrating....
 
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