West Virginia defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley has a different view of his defense these days.
That’s because prior to the Kansas game, Lesley made the move to the press box from his usual place on the field in order to get a bigger picture look at his unit.
“I don't think it gives you a different look. I just think it changes how, you know, what the look is and how you approach each play. And you're able, you know, obviously you see more,” he said. “You just kind of see the big picture of things and you're able to probably get your kids in some better positions than you normally would.”
There’s a lot of moving pieces on the sideline and this move calms things down for him as a play caller and it’s something he doesn’t plan on going back with moving forward.
“Now that I'm there, I'll never go back,” he said.
The move is something that Lesley himself suggested to head coach Neal Brown and it was a transition he had been considering even dating back to last year.
“Anytime you’re up high, you can definitely see better than you can on the field. I think it takes the emotions out of the game,” Brown said. “…It’s more peaceful. You can do some more thinking. You can be more organized in between series because you’re sitting at a table.”
But with the changes in college football with the coach-to-player communication, tablets and everything else he held off until he was comfortable with what was happening in those areas. But Lesley quickly found out that there wasn’t a lot of changes with the new technology in place so now that he’s in the box.
In fact, even the communication aspect was made easier by the fact that he now doesn’t have to navigate the crowd noise from the field level and that while that didn’t have an effect, it eliminated one less thing that could be a distraction for the defense.
That’s not to say that Lesley won’t miss some things being down at field level as he admits that he loves the emotion of the sideline when the defense is getting into a rhythm and is able to get stops and be excited with his players, but he had to look at this from a big picture perspective.
“I think you always try to be a couple plays ahead of how you think, and I think up top I’m a couple drives ahead. I’m into a little more situational things and kind of looking through the depth of whatever we’re doing and getting things lined up in your head which is much easier without a lot of moving pieces,” Lesley said.
The veteran assistant also won’t miss dealing with some of the weather like this past weekend against Oklahoma State when it was very hot while he was up top in a controlled environment.
But it’s hard to argue with the results so far as West Virginia played their best defensive football against Oklahoma State after closing the game with Kansas strong.
And while it’s impossible to say if the move is directly responsible, one fan who encountered Lesley after the Oklahoma State game made his thoughts clear on the subject.
“As we were walking down after the game, he was like ‘Hey, stay in the box’,” he said. “Planned to.”
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