Josh Conklin enters his third season as Wofford’s head coach in 2021, and is 17-9 with two playoff appearances since 2018.
He is a candidate to join Josh Heupel’s defensive staff.
Prior to arriving at Wofford, Conklin served as defensive coordinator at Pittsburgh (2015-17) and Florida International (2013-14).
He was safeties coach at Tennessee in 2012.
Prior to Conklin’s time with the Vols, he served as defensive coordinator at The Citadel (2010-11), defensive backs coach at Wofford (2007-09) and as an assistant at South Dakota State (2003-06).
Conklin joined the show “Tennessee Two-A-Days” and discussed his defensive system and philosophies.
“When I was at The Citadel, before I came to Tennessee, I kind of got in the process of creating a three-down, 3-4 scheme,” Conklin said. “It is probably more similar to what we are running now. Then I went to a 4-3, that was mandated by the head coach at FIU, that’s what he wanted to be. We had some success there, and then I got picked up by Pat Narduzzi at Pitt. We were a four-down, press quarters, no post coverage.
“Part of the reason I took the head job here at Wofford, to be completely honest with you, was I really wanted to dive into creating a little bit different defenses. We took some concepts from Pat’s system in terms of the run fit, the way he was setting his three-technique and the over-scheme. Then we combined that with three-down, and I felt like that was kind of the direction of offenses were going in terms of being able to defend these spread offenses that you are seeing, the uptempo, score a lot of points, wheel-routes, get you in space. I just felt like three-down, four linebackers, or three linebackers and five DBs, you can just mix and match personnel a whole lot better and be sound in matching numbers. That is kind of what it came down to. Here, our defensive staff along with myself, we sat down and just kind of continued to develop this system and kind of tried to make it our own. It has been really successful for us.”
The entire show with Conklin can be listened to here or below.
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