One of the new additions to the Rutgers football secondary, Flip Dixon, is proving himself this spring with a blend of experience and power that is certainly encouraging to the coaching staff.
Dixon committed to Rutgers out of the transfer portal, joining the program in time for spring practice. Across three seasons, he played 30 games for Minnesota where he had six starts.
Last year, he had 28 tackles and three passes defended.
Poised for a bigger role in the Minnesota defense, Dixon decided to join Joe Harasymiak at Rutgers. Harasymiak was at Minnesota as their defensive coordinator prior to taking over the Rutgers defense last season.
“Flip, for one, brings a lot of Big Ten experience. It is so important to understand that he has played a lot of Big Ten football and with that, you learn a lot every single snap in this league,” safeties coach Drew Lascari told reporters on Thursday following practice.
“In terms of his physicality, it has been something that is exciting for us to see. He certainly loves to play physically, he knows our scheme really, really well so that allows him to play fast. Really excited about the direction that Flip is going.”
The emergence of Dixon this spring is encouraging for Rutgers, especially after some pretty steep offseason losses including Christian Izien heading for the NFL draft.
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Dixon has experience in the same base defense that Rutgers uses, which isn’t a surprise given that Harasymiak was his coordinator at Minnesota and now at Rutgers. And with Rutgers very often playing three safeties, a role for Dixon is very much there.
On Saturday, Dixon talked about his unusual nickname. Turns out it has nothing to do with backflips.
(He can’t do one anyway, so that’s good).
“It came from my uncle man when I got it when I was a baby when I came from the hospital,” Dixon said before being asked why he got the nickname.
“My feet they was like long like flippers.”
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