Saturday’s spring game was the first time we’ve seen new defensive coordinator [autotag]Zac Alley[/autotag] call a game at Oklahoma. Obviously, the defense was very vanilla and didn’t show a whole lot. It’s still good practice to have him call plays and see how his defense communicates and executes.
Alley has spent a lot of time with his head coach, [autotag]Brent Venables[/autotag]. Alley was an assistant when Venables was defensive coordinator for the Clemson Tigers. Adding Alley to the staff allows Venables to take a step back from the defense and become more of a CEO head coach.
Venables discussed how Alley has done this spring.
“He’s been great,” Venables said. “Everything has been good all spring. He’s gotten adjusted quickly, as we anticipated. He’s done a variety of things that have helped us continue to move forward, progress and get better. A lot of it language-wise. Trying to simplify some things from a language standpoint.”
Venables mentioned that when you get outside of a system and go to several places where everyone is new, you figure out how to be even more efficient. That’s something Alley has done so far, he said.
The question now for Alley is how well he will do as the play caller. He hasn’t been a play caller for very long and hasn’t done it at this level. Alley’s been incredibly successful at every coaching stop and has a talented roster. We’ll have to wait and see when the time comes this season.
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