Rhoads brings new approach as AU DC

By Collin Mickle

Published: March 8, 2008

Craig Stevens couldn’t believe his ears.

In the final minutes of Auburn’s second spring practice, as Stevens and the rest of AU’s first-team defense prepared to jog through another drill, a piercing sound split the air.

Paul Rhoads wanted their attention.

Coaches often whistle to get their players’ attention, of course. But most of them use an actual whistle.

Not Rhoads. He does all his own whistling, using his thumb, forefinger and a technique he learned growing up in Ankeny, Iowa, where his father was a high school football coach.

It’s impressive: Up close, the sound is almost deafening. Stevens, Auburn’s starting strongside linebacker, can hardly believe Rhoads makes the noise himself.

“I thought somebody blew a whistle,” Stevens said, shaking his head.

Rhoads says he’s willing to teach the secret to anyone who’s willing to learn. He taught a few of his players at Pitt, where he spent the previous eight seasons.

“Sometimes we’d stand around before (practice), and I’d try to teach them how to do it,” he said. “It took a lot of practice.”

That, in a nutshell, is Paul Rhoads. The former high school valedictorian loves to teach, whether it’s a game-breaking blitz or an ear-splitting whistle.

And Auburn’s defenders are slowly but surely adjusting to Rhoads’ methods.

Those methods include a tried-and-true teaching favorite: Asking questions.

AU players are learning to be prepared for a barrage of questions from Rhoads during practices. Midway through a drill, he’ll ask something like “What are we trying to do in this drill?” or “When he goes outside, you go where?”

According to Stevens, it’s best to keep quiet when Rhoads starts firing questions.

“At first, I’d answer, until I started getting all of them wrong,” he said with a laugh. “I just stopped answering.

“Now, I just sit back and wait for someone else to answer, and I just nod my head.”

Defensive tackle Sen’Derrick Marks is equally cautious.

“They may be trick questions,” Marks said with a laugh. “You may want to be like, ‘Yeah,’ and then he goes, ‘No!’”

For the most part, though, Auburn’s players know the answers. That’s because Rhoads isn’t making many changes to AU’s scheme.

The Tigers are running a few new drills and using some slightly different play-calling terminology, but the basics of the system stay the same.

Rhoads is less concerned with the intricacies of the defense and more interested in his players’ intensity in practice. He believes that as long as AU’s defenders play hard, learning everything else won’t be a problem.

“Effort, tackling, doing things smartly — we’ll be looking at those things a lot more than who is doing things 100 percent right from a schematic standpoint,” he said.

“As we learn that, we’ll coach that. If we have to coach effort, we’re in trouble. If we have to coach the fundamentals of tackling over and over, we’ll be in trouble.”

Cornerback Jerraud Powers is enjoying Rhoads’ methods, even if the questions occasionally make him nervous. The queries are doing their job: Powers says he’s as comfortable in the defense as he’s ever been.

“Coach Rhoads is a great teacher,” Powers said. “He’s just absorbing all our mentalities and how we respond to different things.

“He’s learning just like we’re learning.”

One question — or one whistle — at a time.

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