Venice defense relies on playing physical and playing together

VENICE

All Larry Shannon asks of the Venice High football defense is giving maximum effort “from snap to whistle."

“It’s something we work on from Day 1,” the Indians defensive coordinator said.

The Venice defense does not have behemoths on the line, prototypical linebackers or shutdown cover corners.

“Physical,” Shannon said. “We try to be as physical as we can. One thing we can hang our hat on is our effort.”

Teamwork also plays a huge role.

“If one person messes up the whole team messes up,” senior outside linebacker Drew Streich said. “When we’re all together, we’re a really, really solid unit.”

“If one person doesn’t do their job, they can find the creases and find the holes and make a big play out of it,” senior middle linebacker Caleb Smith said.

“When we have trust in each other, we know the guy next to us is going to have the gap,” senior defensive lineman Riley Pracher said.

Senior is the common theme among the unit that also features defensive linemen Weston Bolyard, Tyrone Barber and defensive backs Noah Crawford-Lay, Jared Bailey and Jeremy Trebbles. All are seniors and two- or three-year starters with more than 40 games under their belts.

“Ninety percent of the time the coaches don’t tell us what to do any more,” Streich said. “We take it upon ourselves to do what we have to do to make the team better and make each other better.”

“The coaches set us up to the point where we have to know everything they do before the snap and how they line up and how we need to execute,” Smith said.

“We had a lot of experience coming back,” Shannon said. “One thing is they haven’t been complacent. They’ve accepted the challenge we’ve presented every week.

“What’s really helped us is you can’t teach the experience.”

The work ethic of the seniors has set the tone for the underclassmen like middle linebacker Denique Mayfield, defensive back Noah Carr, defensive linemen Carson Sullivan, Marlem Louis and others.

“You play like you practice,” Shannon said. “The young guys see that and take ownership.”

The Indians allow an average of 15 points per game. They surrendered 38 in their only loss to IMG Academy Blue and 35 and 32 in a pair of games against Braden River. In the other 10 games, they have surrendered 3, 3, 7, 16, 14, 13, 17 and 20 with shutouts over Riverview (in two-and-a-half quarters) and Fort Myers Dunbar.

“Tons of experience and good leadership,” Venice coach John Peacock said. “We’ve been pretty solid all year long. We’ve gotten better throughout the year.”

The philosophy is to stop the run first with the linemen and linebackers and not to give up the big play in the secondary.

Last week in a 27-20 win over Fort Lauderdale St. Thomas Aquinas, the only touchdown the Indians defense permitted was due to a couple of breakdowns on the same play. Venice failed to get enough pressure on Raiders quarterback Derek Wingo and he was able to fire the ball more than 50 yards in the air to the back of the end zone where the receiver got behind the final line of defense.

Otherwise, Venice executed the defensive game plan to perfection.

Shannon tinkers with the scheme every week, depending on the opponent’s strengths.

“We have our base defense, but we feel like we always have to adjust based on who we play next,” he said.

Some of the areas Shannon changes are “coverage, how we align to things. Some of the philosophies of our responsibilities my change from week to week,” he said.

This week in the Class 7A championship game, against St. Johns Bartram Trail, the Indians must prepare for rotating quarterbacks Joey Gatewood and Riley Smith. Both seniors have a slightly different skill set, but run the same attack.

“They have a bigger quarterback who loves to run the ball,” Streich said of Gatewood. “And they have another quarterback who is smaller but shiftier. They are a running offense. Our main goal is to shut down the run.”

“They have two quarterbacks who are really, really good athletes, so we have to contain the quarterbacks and be prepared for what they are showing us,” Pracher said. “We have to execute in the secondary so the D-line can get there and the D-line has to execute so the secondary can execute.”

It all comes down to each of the 11 players doing their job and trusting each and every one of your teammates does the same thing.

“You have to trust the man next to you,” Shannon said.