It's Roof's turn to try and fix defense

The Gophers football team opened spring practice on Thursday, which, as usual, meant the team began installing a new defense under new defensive coordinator Ted Roof.

This is nothing new for linebacker Deon Hightower, of course. One of a handful of fifth-year seniors on defense, Hightower is accustomed to change, considering Roof will be his fourth defensive coordinator.

That's four in five seasons -- Greg Hudson, David Lockwood, Everett Withers and now Roof -- which is an astonishing turnover rate. But not to Hightower, who just shrugged and matter-of-factly pointed out the positives with having so many different coordinators and systems.

"People can say it's a negative," said Hightower, who will be limited this spring after having offseason shoulder surgery. "But as a player, I try to look at it as a positive. It never allows me to get comfortable out there. You always have to prove yourself. You should be that way regardless, but it forces you to."

The entire defense should be on its collective toes with the arrival of Roof and the memory of a disastrous 2007 season. In what has practically become an annual rite of spring, the defense is embarking on yet another rebuilding job with a new coordinator, a new scheme and a batch of new faces.

"For us seniors it's do or die," linebacker Steve Davis said. "Last year was bad. We don't want to go out like that."

It's hard to imagine things getting any worse. The Gophers gave up a school record 6,224 total yards, which was the most in Division I-A. They ranked 103rd or worse nationally in seven statistical categories. Pick an area and the Gophers had problems.

"Offense was not our issue," Gophers coach Tim Brewster said. "Defense was our issue."

This offseason has included the departure of Withers, who took the same post at North Carolina, and some soul-searching by the players. It's no fun being compared to the worst defenses in NCAA history.

"We hurt as a team," Hightower said. "We all hurt. I feel like we've been backed into a corner and as a defense we have to come out of that corner."

Brewster laid out both his goals and his plan for fixing the defense earlier this week. The gist was this: The explosion of spread offenses in the Big Ten (eight of the 11 teams run some variation of the spread, according to Brewster) has forced the Gophers to get faster on defense, be better tacklers in space and somehow get more pressure on the quarterback.

"It is not the Big Ten as it was years ago when you were pounding the football," Brewster said. "It is wide open, stretch the field as far as you can. You have to recruit players that can play in space defensively. We've changed the dynamic of our team defensively. We're going to get much faster and much more aggressive in our schemes."

Brewster said he believes more competition will produce better results. Twenty of the 31 incoming recruits play defense, and many of them are expected to either start or be key backups. Starters should be pushed for playing time for a change.

Brewster also hopes to improve the oft-abysmal tackling by doing more of it this spring. The Gophers missed an inordinate number of tackles last season, often turning a short gain into a big play.

"We're going to tackle as much as the NCAA will allow us to tackle [in spring practice]," Brewster said.

Brewster wants to see his defense produce more turnovers, get more pressure on the quarterback and have better success on third down.

"The biggest thing is forming a personality," he said.

What will that be? Who knows, but the players know things can't get much worse than last season.