And more importantly, can he put together good defenses?
Following Tony Gibson’s departure of the Wolfpack football program to take over as the head coach at Marshall, there wasn’t a lot of public discussion around his replacement as defensive coordinator for NC State. Safeties coach Freddie Aughtry-Lindsay was appointed as the interim DC for the bowl game while Isaiah Moore was appointed as the linebackers coach for the game.
It seemed that Aughtry-Lindsay was going to get the full-time job, but just two days after the defense looked pretty poor in the Military Bowl loss, the Pack announced D.J. Eliot as the program’s new DC.
So who is this guy?
If you’re looking for the tie to the current coaching staff, Eliot and new OC Kurt Roper were both assistants in 2018 at Colorado under Mike MacIntyre. Eliot was DC while Roper was QB coach and served as the interim coach for a game after MacIntyre was fired. Roper had previously worked with MacIntyre when the pair were assistant coaches at Duke (MacIntyre was DC) under David Cutcliffe.
To understand Eliot, let’s first look at the SP+ rankings and ratings of the defenses he’s coordinated:
- Kentucky – 2013 – 82nd (31.2)
- Kentucky – 2014 – 54th (24.8)
- Kentucky – 2015 – 63rd (27.2)
- Kentucky – 2016 – 93rd (33.4)
- Colorado – 2017 – 84th (30.1)
- Colorado – 2018 – 58th (27.2)
- Kansas – 2019 – 106th (34.8)
- Kansas – 2020 – 107th (35.5)
- Temple – 2022 – 71st (28.6)
Not the most impressive, but keep in mind that these are programs that have historically been pretty poor at football. Kentucky had won 8 games in a season just twice since 1985. Colorado won 10 games the season before Eliot joined the coaching staff, but had losing seasons in each of the ten years prior to that. Kansas, too, had a decade straight of losing seasons prior to Eliot joining the staff there, and had just eight seasons over .500 since 1977. Temple had a solid run from 2009-2019, but that’s an outlier of a decade in the history of the program.
At Kentucky, he was the DC for Mark Stoops’ first four years in Lexington, helping to pull the program from the SEC basement up to respectability. His defenses gave up an average of 30.3 points/game during his run there, with the 2015 mark of 27.4 points/game being the best; the other three seasons his Wildcats defenses allowed either 31.2 or 31.3 points/game. Consistent, just not in the good way. For comparison, Kentucky allowed 24.7 and 31.0 points/game in the two years prior to his arrival and 28.2 and 26.6 points/game in the two years after he left.
Colorado gave up 28.2 points/game under Eliot in 2017 and 27.2 points/game under him in 2018. The Buffaloes allowed 27.5 and 31.1 in the two years prior to his arrival and 31.8 and 31.7 in the two years after he left.
Kansas gave up 36.1 points/game under Eliot in 2019 and 46.0 points/game under him in 2020. The Jayhawks allowed 43.4 and 30.0 in the two years prior to his arrival and 42.2 and 35.5 in the two years after he left.
Temple gave up 29.2 points/game under Eliot in 2022. They allowed 37.1 and 37.5 points/game the two years prior and 35.7 and 35.4 the two years after. That 2022 Owls defense got gutted by a trio of good teams (70 points vs 9-win UCF, 49 points vs 9-win ECU, 43 points against 8-win Houston), but was otherwise pretty solid.
From a personnel standpoint, Eliot mostly used 3-4-4 and 3-3-5 alignments with the Owls, with a 2-4-5 look mixed in occasionally. The 3-3-5 was used differently than how State utilized the formation under Tony Gibson. Eliot’s 3-3-5 mostly featured an offset of the defensive line, with down linemen in the A gap to one side of the center and the B gap on the opposite, with a standup DE in the C gap to the same side of the ball as the DT. Whether in the 3-4-4 or 3-3-5, one of the OLBs would be used in more of a hybrid DE/LB role, lining up in the C gap with no TE or the D gap when the TE was present.
The secondary used mostly man coverage with some zone mixed in. In the games I watched, I didn’t see any CB blitzes, just LBs and safeties. Opposing offenses took advantage of zone coverage when played, and also keyed on RB-LB mismatches.
From an advanced metrics perspective, Eliot’s defenses are an inverse of what Gibson’s State units were. Whereas the Wolfpack would look to suffocate teams on a down-to-down basis (great at Success Rate) at the expense of the occasional big play (bad at Explosiveness), the recurring theme of Eliot’s defenses across his entire career have been not giving up the big play (good at Explosiveness) at the expense of letting teams find success on a down-by-down basis (bad at Success Rate). Eliot’s defenses have struggled against the run and found more success against the pass. Then again, because opposing offenses have carried higher success rates against him, those offenses aren’t forced into passing downs very often.
On the surface, this isn’t exactly an inspiring hire, especially when there were some exciting options out there. Those of us outside of the football offices won’t know the process that went into the hiring – whether Eliot was the guy from day Gibson left or if Aughtry-Lindsay was given a chance to earn the job but failed with the bowl game. Doeren has a mixed record with coordinator hires, and even Gibson came in without the best of resumes before becoming one of the country’s best DCs while in Raleigh.
Eliot will have more talent at his disposal with the Pack than he had at any of his last five stops. One would hope that will make a difference. We’ll find out soon enough.