Defensive strides key in Cape Central football team's return to final four

Nobody involved with Cape Central football can quite put their finger on it, but somewhere along the line this fall, the Tigers started playing pretty good defense. Good enough defense that Central will be playing in a third consecutive Class 4 semifinal at 1 p.m. Saturday against Webb City.

There was no single catalyst -- though some critical moments -- but there's no doubt that things have gotten better on that side of the ball, and the Tigers' fortunes have gotten better right alongside.

Of course, a learning curve is to be expected for a unit that returned just two starters.

"We knew early on we'd struggle a little bit because we had so many young kids playing," Central coach Nathan Norman said. "You can't replicate live, game experiences without playing a game. We knew if our kids were mentally tough enough to hang in there and maybe take a loss or could handle getting beat on the field at their position -- make a mistake and be coachable. If they were able to overcome that mentally, we could be good by the end."

The team took those lumps. There was an overtime loss to Vashon in the season opener, a disappointing defeat at Sikeston and a heartbreaking end against Ladue Horton Watkins. Across the first six games of the season, the Central defense allowed 27.5 points per game.

A host of Central players bring down a St. Charles West runner during the first quarter Friday, Aug. 28, 2015 at Steve Stahl Stadium in St. Charles, Missouri. (Trent Singer)

"At the beginning of the season, everything wasn't really going according to plan," senior defensive tackle Lamarcus Johnson said. "Around the fifth or sixth game, that's when we really started to pick up. We had guys in who had never played varsity before and people who had to play big roles. We had a whole lot of people that left last year that were a big part of the team."

It wasn't just a learning experience for the players. In 2014, Central employed a 4-3 defensive scheme that worked well. The four-man front was strong and balanced all the way across, and speed at linebacker allowed the defense to get where it needed to be in space. The coaching staff came into the 2015 season with the expectation they would utilize the same look, but it quickly became apparent that things just weren't clicking the same way. It turned out the coaches needed a bit of a learning experience as well.

"We had to put some pieces of the puzzle together as the season progressed a little bit, find out who would play well in certain spots," Central defensive coordinator Scott Schweinbold said. "You have all summer, and you think you have all those things figured out."

As it turned out, they had figured wrong. The new defensive line didn't sit as comfortably in those roles, and the defense wasn't defending the edge very well. It took a few weeks into the season to get it right, but Schweinbold, Norman and the rest of the staff decided a 3-4 scheme -- featuring Johnson, Patrick Buck and Sam Lemon -- might be the way to go.

"We made the switch to have our outside linebackers take care of anything outside, and that was a big difference up front," Schweinbold said. "With a three-man front, we swam a lot, so instead of having them read a lot, they're all on the move right from the snap of the ball."

The results show in the numbers. When linebackers are racking up statistics, it usually means the defensive line is doing its job and those 'backers have clean air in which to make plays. Linebackers Corey Starks and Aaron Harris lead the team with 88 and 81 tackles, respectively, and both have double-digit tackles for a loss. So does middle linebacker Trevon McClard.

"Our offensive line protects quarterbacks. Our defensive line protects linebackers," said Buck, a senior defensive end. "We have a job, and we're supposed to hold up the O-lineman so our linebackers can make a read. We don't get all the glory -- we don't get half the glory -- but we do our job so everybody else can do theirs."

The Tigers have also kept things simple. Schweinbold remembers a particular game a couple years ago in which the Central coaching staff walked off the field feeling like it had been out-schemed. The response was to strip things down, making them easier to understand and process on the field, thus allowing the defense to play faster. Schweinbold said that speed of play has been one of the biggest areas of improvement from Week 1 until now, and that goes back to sticking with a simple plan and letting the new players settle in.

"We felt like we had a good plan, and we stuck with it," Norman said. "I don't know that we changed how we were coaching. I think it's just the kids got more comfortable with it and got some confidence once they saw they had some success doing what we coached. The biggest thing was them seeing themselves getting better on film and in the game and those live game reps that you can't replicate."

Confidence is a hard thing to account for, but it began to build for the Tigers. They began to shake off the early punches they took, steel themselves and pass the mental tests that Norman was looking for them to ace.

"If you look at our past games, some of them we should have won, and we lost them in the fourth quarter," Buck said. "We needed to finish and keep our consistency. We lost against Ladue because we didn't finish, and we lost to Sikeston because we didn't finish. We had to fix that and learn to keep our intensity at the top.

"We just looked at it and said, 'We lost to two teams we should have beat. Two teams we did beat. We're done with that. We're done with losing. We're done with not finishing. We're done with being inconsistent. It's time to kick it in, and we kicked it in."

Frustrated by a 38-25 loss to Ladue, Central traveled to rival Jackson on Sept. 25. It left with a 48-35 win. It wasn't a shutdown night defensively, but the win provided the whole team with a boost. In the seven games since, the Tigers have allowed 19.7 points per game -- a nearly 10-point improvement from the season's first half. Remove a single loss to Chaminade, and that number drops to 14.8.

"That's really a big thing that we worked on this year -- not letting our opponent score any points," Johnson said, "especially when it's fourth-and-1 and they're going for it. It's all or nothing right there. It's all on the line. Either you're going to get the ball, or they're going to keep going down the field. It's just toughness."

The main goal for any defense is to prevent points, but Central has also done a good job of forcing turnovers. And those are the types of plays that can change games. Last week against Affton, the Tigers forced three turnovers, which allowed them to play ahead from the get-go and changed the complexion of the game. On the season, Central is plus-9 in turnover margin, with six fumble recoveries and 15 interceptions.

"A lot of our turnovers come from being in the right spot," Schweinbold said. "We talk about putting hats on the ball and stripping the ball, but a lot is being in the right spot at the right time. We're fortunate enough to have some skill guys in the secondary to make plays. We're fortunate enough to have them on our side."

Kway'Chon Chisom and Al Young are the two returning defensive starters, and both have proved to be playmakers in the secondary, with four interceptions apiece and each with a defensive touchdown. They also happen to be two of the most important offensive players on the team as the starting quarterback and big-play wide receiver, respectively, which means they are on the field for virtually every snap. It's a two-way trend the entire team has handled well.

Part of that is staying healthy. The other is having players buy in to the idea that making plays without the ball in their hands is as important as making them with one.

"They like offense," Norman said. "But they like to win, and they know they're needed. They're team guys, and they know they've got to do it."

They'll need to do it Saturday against a Webb City offense that's scoring 37.7 points per game. Not surprisingly, the five-time defending state champions pose the biggest challenge of the season.

"Webb City is a physical team, and they do their job right," Johnson said. "There is no screw-up in them, and they just go on every single play."

Central will have to match that, showing exactly how far this defense has come. Consider it another opportunity to grow.

"I remember talking about it early in the year, and it's always a question mark," Norman said of his defense's ability to jump mental hurdles and improve. "But they did it."