Ship sets sail for Vols' D

The text messages can arrive at most any time, morning, midday and night.

Especially as Bob Shoop’s family continues the transition process since his hiring as Tennessee’s defensive coordinator in mid-January.

So this one goes to a Vols’ defender, with a simple, four-word message from Shoop: Communication, disguise, angles, tackling.

“He got the point, what I was looking for right there,” Shoop said. “It was good.”

That same adjective has largely been applied to Shoop’s arrival on Rocky Top, where he inherited a defense with a bevy of key contributors who returned and championship expectations for the 2016 campaign.

“Like I’ve said, this is such a unique transition for me,” Shoop told VolQuest.com. “It’s not like coming into a team that went 0-and-12 last year and gave up 500 yards a game. You look at it and say, ‘I want to put my own stamp on it, however I don’t want to take a step back.’

“Because Team 120 has a chance to compete at the highest level.”

If the Tennessee defense helps the program stride forward and perhaps to its first SEC Championship game appearance in a decade, Shoop’s two-part approach may be the key.

Players have raved about both Shoop’s teaching ability and his ‘ship’ mentality: championships and relationships.

Perhaps no Vol has a more appropriate perspective on Shoop than redshirt-sophomore Rashaan Gaulden, who garnered his first-ever SEC scholarship offer from none other than Shoop. Even though Gaulden initially spurned Shoop, the two remained in contact.

“It’s kind of crazy how time flies, and he was the first person to offer me my sophomore year in high school as a safety. He kind of tells me, ‘I’ve been waiting to coach you for five years,’” Gaulden recalled to VolQuest.com in his first interview since his injury last August. “So all I want to do is just make him happy and give him everything I got, show him I’m invested. Also having that relationship, he was one of the only guys that I kept in touch with after the recruiting process. Over the years, after I got injured, he checked in with me to see how my family was doing. Just that relationship and that togetherness.

“Still checked in on me after my injury and even times prior to that. He’s just, he’s one of my guys. He’s a classy guy. I can’t say enough about him. You don’t really hear about guys talking to other coaches after the recruiting process is over, but he’s one of the guys I really respected it because of that first offer and being able to play football against his son (Tyler) at Father Ryan when I was back at Brentwood Academy.”

Added Todd Kelly, “He actually works with the (defensive backs) the most, and he likes to get a lot of one-on-one time when we don’t have class or during our free time, just to get with us and talk ball with us and talk life. He’s all about relationships, he says it’s all about championships and relationships. With those two I feel like it will take us a long way. He makes sure that we’re on the same page, and he was really close to his guys at Vanderbilt and also at Penn State. I got to talk to some of his former players and they said that they loved him. Hopefully we can have that connection here at UT.”

It is a connection, it seems, that is not limited merely to Shoop and his players. Riding an elevator with offensive coordinator Mike DeBord, the top two of Butch Jones’ assistants commiserate about the potential to be locked in an offensive shootout or a defensive stalemate.

DeBord, in Shoop’s shoes a year ago, has worked to facilitate the smoothest transition for all involved parties.

“He’s been, first of all, I think he’s a great person. His record speaks for itself. But to work with somebody for the first time, you don’t know, and he has been unbelievable to work with,” DeBord said. “There have been times that he might ask me for something or I might ask him for something. Or he might say, ‘Hey, please don’t do this, we’re not ready for this yet,’ or I might say, ‘Hey, we’re not ready for that yet.’

“We’ve worked really well together and you have to do that, because he has a schedule for the defense and I have a schedule for the offense. We’re going to work together to stay on schedule both ways.”

Shoop said DeBord had passed along some Cliff Notes to help ease the move under the ever-demanding Jones.

They even share some self-deprecating humor.

“I think he and I see eye to eye, and I think if you combined our two head coaching records, it wouldn’t be very good,” Shoop told VolQuest.com. “But we’ve been in that position and we understand, we had Mike Sherman, the former head coach of the Packers, come talk to us last year at Penn State, and he always used the term big-picture thinking. And we understand, I think we both think the same way about big-picture thinking, and I’m appreciative of how much he’s helped me during the first couple of months on the job.

“Laying the groundwork for things, ‘Expect this, don’t expect this. Coach Jones is going to want this from you; make sure of this.’ Working together so that we can be productive in practice. And it’s not always perfect, because he wants the offense to perform well and he’s a competitor, and I want the defense to perform well. On Saturday when it’s full-go in Neyland Stadium, we’re going to be on different sides of the field, but I think we both recognize the ultimate objective is for Team 120 to win and I think we have one another’s back. I use the phrase ultimate teammate, and he’s been the ultimate teammate thus far.”

Jones said the same of Shoop, one of three major moves that Tennessee’s fourth-year coach made this offseason. He also tabbed former Miami interim head coach Larry Scott to be the Vols’ tight ends coach, and Jones moved Mike Szerszen into day-to-day strength and conditioning operations for the football program.

“The best coaches are the best teachers, and it’s being able to reach your audience, which is our student-athletes,” Jones said. “And the message has to be clean, clear, direct and concise and compelling. The challenge of any teacher is not to be a presenter but a teacher, and each young man learns at their own rate and they learn in different ways. That’s where I think Bob does a great job, is reaching every player on defense from an individual standpoint.

“Our players have gravitated towards him. Every day I walk by his office, there’s always a player in there. At nighttime, there are players in there. Just the way he’s able to effectively communicate to them and our players, it speaks volumes when you walk down the hallway and there’s always players around.”

However, don’t mistake Shoop’s teaching and transition for a lack of will to win. Sometimes, even in spring ball, Shoop has found himself swept up in the moment.

“It’s funny, (last Thursday), was probably the first day I was kind of mad at myself,” Shoop said. “You always grade yourself, and I grade myself harder than anybody and Coach (Jones) made it pretty competitive and I found myself getting pretty competitive out there. So I lost my focus as a teacher and got competitive at some point.

“But there’s a little bit of that involved, that’s the nature of it. But I think of myself first and foremost as a teacher and I try to think that’s what I want to do, instruct and motivate these guys.”

It would seem, this spring anyway, that ship has sailed in a positive direction.