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Nix is a Rebel with a cause
Former USC defensive coordinator faces his former team when he leads Mississippi's defense against the Gamecocks
In this file photograph from the 2006 football season, then-defensive coordinator Tyrone Nix works the defense out.
Rich Glickstein/rglickstein@thestate.com /The State
Written by JOSEPH PERSON
jperson@thestate.com
Posted on 10.04.08
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OXFORD, Miss. — In the hours after Mississippi stunned fourth-ranked Florida last weekend, Tyrone Nix’s BlackBerry filled up with incoming text messages from friends and former colleagues congratulating the Rebels’ first-year defensive coordinator.
Many came from the 803 area code.
Nearly every assistant coach and graduate assistant who worked with Nix during his three years at South Carolina texted him. Gamecocks coach Steve Spurrier, who is not big on text-messaging, called Nix with his congratulations.
That was last week.
Today, Nix and the USC coaching staff will stuff those sentiments for four quarters when the 36-year-old Nix faces his former team for the first time since his December departure.
It is an important game for both 3-2 teams.
The Gamecocks are looking to snap a six-game SEC losing streak that — following Ole Miss’ win at the Swamp — is the longest skid in the conference.
Ole Miss is trying to build on its first victory against a top-5 program since 1977 against a USC team it has beaten five times in a row.
So Nix plans to check his emotions at the gates of Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
“Some of the guys, getting to see them again will be great. Haven’t seen some of them since I left,” Nix said. “But when the ball’s kicked off you coach your team, and when it’s over, it’s over.”
Nix was part of Spurrier’s first USC staff in 2005, and took over the defensive play-calling from his friend, John Thompson, midway through that season when Thompson and Spurrier had a falling out.
Nix’s defense ranked 29th nationally in scoring defense (18.7 ppg) in 2006 and was fifth nationally in pass defense (168.8.) last season. But abysmal showings in back-to-back losses to Arkansas and Florida last year convinced Spurrier to make a change.
Nix could have stayed at USC, but likely would have lost his coordinator’s title. Instead, he took a $350,000-a-year offer from Houston Nutt, who weeks earlier, in one of his final games at Arkansas, had administered the beating that left Nix’s job in jeopardy.
“You don’t go by one game. You go by year after year after year,” Nutt said. “We had Darren McFadden and Felix Jones. We did that to a lot of people.”
Nutt said he admired how Nix, who was a hard-hitting linebacker at Southern Miss, related to his players.
“I loved the way he energized his team. I loved the way he talked to his players as I watched across the field,” Nutt said. “As I got to know him a little bit better through coaches’ conventions and clinics, he was a guy you wanted to be around, a solid character guy.”
Working with Spurrier, Nix said he learned the pursuit of perfection — “doing it the way you’re coached and doing it on a consistent basis” — and the importance of third-down defense, an Achilles heel at times during Nix’s USC tenure.
Nix said Spurrier indirectly played a part in the Rebels’ fourth-down stop of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow that sealed last week’s upset. Before the Gators’ fourth-and-1 call, Nix recalled a similar situation in the Gators’ 17-16 victory against USC in 2006.
After Tebow picked up 6 yards on fourth down to extend a fourth-quarter drive that put Florida ahead, Spurrier asked Nix why he had not put more defenders near the line of scrimmage — a conversation Nix recalled last weekend.
“(Spurrier) said, ‘Why don’t you just put them all up there sometimes? Just take a chance and see what happens,’” Nix said. “That’s what we did. We didn’t even have a defense called. We just loaded up on the sideline and said do this, do that, do this, and let’s see what happens.”
A spontaneous sideline adjustment could be the difference today, particularly with Spurrier and Nix so familiar with the other’s schemes. But both downplayed their roles.
“I think it still comes down to the players making the plays,” Spurrier said. “We are going to run our defense, and Ole Miss will probably run their defense.”
“I’m not trying to stop coach,” Nix said. “What we’re trying to do is get our kids coached up as well as possible, then go out there and play fast. It’s no different than if we were playing Tennessee.”
Nix and Spurrier are looking for more consistency from their units. Ole Miss is ninth in the SEC in total defense (328.8 ypg), while the Gamecocks are eighth in the league in total offense (342.4).
But Nix said he would not write off Spurrier’s offense.
“I don’t remember winning many scrimmages when I was at South Carolina,” he said. “I know it’s going to be a challenge. It’s a challenge every week in this league.”
But this week it’s also personal.
Reach Person at (803) 771-8496.
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