Gifts From Grinch

By Coach Grabowski

When you think of the character “the Grinch,” you think of “stingy.” That’s exactly what Alex Grinch has done over his career with his defenses. They’ve definitely been miserly in allowing yards and points at each of his stops, but we do have a gift for you in this email with some great insight from the Sooners’ defensive coordinator.

Alex Grinch is one of the top defensive coaches in the country. He was hired as defensive coordinator at Oklahoma in January 2019 and oversaw a defensive turnaround that included the Sooners leading the Big 12 in total defense in league play.

Grinch was confident in coming to OU that he would help orchestrate a turnaround on defense. It was something he did at Wazzu. He also had the opportunity to learn from Mike Leach.

Learning from Leach

While serving as the defensive coordinator for Mike Leach, Grinch learned an important lesson from the offense that he applied to defense. He stated it as,

“You have a system. You work at the system, you don’t vary from

the system, and you get really really good.”

For him it all starts with a sound philosophy. It is the foundation of the system that they believe in. He gives an overview in this short video:

To get really good at the defensive system, Grinch places a premium on his players getting maximum repetitions, and one of their coaching methods is their run-thru drill in which they are able to stress their players mentally while preserving them physically. They are able to get 100 reps in a 30 minute period. This is a great idea for any defense, especially as you get deeper into the season.

Here’s his overview of run thru drill in this video:

Window Dressing

Another aspect of offense that taught Grinch a lesson that he applies to the Sooner defense is that of window dressing. Grinch asked himself’

“Why are we married to fronts if offenses aren’t married to formations?”

That major takeaway and thought process allows the Sooners to flip the table on the offense and stress them with window dressing and movement. Grinch notes, “We are not married to front, we are married to finish.” With the way they run their defense, they can line up and be very multiple up front while running the same stunts and blitzes over and over.

Here’s an example of what Grinch means in this video:

In those three short videos, there’s useful information for any defensive coach. Get the full course from Alex Grinch here, and be sure to check out some more outstanding courses below.

Courses from Top Coaches:

Ed Orgeron, LSU - Building a Championship Program

James Franklin, Penn State - Building a Winning Culture

Tom Herman, Texas - Play Action Pass and Break Contain

Dave Aranda, Baylor - Defending the Spread Offense

Larry Fedora, Baylor - Building an Offensive Game Plan

Lincoln Riley, Oklahoma - Oklahoma Offense

Chris Ash, Texas - Texas Tackling Situations

Mike Yurcich, Texas - Intermediate Drop Back Passing Game

David Bailiff - Rice, Building a Defense

Jeff Traylor - UTSA, Begin with the End in Mind

Drew Svboda, Rice - Inside Zone from the RB Perspective