Farley feeling deja vu with UNI's personnel turnover

CEDAR FALLS — What's old is new again.

Northern Iowa football coach Mark Farley had a pretty significant feeling of déjà vu as fall camp started earlier this month. With five new assistant coaches and a large crop of players to replace the departed seniors from last year, this season has felt a little like starting from scratch when he first took over.

'It's like (my first year in) 2001. We inherited that coaching staff — I think I got here in April — and that was Bill (Salmon) and I as well. Through all of this, it's a little bit different, but it's like doing all that again,' Farley said. 'You really try to look to the strength of the guys you surround yourself with — whether it's a player or a coach. You try to go with their strength and not fight it. Don't make them do what we do. I want them to do what their strength is within the UNI way.'

Finding the strength of this team has been the biggest difficulty of both fall and spring camps.

What helped make UNI a playoff team last year — its run-stuffing and turnover-creating defense — is what serves as perhaps its biggest question mark going into this season.

It's easy to point to the loss of David Johnson on offense as impossible to replace, but Farley, defensive coordinator/linebackers coach Jeremiah Johnson and defensive line coach Bryce Paup have a taller task in replacing the heart of the defense.

Gone are starting linebackers Jared Farley and Max Busher, as well as starting defensive linemen Xavier Williams and Mac O'Brien. Those four accounted for 37 percent of the total tackles for the season (375 of 1,028 team tackles), 30 percent of team sacks (15.5 of 51 team sacks) and 36 percent of tackles for loss (42.5 of 119 team tackles for loss).

And as much as production, the leadership show from that group was invaluable. The younger players stepping into those positions now haven't quite become comfortable filling the role.

'That's been a bigger test than even on offense,' Farley said. 'We've got younger guys now, and that's not their nature right now to be that person. We have to find another way to communicate that, so there might need to be more control from the sideline than what there may have been last year. We'll have to see how that unfolds, but that's how you try to handle it.

'We have that workmanship, that UNI football attitude in that (defensive) front, and that's led by (Coach Bryce) Paup.'

On the line specifically, Farley and Paup will rely on returners Isaac Ales (54 total tackles, 18.5 TFL, 9 sacks) and Ronelle McNeil (33 total tackles, 10.5 TFL, 5.5 sacks) to lead a group of newcomers. The coaches highlighted Adam Reth, Karter Schult, Wyatt Peiffer, Griffin Gaeta and Bryce Douglas as players who will compete for time and have stood out so far.

Paup said the progress of the line as a whole has 'been up and down, as you'd expect' given how hard it will be to replace Williams and O'Brien.

One advantage the line has is a strong returning secondary, which has returning starters Deiondre Hall, Tim Kilfoy and Makinton Dorleant still on the field. Their ability and knowledge will help ease the transition of the defensive line.

'People gripe about not getting to the quarterback. Sometimes it's because you don't have the DBs. Then sometimes when you have the DBs, you don't have the d-line,' Paup said. 'Having the DBs we have back there certainly makes our job easier. It's going to give us more time to get to the quarterback. It's always nice to have that luxury back there because if people aren't open, they have to choke on it and we can get there.'

Video: Linebacker Barkley Hill

Among the linebackers, the pressure to perform comes in many ways from Farley himself, who played as a linebacker at UNI.

It doesn't matter if it's his son, Jared, whom he's always been hard on, or running back convert Barkley Hill. He expects a lot from that group.

'On a scale of one to 10, he's a 10. He doesn't mess around when it comes to linebackers,' Hill said of Farley's intensity. 'He gets real excited, he gets real into it. A lot of times at practice he'll just show up right next to you out of the blue. He loves linebackers and defense and he gets real into it.

'It can be both (stressful and fun). It just depends on the situation.'

All the new blood has seemed to reinvigorate Farley, who's headed into his 15th season as the head man in Cedar Falls. He has concerns on both sides of the ball with so many new pieces, but repeatedly sang the praises of his new staff throughout media day on Friday.

But much of what fans and followers are to discover about his team — the rotation at linebacker chief among them — he'll be discovering right along with.

'(Linebacker is) a position that needs a lot of critique and a lot of competition because I don't know who the starters will be,' Farley said. 'However it all fits, we'll move it all around to get the best three or four on the field we can.

'This is different for me. You see much more because I'm looking for more. … As this thing unfolds, there's going to be something that comes up that we didn't expect — now how do we adjust as a group having never been through it before. We can plan, but we'll never know until we execute it. That's the key.'

l Comments: (319) 368-8884; jeremiah.davis@thegazette.com