Bobby April & Wisconsin's Defense
- By msqueri
- The Farm Report
- 77 Replies
Bobby April III coming on board as the defensive coordinator comes with promise that he'll bring Wisconsin Badger flavor the defense badly needs as well as anxiety Stanford is handing the keys of the defense to a coach who's never coordinated/called a defense. I thought it might be interesting to look at Wisconsin's defense over the years to try to get a sense of the defense we're hoping to emulate and what role April played in it.
April joined Wisconsin's staff in 2018 (one year into Jim Leonhard's tenure as defensive coordinator) as the outside linebackers coach and from 2020-2022 also had a defensive run game coordinator. While the defensive performance during that time has been elite, Badger defensive greatness preceded them. Here's the Defensive FEI rankings by year (DCs listed parenthetically):
2007: #53 (Hankwitz)
2008: #43 (Doeren)
2009: #30 (Doeren)
2010: #40 (Doeren)
2011: #41 (Ash/Partridge)
2012: #20 (Ash/Partridge)
2013: #8 (Aranda)
2014: #21 (Aranda)
2015: #12 (Aranda)
2016: #6 (Wilcox)
2017: #6 (Leonhard)
2018: #32 (Leonhard)
2019: #12 (Leonhard)
2020: #4 (Leonhard)
2021: #3 (Leonhard)
2022: #18 (Leonhard)
Leonhard/April had a very tough act to follow after Aranda and Wilcox and managed to live up to that standard. In the five years April coached at Wisconsin, the median defense was #12 in the nation. To put that into perspective for Stanford fans, the Harbaugh/Shaw glory years median for Stanford was #8 or #9, depending on where you cut off the years. As we all know, even a tick behind that as Wisconsin has been the last decade (with two of the last three seasons being even more elite than prime Stanford mustered) is dominant. That's an exciting defense to try to draw lessons from.
The questions for us become how much of the credit a mid-level assistant like April deserves as opposed to Leonhard, how much of the Wisconsin magic baked in to the program's DNA (by Aranda, Wilcox, Leonhard, and others) rubbed off on April, and how much of the Wisconsin staff responsible for this magic April will be able to bring with him to Stanford. For each of these I think there are reasons for optimism regarding what April can mean for Stanford, as well as reasons to be concerned we're getting the understudy rather than the maestro. Stanford's own experience is a bit of a cautionary tale - based on program trajectory/departing DCs moving on for other opportunities/etc., there are obvious parallels between April and Lance Anderson. Stanford calculated that Anderson's apprenticeships under Mason and Fangio rubbed off, but it became clear that the magic didn't translate. For Wisconsin, Leonhard himself was an assistant for a year under Wilcox who moved up to the big job in the way Stanford tried with Anderson, but Wilcox and Aranda were both proven DC hired guns/rising supernovas. The Wilcox/Aranda model is the more reliable one and the one I wish Stanford would use for the critical DC position, just as I wish we would belly up to the big kids table and hire a proven Power Five head coach, but we are where we are: trying to identify good candidates among guys looking to make a professional leap.
How have Wisconsin defensive assistants done trying to make professional leaps? Daronte Jones coached only one year under Aranda and then got half a decade of NFL experience, so his experience is inverted compared to April (and much less time marinating in the Badger defensive stew), but for what it's worth he got a year as LSU's DC and had a mediocre year by LSU standards (#44 in Defensive FEI); he went back to the NFL when LSU's coaching staff turned over. Tim Tibesar (the coach April replaced at Wisconsin) parlayed his Wisconsin job into a Pac-12 defensive coordinator gig as well, at Oregon State, though Tibesar had years of major college football experience previously so is not a good analogue to April; for what it's worth, Tibesar's track record at Oregon State was not successful and he's now DC at Akron and in his first year squeezed out modest improvement in what had been the worst defense in America before he got there. In general, there isn't much track record of Aranda/Wilcox/Leonhard Wisconsin assistants making a jump to DC. Jones is really the only guy to make the leap without DC experience and he only did it for a year. This is a small sample and if April is going to be a good hire he'd naturally be an outlier. We have to hope he's got a good mix of talents and experience to be a good DC. He's got a relatively clean upward trajectory and lengthy apprenticeships under Rex Ryan in the NFL (four years) and Leonhard in college (five years), which means a lot more to me than a coach getting one year under Aranda for instance.
To the extent April has been a defensive scheme guy and empowered in the Wisconsin defense, it's been as the run game coordinator. It's nigh impossible for outsiders to discern how much credit to assess for titular roles like this, how integral April was to Leonhard's scheme and calls, how much more empowered April was in the defensive run game compared to the defensive pass game, etc. But for the sake of trying to understand what April brings to the table let's take a look at Wisconsin's yards per carry allowed ranks in the defense's salad (Aranda-Wilcox-Leonhard) days:
2013: #9
2014: #28
2015: #4
2016: #9
2017: #9
2018: #75 (April joined staff)
2019: #15
2020: #14 (April became defensive run game coordinator)
2021: #1
2022: #6
Well, gotta love that! If Stanford can come even close to replicating that run defense it would be a godsend. In the five years April has been part of a defensive staff that had a median year of being #14 in the nation in run defense, Stanford's median run defense has been #115. What a difference.
Notably, it appears the plan might be for April to bring his fellow defensive front seven assistants, inside linebackers coach Mark D'Onofrio and defensive line coach Ross Kolodziej, with him to Stanford. D'Onofrio has only coached with Leonhard and April for one year after a three year absence from coaching and many years as a defensive coordinator at Temple, Miami, and Houston. Looking at the arcs of D'Onofrio's defenses at each of those three schools, he was very modestly successful at Temple, unsuccessful at Miami, and unsuccessful at Houston. The way I'd think about D'Onofrio is a failed coordinator who can nonetheless provide April with some perspective from years of major college football play calling, and the two have a year of successful experience navigating the seams and gaps between outside and inside linebackers. Kolodziej led Badger strength and conditioning for six years between 2015-2020 before serving as the DL coach the last two years. The performance of the defense, especially in run defense, the last two years suggests that Chryst and Leonhard didn't err in making Kolodziej DL coach. Certainly he's been integral to the program spanning Aranda, Wilcox, and Leonhard successes. In my view, the theory of the case for the Stanford defense under April would be much stronger with Kolodziej and D'Onofrio than it would be if he is forced to retain Stanford assistants or search elsewhere for new partners. Big arrow up for me if these three come together. They have proven synergy as defensive coaches and, as a bonus, synergy with one another in integrating strength and conditioning with defensive coaching: in addition to Kolodziej's obvious strength and conditioning expertise, D'Onofrio's time at Houston overlapped with new Stanford honcho Ryan Deatrick.
The biggest unknown for me with regard to April as DC is the defensive secondary coaching. I remain convinced we need two defensive secondary coaches, as Leonhard operated at Wisconsin and as Taylor operated at Sacramento State. I do not know anything about the coaching Taylor and April plan to bring on for the secondary. Big unknown for me. Hopefully we can nail down the rest of the staff soon and the synergies are as good as my optimistic read so far.
April joined Wisconsin's staff in 2018 (one year into Jim Leonhard's tenure as defensive coordinator) as the outside linebackers coach and from 2020-2022 also had a defensive run game coordinator. While the defensive performance during that time has been elite, Badger defensive greatness preceded them. Here's the Defensive FEI rankings by year (DCs listed parenthetically):
2007: #53 (Hankwitz)
2008: #43 (Doeren)
2009: #30 (Doeren)
2010: #40 (Doeren)
2011: #41 (Ash/Partridge)
2012: #20 (Ash/Partridge)
2013: #8 (Aranda)
2014: #21 (Aranda)
2015: #12 (Aranda)
2016: #6 (Wilcox)
2017: #6 (Leonhard)
2018: #32 (Leonhard)
2019: #12 (Leonhard)
2020: #4 (Leonhard)
2021: #3 (Leonhard)
2022: #18 (Leonhard)
Leonhard/April had a very tough act to follow after Aranda and Wilcox and managed to live up to that standard. In the five years April coached at Wisconsin, the median defense was #12 in the nation. To put that into perspective for Stanford fans, the Harbaugh/Shaw glory years median for Stanford was #8 or #9, depending on where you cut off the years. As we all know, even a tick behind that as Wisconsin has been the last decade (with two of the last three seasons being even more elite than prime Stanford mustered) is dominant. That's an exciting defense to try to draw lessons from.
The questions for us become how much of the credit a mid-level assistant like April deserves as opposed to Leonhard, how much of the Wisconsin magic baked in to the program's DNA (by Aranda, Wilcox, Leonhard, and others) rubbed off on April, and how much of the Wisconsin staff responsible for this magic April will be able to bring with him to Stanford. For each of these I think there are reasons for optimism regarding what April can mean for Stanford, as well as reasons to be concerned we're getting the understudy rather than the maestro. Stanford's own experience is a bit of a cautionary tale - based on program trajectory/departing DCs moving on for other opportunities/etc., there are obvious parallels between April and Lance Anderson. Stanford calculated that Anderson's apprenticeships under Mason and Fangio rubbed off, but it became clear that the magic didn't translate. For Wisconsin, Leonhard himself was an assistant for a year under Wilcox who moved up to the big job in the way Stanford tried with Anderson, but Wilcox and Aranda were both proven DC hired guns/rising supernovas. The Wilcox/Aranda model is the more reliable one and the one I wish Stanford would use for the critical DC position, just as I wish we would belly up to the big kids table and hire a proven Power Five head coach, but we are where we are: trying to identify good candidates among guys looking to make a professional leap.
How have Wisconsin defensive assistants done trying to make professional leaps? Daronte Jones coached only one year under Aranda and then got half a decade of NFL experience, so his experience is inverted compared to April (and much less time marinating in the Badger defensive stew), but for what it's worth he got a year as LSU's DC and had a mediocre year by LSU standards (#44 in Defensive FEI); he went back to the NFL when LSU's coaching staff turned over. Tim Tibesar (the coach April replaced at Wisconsin) parlayed his Wisconsin job into a Pac-12 defensive coordinator gig as well, at Oregon State, though Tibesar had years of major college football experience previously so is not a good analogue to April; for what it's worth, Tibesar's track record at Oregon State was not successful and he's now DC at Akron and in his first year squeezed out modest improvement in what had been the worst defense in America before he got there. In general, there isn't much track record of Aranda/Wilcox/Leonhard Wisconsin assistants making a jump to DC. Jones is really the only guy to make the leap without DC experience and he only did it for a year. This is a small sample and if April is going to be a good hire he'd naturally be an outlier. We have to hope he's got a good mix of talents and experience to be a good DC. He's got a relatively clean upward trajectory and lengthy apprenticeships under Rex Ryan in the NFL (four years) and Leonhard in college (five years), which means a lot more to me than a coach getting one year under Aranda for instance.
To the extent April has been a defensive scheme guy and empowered in the Wisconsin defense, it's been as the run game coordinator. It's nigh impossible for outsiders to discern how much credit to assess for titular roles like this, how integral April was to Leonhard's scheme and calls, how much more empowered April was in the defensive run game compared to the defensive pass game, etc. But for the sake of trying to understand what April brings to the table let's take a look at Wisconsin's yards per carry allowed ranks in the defense's salad (Aranda-Wilcox-Leonhard) days:
2013: #9
2014: #28
2015: #4
2016: #9
2017: #9
2018: #75 (April joined staff)
2019: #15
2020: #14 (April became defensive run game coordinator)
2021: #1
2022: #6
Well, gotta love that! If Stanford can come even close to replicating that run defense it would be a godsend. In the five years April has been part of a defensive staff that had a median year of being #14 in the nation in run defense, Stanford's median run defense has been #115. What a difference.
Notably, it appears the plan might be for April to bring his fellow defensive front seven assistants, inside linebackers coach Mark D'Onofrio and defensive line coach Ross Kolodziej, with him to Stanford. D'Onofrio has only coached with Leonhard and April for one year after a three year absence from coaching and many years as a defensive coordinator at Temple, Miami, and Houston. Looking at the arcs of D'Onofrio's defenses at each of those three schools, he was very modestly successful at Temple, unsuccessful at Miami, and unsuccessful at Houston. The way I'd think about D'Onofrio is a failed coordinator who can nonetheless provide April with some perspective from years of major college football play calling, and the two have a year of successful experience navigating the seams and gaps between outside and inside linebackers. Kolodziej led Badger strength and conditioning for six years between 2015-2020 before serving as the DL coach the last two years. The performance of the defense, especially in run defense, the last two years suggests that Chryst and Leonhard didn't err in making Kolodziej DL coach. Certainly he's been integral to the program spanning Aranda, Wilcox, and Leonhard successes. In my view, the theory of the case for the Stanford defense under April would be much stronger with Kolodziej and D'Onofrio than it would be if he is forced to retain Stanford assistants or search elsewhere for new partners. Big arrow up for me if these three come together. They have proven synergy as defensive coaches and, as a bonus, synergy with one another in integrating strength and conditioning with defensive coaching: in addition to Kolodziej's obvious strength and conditioning expertise, D'Onofrio's time at Houston overlapped with new Stanford honcho Ryan Deatrick.
The biggest unknown for me with regard to April as DC is the defensive secondary coaching. I remain convinced we need two defensive secondary coaches, as Leonhard operated at Wisconsin and as Taylor operated at Sacramento State. I do not know anything about the coaching Taylor and April plan to bring on for the secondary. Big unknown for me. Hopefully we can nail down the rest of the staff soon and the synergies are as good as my optimistic read so far.
