Bud Foster Q&A, Part II: Benefiting from injuries, filling out the secondary and finding a spot for Kyle Fuller

If you missed the first part of my interview with Hokies defensive coordinator Bud Fosteryesterday, you can read it here. Here's Part II, which is more about next year's defensive personnel:

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I know the injuries were a real pain last year, but do you feel like you’ll see the benefits of youngsters getting playing time this upcoming year?

"I was concerned with our depth last year. I thought our first 11 was going to be pretty good and be better. I didn’t know how good we were going to be, but I thought we were going to be considerably better [than the previous year]. But we didn’t have a lot of returning starters, per se. But we had some depth coming back. I’m talking the J.R. Collins and James Gayle stepping in there. You had three of the four guys up front were new players. [Jeron] Gouveia-Winslow was very adequate at best the year before. Linebackers were still question marks.

"The strength was probably in our secondary coming back, but I was so concerned about our depth, anybody getting hurt, and then, boom, we get tested right away. And yeah, that was encouraging to see those guys step up and play and play well. [Detrick] Bonner, he played well. Cris Hill, he stepped up and played well for us, who was a senior. You mentioned [Luther] Maddy and [Corey] Marshall and Tyrel Wilson stepped up big too. And we’ll be better because of that and we’ve created some depth because of the injuries.

"My biggest concern last year was getting somebody hurt at safety. After Eddie [Whitley] and [Antone] Exum, that was probably the thinnest spot on our team on our side. And the best thing was we didn’t get anybody hurt there. Up front you can get hurt and miss a tackle and nobody notices. But back there you can get real quickly. But I think that can help us for going into this spring, guys have played, they’ve been in meetings, knowing their position a little bit better and I think it will be just a little bit quicker for them to process things once we start stepping on the field and doing those type of things again."

Bruce Taylor and Gouveia-Winslow probably aren’t going to be ready for spring, but they will be ready come summer. With Jack Tyler, Tariq Edwards and Alonzo Tweedy there too, how is the linebacker situation going to shake out?

"I think we’ll be fine right there. I don’t mind some of those guys [being out]. Bruce is a dynamic football player. You’d like to get him back just to hone some things and hopefully he’ll be able to move around. We’ll just be precautionary with him. GW is a guy who needs to be out there, in my opinion. But it is what is it is. At the same time, though, that’s going to allow us an opportunity to have Tweedy continue to grow and improve, which, when he played, I thought he played pretty well. Getting Nick Dew, seeing if he’s going to take that next step. To me, that’s kind of a big-play position for us. That guy has been a good blitzer off the edge, he’s been a play-maker where we put him in space quite a bit in a blockable position.

"We’re looking maybe to find another guy. And I’ve talked to the guy, so I don’t mind you saying anything in the paper, but whether we do it or not that hasn’t been decided, but you’re looking at a guy like maybe Ronny Vandyke, who is a big safety but he’s about 220 pounds right now. We’ve got to continue to evaluate his skill set. How is his skill set away from the line of scrimmage? Or is he better at attacking the line of scrimmage and those type of things? So we’ll look at that a little bit more as we look at these guys in conditioning and then we get into some 6 a.m.’s and have some more hands-on type work with these guys. But to me, that rover spot, I think Exum will probably stay right there. But developing depth there but also -- because Tweedy is going to be a senior, Gouveia-Winslow is going to be a senior -- we need to develop those spots that are our play-making spots."

Kyle Fuller played so many positions last year. Is he going to be a cornerback this year or will he play other spots?

"Yeah, and we lose Whitley, and Eddie was just really a heady guy back there. And our safety is really a guy who makes a lot of calls and just kind of the quarterback of the unit, looking back. The linebackers call the defense but the safety is a guy who in the heat of the moment, a lot of times we’re getting motion in and he’ll check a coverage if we want to play a certain coverage based on splits and different things of that nature. But I think Kyle is the one guy right now that I would trust back there at that one spot. But he’s so valuable for us.

"I don’t know if he’s going to play corner yet or play safety or if he’s going to be a nickel guy still. You know what I mean? He’s just that good of a football player, and we’ve got to find the right spot for him, I believe. And that’s going to help our football team on the defensive side of the ball. I thought he was our best football player this last year. I mean, I thought he was just the MVP of our defense last year, in my opinion. He just played so many positions and stepped up with big plays. Just a heck of a football player. And we’ve got to get him in the right spot for us and for him."

Does a lot of that depend on how your young cornerbacks develop this spring?

"Yeah, it’s going to be. And I think Bonner is going to be a really good player. I really do. I think Kyshoen Jarrett, he’s going to be that guy. And I don’t have my depth chart with me right now, but that’s going to be kind of a big thing this spring is getting our best four guys back there. And we’re going to take out of those four or five guys right now … you know you’ve got Donaldven Manning who came in here. I’m anxious to see him. If he’s a corner, that allows us to be flexible with some other guys. So we haven’t decided on a safety yet, but we’ve talked about Fuller, we’ve talked about Jarrett, we’ve talked about even Bonner to be that guy. We’ve still got Michael Cole in the mix too. Is he a safety or is he a rover-type guy?

"Our safety needs to be, because of what we tie into coverage-wise, he needs to have corner coverage-ability but he also needs to be able to tackle like a safety, because of what we expect that guy to do. And it’s been that way since we’ve been running the defense. I think he needs to be one of our better football players. Kyle Fuller is one of our better football players, so I don’t know. But that position needs to be one of those guys. But corner for us, we put a lot on those guys’ plate as far as being out on an island quite a bit. I know this: the quickest way to get beat is out there. I know we need to have our best football players out there. So that’s kind of the dilemma we have with Kyle, whether we put him at corner or bring him in and have him be kind of our general, so to speak."

Are there any guys who redshirted or didn’t have big roles last year that you’re really looking forward to this spring?

"Yeah. I think we’ve got Dadi Nicolas, the defensive end. Young kid that I think shows a lot of potential to be an explosive guy. There’s Justin Taylor, another defensive end. Kris Harley, the defensive tackle. He was a guy that we kind of vacillated, do we play him or do we play Maddy. And we kind of went with Maddy. I think Kris came in a little heavy, but I really like what he did all fall in mental drills and things of that nature. He’s got some pop and plays with leverage and plays hard. He’s going to be a good football player for us.

"We played all the linebackers primarily, but I do like Chase Williams. We might move him to mike linebacker. I think that might be a position if Bruce is out, we’ll probably have Chase playing mike backing up Jack. I think Telvion Clark is a kid who shows a lot of potential that needs to be consistent. He’s a sophomore, but he needs to be consistent. He had a great spring last year and got hurt, had a high-ankle sprain during the season. Never just came around mentally like I wanted him to. He got caught up in that backup role, which some of those guys do sometimes.

"Last year was a testament: one of my sayings is you’re one play away from being the guy. So in meetings and things of that nature, you’ve got to prepare like you’re going to be the starter. And last year was proof in the pudding that it’s going to happen. We had three or four or five situations where guys had to step up and just not finish games but have impact roles in the game."

What about the safeties? You mentioned that’s a pretty important position, but those guys haven’t gotten on the field much.

"That’s going to be an inexperienced group. I don’t care even if you move a Jarrett or somebody like that over there. But with Michael Cole, who I think is a very good prospect. Ronny Vandyke, who I think is a very good prospect. We’ve got Boye Aromire, who I think is a very good prospect. You’ve got James Hopper, who is just a good, smart, heady kid that can do some things. But I’d like to see him improve. We had a kid, Cary Wade, a couple years ago that really stepped up and it worked out. Stepped up and really was a solid player for us at that. And I’m hoping Hop can continue to develop that way.

"But yeah, that’s a position for me right now that needs to be one that we need to get better and need to find out some players who can play, because those are play-making spots for us. We’ve got a lot of those, but our free and our rover, those are kind of our free-hitter guys who we spill the ball to and they’re kind of the force players and the alley players, so those are guys who we kind of funnel the ball to one way or another and need to be good open-field players in space as far as tacklers and those type of things but also have good coverage-abilities and then you like to have them nail the blitz and do some things. So that’s a critical spot for us is to find those right guys. I think we’re going to be fine up front. I really do. I think our front seven, I think we’ll be all right. But that’s going to be our biggest rebuilding tool, so to speak, will be on our back end."

What do you think of the signing class you just brought in? I know you lost Jawand Blue, but it seems like the linebackers are still pretty strong.

"Yeah, it’s hard sometimes. You never know what goes through kids’ minds. I like the signing class. I really do. I thought we helped ourselves up front. That’s where I think, when I talked about Alabama and LSU, we’ve got to get their front where we can go manhandle people. That’s what I want us to get to. And I thought we helped ourselves with this class right here. I hated that we lost Blue. I really liked him a lot.

"But I liked a lot of kids we got there inside with Deon Clarke and I think Devin Vandyke, between those guys will be a mike and a backer out of that group. The Dahmon McKinnon kid is a really good player. Plus, Trey Edmunds, we’ll see where he plays. He could play any one of those three. Or rover even. I just think we helped ourselves. And along with the secondary kids, I like Manning, I like the [Davion] Tookes kid. Those two can really run. I think we helped ourselves at safety with the [Desmond] Frye kid. I think he needs to get bigger, but I like this class. I really do. And a lot of defensive kids. So it was some spots we needed."

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