Washington Spring Football Practice - Safeties

During week three of spring practice at Washington I spent a lot of time watching the safeties and in this video I'm going to take you through everything that I saw from that position group including some of the intricacies of the two safety positions in Ryan Walter's defense. We know Ryan Walter's defense uses a lot of single high safety coverage but there's actually two safeties on the field. One plays back called the post safety the other one plays up that's called the down safety or the box safety. An FIU transfer CJ Christian explained the difference between these two safety spots in this defense. We got a down safety that's more working in the box kind of guarding tight ends but we also got a post safety that's mainly in the post and just can't let nothing get behind them so they kind of brought me in just to play that back post safety guy because that's that's what I play the FIU as well because we had at FIU we had basically kind of the same thing and I was always the post guy we always had a down guy. And this spring Christian has been taking nearly every rep at post safety with the first team defense and it's an important position on the defense because they've got to understand everything going on in front of them the assignments of the rest of the defense because that informs their pursuit angles and where to place their eyes and coverage and most importantly they're the last line of defense on this defense lining up anywhere from 15 to 25 yards behind the line of scrimmage they can't let anything get behind them. Here's Ryan Walter's talking a little bit more about what he looks He's got to be able to get sideline to sideline take good angles you know to eliminate explosive plays got to be cerebral and some of our motion adjustments so those are all things that are essential to playing that position. And CJ Christian's veteran experience makes him an ideal candidate to start at this position in the Washington defense. Like he said he played the post safety at FIU he had 152 tackles there, six tackles for loss, five picks and six pass breakups. I feel like like I wouldn't be who I was today if I didn't do those prior stops just because like it taught me so much because like coming out of high school I was in a small area so I just felt like I was the best coming out and now I went to Drukos every guy I feel like the best it went from 20 20 dbs in a room in the spring to 60 in the fall so it was like every day I had to work on my craft and get better and better and the same thing at FIU each year we were competing for a spot so I just and then like everywhere I went it was I always built like a family relationship just with all the guys so like anytime we're competing we just make each other better every day. And behind Christian at post safety we've seen a lot of Vincent Holmes who was wearing a tinted visor at Tuesday's practice. The redshirt sophomore played 123 snaps during the 2024 season with seven tackles for Washington and he's made a couple of good plays this spring with the second team in that defense including an interception and a pass breakup. Also repping at post safety we've seen a little bit of true freshman former four-star Ryland Dillard Allen and redshirt freshman Paul Menke Jr. And safety's coach Taylor Mays discussed what he sees in each of those young players after practice this week. I think Paul is a I mean you look at Paul and he passes the eye test because he's big and he can run and he's physical so he's a guy that you know I you know you say a guy's a rep guy but really everybody's a rep guy because you got to get the reps of it and what it feels like to do it and to do it right and so Paul is a guy that just continues to get better and better then I think RDA is a guy that is extremely talented and we really got to try and hone in on you know you don't want to get through your freshman year and go into your sophomore year and say dang I didn't make like you can make all the strides in the world right now just because you're a freshman the only difference is older guys just have more reps but if you get the same amount of reps in right now with the freshman age you know the sky is the limit for that. And the other safety position in this Washington defense is what they call the down safety or the box safety. They line up closer to the formation and they're typically responsible for guarding tight ends and slot receivers. They need to be able to identify motion adjustments for the defense and most importantly they've got to be a physical player. And Northern Arizona transfer Alex McLaughlin can do exactly that. In 2023 as a true freshman he had 71 tackles the most on the team. He followed that up with 96 tackles in 2024. And during week three he began to take a lot of reps at this box safety position with the first team defense. That's coming off a good performance he had last Saturday. A pass breakup, a forced fumble and a tackle for loss during the team periods. I think Alex you know especially coming from his previous school he's used to playing a lot closer to the ball so naturally he's kind of a guy that you want closer to the ball you know running down the ball carrier. He's been playing really well I think he you know I think for him just like anybody you gotta kind of rep it and one of the areas he I like to say like for the for the guys in the safety room a lot of it is running and tackling and that is his game to a tee. Once you get the reps of where to align and where to place your eyes and everything like that I mean he he's really kind of taken off and I think his ceiling is still even higher. But throughout most of the spring thus far it's been veteran safety Mikel Estine taking those first team reps at the box safety position. But the coaching staff really seems to like what McLaughlin can do at that box safety spot. That's going to be a good competition this spring and into fall camp. We've also seen Paul Menke Jr. take reps at that spot along with Raheem Wright. And teaching his safeties to play both of those safety spots is one of the main philosophies from Washington safety coach Taylor Mays. But to me you got to be able to do both so if Alex is a box safety he's got to be able to play in the post and be able to play deep and if CJ primarily played deep before he got here he's got to be able to play in the box. Because you don't want a guy to be kind of one-sided in terms of what he can do. I honestly like that I honestly like that just because like if all of us are versatile enough to play at different positions the the quarterback or that offense each week like they'll never know like oh this guy's back but now he's down like they won't know what we're in like so I feel like that'd be good just to accomplish the weakness. On Thursday the team was in shells so there was less contact to practice but they were able to work on some installation the defense here rotating a lot of the safeties playing both offense and defense to simulate some of the coverages this defense has and you can see them repping a few different players at the two safety positions including Mikel Esteem, CJ Christian and Vince Holmes. And that's it for right now with the breakdown of the safety position in Ryan Walters defense here at Washington and be sure to keep it right here for continued coverage for the remainder of the spring practice season at Washington leading up to the spring game on May 2nd and into the 2025 regular season.