2022 Gophers Position Previews: Secondary

The sixth season of the P.J. Fleck era at Minnesota begins Sept. 1 against Jerry Kill's New Mexico State. Ski-U-Blog will have previews of the Gophers' notable players in each position group. Our last stop on defense is the secondary.

Likely Starters

When you're a true freshman playing cornerback, you're going to get picked on a lot. Justin Walley got that experience in full. On four separate occasions, opponents threw his way at least five times, according to Pro Football Focus. The average depth of his targets was the second-longest (17.8 yards) among Big Ten corners with at least 200 coverage snaps. They went after him often, and they put him in spots to make especially costly mistakes.

The lows and high often came together, like how he allowed a touchdown to Milton Wright but later denied Wright a big reception:

Or how Walley was twice flagged against Wisconsin but made his first career interception in the third quarter:

Walley often made those tough situations work out. He was one of the brightest freshmen in the conference. He broke up seven passes, allowed a low completion percentage, and tackled well in space. The positives came with freshman mistakes, but the Gophers are counting on that getting ironed out in time. For now, they should be excited about the budding star they have.

At one point, Terell Smith started as a true freshman cornerback for the Gophers, too. He hasn't stayed in the lineup consistently since then due to injuries and the arrival of superior options. But entering his last year of eligibility, Smith has a starting job again.

What Smith has generally been good at is tackling: Over his whole college career, PFF has Smith missing just over one-tenth of his tackles, which for a cornerback is strong, if short of elite.

That physicality has also contributed to one of the key issues with his game: drawing penalties. Smith has been penalized on 10 percent of his career targets — a penalty rate that is not ghastly compared to last year's 8.7 percent average among FBS corners, but still higher than it needs to be.

Even setting aside the penalties, Smith has just allowed too many catches. Again referring to PFF's data: He and Coney Durr allowed more or less the same completion rate last season (roughly 60 percent), but Smith's targets were, on average, more than 5 yards further downfield. Durr stayed on top of receivers and made tackles short of the sticks. Smith was often half a step too slow and gave up 1st downs.

Joe Rossi said last week that Smith has been the defense's standout performer in camp. Smith has also made plays in open practices, drawing the attention of members of the press. If this talk foreshadows real improvement, that can only be called a good thing. When going up against teams like Purdue and Penn State, though, Minnesota will need that improvement to be substantial.

Meanwhile, there might not have been a more dramatic improvement on the defense last year than that of Tyler Nubin. A first-year starter in 2020, Nubin was eager to make an impact but didn't always play under enough control to actually do so. He incorrectly fit runs and missed tackles, directly leading to explosive plays.

Going into the fall, Nubin looks like an entirely new player: third on the team in tackles a year ago, with five passes defensed (broken up or intercepted), making important stops against the run rather than whiffing, Cactus Bowl Defensive MVP, P.J. Fleck casually mentioning predicting that Nubin will soon be in the NFL. Nubin needs to put together another strong season to leap to the pros, but the fact the comment doesn't seem outright absurd shows how much better he got in just a year.

While Nubin enters his third year as the starting boundary safety, Jordan Howden, on the field side, goes into his fifth and final season as a starter. Like everyone else, he took a step back during the pandemic-affected 2020 season, but for the most part, Howden has been quite reliable. He's not as vicious a tackler as Nubin can be but is more consistent: Among the 19 Gophers to play triple-digit defensive snaps last season, only Thomas Rush missed a smaller percentage of his tackles than Howden.

Howden has never been a be-everywhere, blow-up-every-play impact player but doesn't need to be. He plays a mistake-free game at safety, breaking up a pass here and there, being in the right places, and cleaning up plays that get to the secondary. He and Nubin make a solid pairing at the back.

Fleck has joked basically every time he's mentioned Ryan Stapp that the Gophers are developing a "pipeline" from Abilene Christian, the FCS school Stapp and Jack Gibbens both played before arriving in Minnesota. It might be a meaningless overused line, or a way of generating good will for the newest ex-Wildcat by drawing parallels with the incredibly successful Gophers tenure of the last one. Maybe both.

Anyhow, Stapp will step right into the starting lineup the way Gibbens did, taking the nickelback role vacated by Justus Harris. Stapp played mostly on the outside at ACU, and 175 pounds is a bit light for his new spot. Still, based on stats and what ACU film can be easily found, he looks like a useful player. Stapp was fast enough to stay in phase with receivers and to close on the ballcarrier, and he broke up 11 passes in 2021. Opponents caught just over half the throws in Stapp's direction, and they averaged only 8.0 yards per reception.

Stapp did pretty much all you want out of a cornerback in his last year at ACU. While the WAC is not the Big Ten, he showed enough athleticism and skill for this transfer to probably work out for the Gophers. If it does, they'll have a starter for 2023 as well.

Michael Dixon may not be in the starting 11 most weeks but looks to have an expanded role in this year's defense. Rossi and Fleck have both raved about Dixon's strengths. He's long, he's fast, and he likes to hit people.

Dixon already entered the game for Nubin on a lot of 3rd downs last season. Now, he'll add nickel to his responsibilities, coming on for Stapp to offer a more physical presence in the slot without going all the way to the bulk offered by a true 4-3. He might even allow the Gophers to play some dime against teams like Purdue. Between the two roles, Dixon may well receive the snap count of a starting defensive back.

Key Backups

The Gophers should be comfortable with their depth everywhere on defense except cornerback. There, Western Kentucky transfer Beanie Bishop is the only experienced option. His first impression as a Gopher, a strong spring game performance, gave reason for confidence in the ex-All-Conference-USA defensive back. What he lacks in size he seems to make up for in quickness and tenacity. Not that you can get by only with those attributes — in the spring game, he did get outmuscled a couple times — but Bishop should be able to keep up with most receivers and get to the ball.

The coaching staff is already enamored with Coleman Bryson, so the true freshman should be considered another possibility at safety. In the spring game, his most prominent plays were bailing out Stapp on a go route and getting trucked by Zach Evans. He played plenty didn't feature much beyond the extremes of those two moments. Such is the nature of safety: You don't always show up on film, and it's not even your fault. (Especially when the camera angles are so terrible.) Bryson took down Evans in a one-on-one later in the game, it should be said, and he mostly seemed to be where he should in the moments the broadcast showed him.

We can say a bit more about Bryson's play in high school, as some of his playoff games are on YouTube. Bryson was a box safety who regularly crept down to the linebackers or lined up over a slot receiver. He doesn't have any problem with contact but had a few bad misses. At one point in the linked state championship game, he drew a flag for a heavy hit out of bounds. Bryson is enough of an athlete to have returned kicks and played some receiver, which showed up on his defensive tape. He was quick to recognize where the ball was going and quick to charge down whoever's hands it wound up in.

Bryson is, in short, a heatseeker. If he can correct his rougher moments, he can be a valuable contributor right away.

Potential Rotation Options

Tariq Watson was actually the lowest-rated corner in the Gophers' 2022 class. The reason was likely his size: Minnesota's roster has him at 5 feet 10 inches, 170 pounds. But he was getting second-team snaps at the team's first open practice, which probably owes to his positively unreal speed. In addition to playing cornerback in high school, Watson returned punts, covered kicks, and got occasional opportunities as an offensive gadget. Bishop or another more experienced player will probably move over to field corner if Walley is unavailable, but the true freshman at least has one elite attribute around which to build a complete player.

Notables Unlikely to Contribute

Darius Green is next in line at safety. A year ago, I noted Green's affinity for heavy contact, which is both a positive trait and something he's hopefully worked on cleaning up since getting to college. Depending on if Nubin sticks around and what Dixon's role ends up being, Green and Bryson may vie for a starting job next year.

We have yet to see former 4-star cornerback Steven Ortiz Jr. on the field outside of spring games and practices. His place is safety now, though the praise for Bryson and Green may not bode well for the number of reps he receives. The good news is that the redshirt freshman still has plenty of time to work his way into the conversation.

Jalen Glaze was a special teamer last year and made an impressive tackle to snuff out a reverse on the opening kickoff of the Catcus Bowl. He is another reserve safety, and he probably sits ahead of Ortiz for the time being.

The Gophers didn't go three deep at nickel last year, so Miles Fleming's only shot at work on defense will probably be in garbage time. Fleming was injured for most of 2021 and made a few plays in the spring game, including an interception.

Redshirt sophomore Victor Pless and true freshmen Rhyland Kelly and Aidan Gousby round out a young group of backups on the outside.