When the Liberty County Panthers took the field yesterday afternoon to scrimmage against Westminster, they did so with a new defense.
For the past two years, the Panthers ran a 50 defense under the direction of defensive coordinator Thomas Desbiens. This year, however, the Panthers will move to the 4-4 defense to add depth to their secondary and have the ability to rotate players at the linebacker position.
“The advantage of the 44 is that it allows you to bring the linebackers in for line support or to drop back in the pass situation,” Desbiens said. “It gives you flexibility to stop the run or play the pass,” he said.
Desbiens said that this year his secondary is primarily sophomore and juniors and therefore switching the defense better suited the team.
“As far as the secondary goes, we are young,” he said. “We only have one returning corner right now.”
While the 4-4 will become their basic set for defense they plan to adapt their game based on what Westminster’s offense does.
Another change to the Panthers’ look is new wide receiver coach Greg Martin. Martin relocated from Oklahoma, where he coached the ninth grade football squad. Martin said he played football until a knee injury ended his career during his senior year of high school.
The scrimmage score was not available at time of press. Read the full coverage of the scrimmage in Wednesday’s Courier.