MTU defense gearing up for another big year

HOUGHTON – As the old saying goes in sports, defense wins championships. If that saying is indeed true, then Michigan Tech’s football team will have a great chance at doing just that this season.

The Huskies lost just two seniors from last year’s stellar defense, which only allowed 176 passing yards per game. That was by far the best pass defense in the GLIAC and one of the best pass defenses in the nation.

In the spring, head coach Tom Kearly promoted Steve Olson to be the team’s new defensive coordinator. In fact, Coach Kearly kept all of his defensive changes in–house, which has made for an easy transition for everyone involved with the defense.

“That’s gone very smoothly. All of our defensive coaches were on our staff a year ago,” said head coach Tom Kearly. “When we had the change in the spring I felt good with the people that we have on our staff. We’ve made all of the changes with our staff internally, so the actual changes for our players in the system has been very, very minimal.”

“He’s a great guy,” said defensive end Nelson Wienke about Olson running the defense. “He’s smart, he knows a lot of stuff and he always has an answer for everything. Our defense always comes out and says that we are going to lead the GLIAC in defense and I think that’s always been the standard around here and we’re all going to stick to that. As far as the whole team goes, we always want to be the best. We’re searching for that GLIAC Championship. We’re always looking for that.”

“It’s been pretty good because we still have the same guys (coaches) here,” said senior defensive back DeShawn Nelson about the changes on the defensive side of the football. “It’s not really a big change for us.”

The Huskies open up the season a week from tomorrow, Sept. 4 at Wayne State.