Ron Roberts could be the 'most intriguing' defensive coordinator hire in the SEC
AUBURN — The hiring of Ron Roberts as Auburn’s defensive coordinator was a bit of a shocker by Hugh Freeze. But despite Roberts’ recent dismissal from coordinating the defense at Baylor after three seasons and lack of national name recognition with fans, his resume and pedigree isn’t up for debate.
Roberts is a 31-year coaching veteran who has led stellar defenses at Baylor and Louisiana-Lafayette recently, and helped groom other successful defensive coordinators like Dave Aranda and Pete Golding.
Here’s what Freeze said of Roberts at the beginning of February:
“I think Ron is as brilliant of a defensive mind as is out there. If you look at all the really good ones that have come from his tree, that learned from him, that speaks as much as anything to me. Then you just watch the success he had at Louisiana or Delta State, or Baylor also. Really some of the things he did in the Sugar Bowl a few years back. Stopped a very explosive offense in Ole Miss doing some really neat things in coverage. Obviously I’ve known of him and known the people that have tutored under him. Then you sit in meetings with him and hear his ideas and how he can be multiple and believes in being hard-nosed and tough. That’s what we need in this league.”
Roberts takes over an Auburn defense that hasn’t finished inside the top 25 in scoring defenses since the 2019 season and is fresh off finishing 97th in scoring defense in 2022, allowing over 29 points per game. It’s the worst finish since Auburn finished 78th and 65th back to back in 2011 and 2012.
Here’s what On3 Sports Jesse Simonton says about Roberts’ hire at Auburn:
New Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze scooped up a defensive coordinator on the open market this offseason, beating out Arkansas for former Baylor assistant Ron Roberts, who was fired by Dave Aranda in December, Roberts spent three seasons with the Bears, helping deliver fantastic results in 2021 — No. 1 in the Big 12 in takeaways, No. 2 in sacks, and No. 3 in scoring — before his unit regressed to the middle of the Big 12 last fall, leading to his dismissal.
RELATED: RON ROBERTS’ COACHING TREE, CREATIVITY IMPRESSED HUGH FREEZE
Still, Roberts is a veteran DC with 32 years of coaching experience. Before his time at Baylor, he spent two seasons on Billy Napier’s staff at Louisiana, and the Rajin’ Cajuns’ defense finished the 2019 season with a Top 20 scoring unit (19.7 points per game) and a Top 10 red zone defense (No. 9 nationally).
The Tigers will continue to run a similar 4-2-5 scheme under Roberts, but there will be a much greater emphasis on being aggressive and creating more chaos.
RELATED: ‘HAVOC RATE’ WILL DETERMINE SUCCESS OF RON ROBERTS’ DEFENSES
Roberts is a big on havoc rate — i.e. the percentage of plays in with the defense recorded a tackle for loss, sack, forced a fumble, intercepted a pass or broke up a pass — and in his introductory press conference, he listed desire for Auburn to have “20 percent of our plays, we need to work in the havoc rate. If you’re doing that, you’re going to be in the top 20 in the country. That’s our goal coming out of the gate.”
That seems like a rather ambitious goal in Year 1 for the Tigers, especially considering top pass rushers Derrick Hall and Colby Wooden are off to the NFL. Also, Auburn didn’t have a single game with a havoc rate over 16% all season, so yea, 20% seems awfully lofty.
