Thoughts On D-Shot: UW-Whitewater Warhawks Football Season Preview Part 2: The Defense and Special Teams

Now onto the Warhawks defense and special teams as I continue my preview of the 2015 Football season at UW-Whitewater.  First of all, I am going to start with first year head coach Kevin Bullis.  Under Bullis, what I think we'll see under his tenure is that defense will become more and more important for his teams.  The biggest difference that people will see between Bullis from what people saw from Leipold coached Whitewater teams is this.  Bullis is a defensive minded coach, which comes from his previous coaching experiences as defensive coordinator at both Gustavus Adolphus and UW-River Falls as well as being the defensive run coordinator on Leipold's staff.  Leipold was more of a offensive guy because of the fact that he was a quarterback in college at Whitewater.  It's the complete opposite with Bullis because of those experiences and from going back to his playing days at Minnesota-Morris. That is the thing that I think is the biggest change going into the Bullis era. Obviously the nice thing is they aren't changing systems offensively and defensively, which will help maintain the success the Warhawks have had the last decade plus.  The other thing is that with Leipold taking some of his top assistants to Buffalo with him including Borland and Kotelnicki. One of the big questions going into the season is what the new offensive coordinator and defensive coordinators bring to the Warhawks.  The same goes for the new defensive coordinator in Rob Erickson as it goes for Craig Smith on the offensive side.  Erickson took a defense at UW-Platteville that ranked at the bottom of the WIAC in defense and made that one of the Pioneers' calling cards the last few seasons. So he knows how to be good defensive coach, but he isn't Brian Borland, and he shouldn't try to be, but he can build off what Borland has already had instilled in the Warhawk defense. 
With the defense for the Warhawks in 2015, there are some good pieces to already anchor it.  The biggest strength of this defense is the front seven of this defense. They return three of their top tacklers from last year in linebackers Justin Dischler and Paul Foster as well as safety Ryan Winske.  John Flood and Zach Franz proved to be big parts of the defensive line last year and expect them to be again in 2015 as they will be anchors for that line this season.  Mykaell Bratchett is the big loss on this defensive line, but he isn't that bad of a loss due to the fact they have Flood and Franz as anchors on that line already.  As for the other spots on the line, they have some guys who have played a bit the last two seasons with Benny Threloff, Nick Froland, Tim Regan, and Yuri Pogosyan.  As for the linebacking corps., which was the question going into last year.  Going into this year that this one of their strengths. They have multiple guys (Dischler, Matt Hoppe, Matt Seitz, Kyle Scheidemeyer, and Foster) that they can plug in this linebacker corps. and it's going be a big part of their defense considering that Dischler and Foster were both two of their top three leading tacklers last year. The biggest question for the defense going into 2015 has to be the secondary.  The Warhawks lose two former All-Americans in Brady Grayvold and Marcus McLin as well as Zach Nellis. Those three guys are all tough pieces to replace, and you hope that they can do what they did with the linebacking corps. last year do the same with the secondary. Junior Ryan Winske is going to be the name that sticks out, but there is going to have to be some guys that step up.  There are a bunch of guys on this roster that have seen time at times the last few seasons.  Dylan Morang has had his moments as a backup to McLin and had a big interception in the 2013 Stagg Bowl.  Vince Mason filled in for McLin while he was hurt during part of the playoff run last year.  Both Bennett Young, Mikey Morgan and Shawn Shillcox have all seen time as well last year.  They are going need some guys to step up and fill those spots in this defense.  
SPECIAL TEAMS: 
If I were asked what is the biggest question for Warhawk Football going into this year, this is it for a few reasons.  The big reason is that the kicking game was inconsistent at so many points last year between both Lake Bachar and Will Meyer.  This has been a spot previous eight years leading up to last year where the Warhawks have been just as spoiled in kicking game as they have been with the running game the last decade plus.  They had a stellar eight years with two kickers straight with Jeff Schebler and Eric Kindler holding the kicking duties. Last year wasn't as consistent and they need to find someone who can be. Bachar has been raved throughout the program for having the strong leg. There was a reason why he was the kickoff specialist in 2013 because he had a bigger leg than Kindler for that spot. The Warhawks really have to find someone to put some consistency into this spot because you don't want to be in a close game where you lose a game because you miss a field goal (yet alone get one blocked which happened a few times last year) during a crucial part of a game.  The other concern about the special teams is who is going to step up in the return game.  Both Justin Howard and Marcus McLin handled those duties the last two seasons and both are gone.  In addition to that Ricky Finco, who filled in here and there in the return game last year, is gone as he has transferred to Wisconsin. So there is a question of who will return for them this year.  Ryan Storto is a guy right away who can take advantage of this opportunity because he was a returner for this team during garbage time during a few games last year.