Pernell McPhee – McPhenom to his fans – had a breakout season in his first year of SEC football. The junior college transfer racked up 12 tackles for loss and five sacks as a defensive end in his first season at Mississippi State, and he was named All-SEC by both the coaches and the Associated Press.
However, the senior, who is listed on numerous watch lists for awards given to the nation’s best defensive players, said he was playing on pure instincts and talent in 2009. This year, he said he expects even more.
He said he no longer has to go on talent alone: the mental side of the game is there now, thanks to some help from his coach.
New to the Bulldogs’ coaching staff this season is co-defensive coordinator and defensive line coach Chris Wilson, who moved to Starkville from the University of Oklahoma.
Wilson said it did not take long for him to realize McPhee’s importance on the team.
“I tell Pernell McPhee, he’s a guy that has to be constantly improving for us to be as good as we can be on defense, and he’s done that,” Wilson said.
McPhee said Wilson has taught him to formulate a plan of attack on the defensive line rather than just react to plays as they progress like he did last season.
“He’s helped me mature a lot,” McPhee said. “He’s helped me learn formations. He makes me learn personnel and stuff like ‘don’t play a gap because a gap moves.’ ‘Play a man.’ Stuff like that. He taught me how to watch film and a lot of things I really didn’t know yet. He made me way more mature than I was last year.”
Defensive coordinator Manny Diaz, also new to the staff, is charged with turning a once proud defensive unit into the force it has been before, and he plans to do so with a blitz-heavy, attacking-style defense.
He knows McPhee will be vital to his success, and Diaz said he has been more than happy to see the relationship between McPhee and Wilson grow.
“Coach Wilson has done an amazing job with McPhee, and McPhee, to his credit, has done a great job of understanding that he could’ve done the same as he did last year and probably had good success and still made a name for himself, but he wanted to be better than that,” Diaz said. “So, he’s absorbed everything coach Wilson’s told him like a sponge, and hopefully, when the season comes we’ll see the benefits of that.”
As for those benefits, McPhee said he expects to see results from his increased knowledge of the game.
“I expect to see a lot because he pushes me to the limit all day every day, and every time he comes into the meeting room, I might be in there before him watching film,” McPhee said. “I get that from him. I think that helps me out a lot because I’m starting to notice certain formations.”
At 6’4″ and 285 pounds, the defensive end looms larger than many of his defensive tackle counterparts. However, size is not the only thing that makes McPhee effective on the line of scrimmage. At defensive end, he uses his speed to get his nearly 300-pound body to the opposing quarterback.
Diaz said McPhee’s combination of size and speed is rare and a significant advantage for a player who Diaz said could line up at tackle if he had to. Diaz said McPhee is not only good at generating a pass rush, but he is able to defend against the run, too.
“He’s a powerful kid: strong, with good speed and quickness, but you know, he plays like a smaller guy with his quickness, but he has the size and the strength to overpower blockers, too,” Diaz said. “You never want to get big and sacrifice the pass, because then they’ll play action pass and you got no pass rush. That’s why we’re blessed to have him, because he can really help us out with both. It’s hard to win with guys that are only one or other. Whichever it is, sooner or later, they’re gonna find you out.”
While his body moves fast, McPhee said he is working on slowing things down in his head as he mentally breaks down the offensive line he is trying to get past.
Wilson said it appears McPhee is doing just that.
“Yes, it’s beginning to slow down for him,” Wilson said. “The more guys know what they’re doing, the faster they play, and that’s what we talk to our guys about constantly. The game slows down when your football IQ goes up. If a guy who had that ability a year ago and played as well as he did, the sky can be the limit for him. He’s really being conscious. He’s really committed to knowing what we do, how we do it and why we do it.”
However, McPhee said all the coaching in the world means nothing if he does not have results on the field. He said Wilson can teach the technique, but, ultimately, he will be the one to go in the game and do it.
So what goals does McPhee, who is already being tabbed as an NFL-caliber player, have for his final season in college?
“Win,” he said. “Win, win, win. Win everything. I ain’t got any stats I want. I just wanna win.”