Blue White Illustrated

t all began as a lark. Or, at the very least, as a long shot. Bob Shoop didn't know James Franklin personally, but he knew a guy named Don Brown who had coached with him at Maryland. Not long a@er Franklin had been hired by Vanderbilt in December 2010, Shoop was talking to Brown, and the conversation turned to the Commodores' new head coach. "Give him my number," Shoop said. "If he's looking for a defensive coordinator, I'll get the job done for him." As it happened, Franklin was looking for a defensive coordinator. But Shoop, who was coaching at William & Mary at the time, had been joking around; you don't go straight from Division I-AA to a coordinator post in the Southeastern Conference, no matter how con=dent you may be. As he wandered through Detroit Metropolitan Airport on his way to his native Pittsburgh and then on to Dallas for the American Football Coach- es Association convention, Shoop was not compulsively checking his cell- phone, hoping to receive a call that would change his life. But then the phone rang. It was Franklin. "He asked me if I was going to the convention and if I had any of my video with me," Shoop recalled. He didn't, but they decided to meet anyway. Shoop landed in Dallas at noon, and by 1 p.m. he was sitting in a room with Franklin and sta> assistants Jemal Gri?n and Andy Frank. "I didn't even have a suit," Shoop recalled. "I just had what I had with me. "But if you know Coach Franklin, it takes two seconds to recognize the juice and the energy that he's got. It took me about two seconds to realize that this was a guy I would really like to work for. He sold me on his vision for building a football program, a championship football program, and I think I sold him on my vi- sion for building a championship defense." Shoop spent the next three sea- sons in Nashville, where he did indeed get the job done for Franklin. The Commodores =n- ished in the national top 25 in to- tal defense all three seasons. A year ago, they forced 30 turnovers, the nation's 10th-highest total, including 24 over the team's =nal eight games. Shoop's Vanderbilt defense was known for its attacking style and =erce attitude. Franklin gave him a lot of free- dom to design schemes and game plans, but he did make two demands: He wanted the Commodores to challenge every throw, and he insisted that they run to the ball better than any team in the country. Franklin and Shoop have since le@ Nashville for University Park, but while the locale may be di>erent, the goals are not. They want Penn State's defense to be =erce and aggressive, and they are going to be highly proactive in instilling the attitude they are looking to see. When linebacker Mike Hull was not among the 76 players on the Bednarik Bob Shoop puts his stamp on PSU's defense | CALLING THE SHOTS STOPPING POWER Shoop led Vander- bilt's defense to new heights. The Commodores gave up only 18.7 points per game in 2012, their lowest aver- age since 1997. I

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