A Look At The One Season That Carnell Lake Coached DB\’s At UCLA

Now that Former Steelers safety Carnell Lake has been interviewed by Mike Tomlin for the open defensive backs coaching position, I thought it would be fun to dig up the numbers of the secondary he coached for one season at UCLA. Lake inherited a young cornerback unit, with Alterraun Verner the only player with extensive playing time, and then lost it\’s second best player, Aaron Hester to a fractured tibia during the season opener.

Here are some of the members of that secondary he coached and their stats:

FS Rahim Moore – Started all 13 games at free safety and led the nation with 10 interceptions. Ranked 7th on the team with 49 tackles.

SS Tony Dye – Started all 13 games at strong safety and 4th on the team in tackles with 73.

CB Alterraun Verner – Starter in all 13 games and 5th on the team in tackles with 72.

CB Sheldon Price – Appeared in all 13 games with 11 starts at cornerback and was ranked eighth on the team with 48 tackles.

CB Andrew Abbot – Appeared in 13 games, primarily in the nickel package and on special teams, with one start.

CB Aaron Hester – Saw action in two games with one start, but was sidelined most of season by a fractured right fibula.

Below I have broken down the UCLA Bruins opponents passing stats for the 2009 season by game along with giving you the YPA (yards per attempt) and also the big plays (explosive plays) of 20 yards or more allowed through the air by the defense as a whole. I also have provided a description of all 35 big plays allowed by the defense so you can better see what happened. As you can see, 13 of the big explosive plays resulted in touchdowns and the Bruins defense only allowed 16 passing touchdowns on the entire season. The defense also faced some names you might recognize like Jake Locker, Andrew Luck and Matt Barkley. For the entire season, the Bruins pass defense allowed only a 59% completion percentage and a 6.77 YPA. They also intercepted 20 passes with 10 coming from the soon to be drafted, Rahim Moore. The 20 interceptions ranked them 8th in the nation in that stat.

In summation, not a bad job by Lake for just one season with the Bruins considering what he inherited. Of course he can not take all of the credit for the pass defense, but looking at the raw numbers, he looks like he certainly was worth an interview by Tomlin. We shall see where that goes from here.

2009 Total Passing Stats Versus UCLA

2009 Total Passing Stats Versus UCLA By Game With Big Explosive Plays Listed