SDS will look at new assistant coaches around the SEC, highlighting their accomplishments, achievements, history and tough tasks ahead of them. Next up, South Carolina’s Jon Hoke.

JON HOKE, SOUTH CAROLINA CO-DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR

History:

  • 2015 — South Carolina co-defensive coordinator
  • 2009-14 — Chicago Bears defensive backs coach
  • 2002-08 — Houston Texans defensive backs coach
  • 1999-2001 — Florida defensive coordinator, defensive backs coach
  • 1994-98 — Missouri defensive backs coach
  • 1989-93 — Kent State defensive coordinator, defensive backs coach
  • 1987-88 — San Diego State defensive backs coach
  • 1984-86 — Bowling Green defensive backs coach
  • 1983 — North Carolina State defensive backs coach
  • 1982 — Dayton defensive backs coach

Jon Hoke was hired to share South Carolina’s defensive coordinator duties with incumbent Lorenzo Ward, and he’ll bring more than 30 years of coaching experience at the collegiate and professional levels with him to Columbia.

Hoke spent the last 13 years serving as a defensive backs coach in the NFL, first with the expansion Houston Texans, with whom he worked from their inaugural year in 2002 until 2008, and then with the Chicago Bears from 2009 through last season.

Before his extended stay in the NFL he served as a defensive coordinator and a defensive backs coach at a number of programs at different levels of Division I football. He spent three years as a DC in the SEC with the Florida Gators (Steve Spurrier’s final three years in Gainesville), replacing current Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops in that role. He also spent five years as the defensive backs coach at Mizzou when it was still a member of the Big 12.

Spurrier actually offered Hoke the Gamecocks DC job when he returned from a failed stint with the Washington Redskins to take over the South Carolina program, but Hoke declined at the time and opted to stay put with the Texans.

Ten years later, he’s finally in place on Spurrier’s staff.

If there’s one thing Hoke can coach, it’s the secondary. In fact, defensive backs coach has been a part of his title at every job he’s held since 1982, so you know the man knows pass defense in the modern age of “air-it-out” football.

Hoke will be tasked with handling more of South Carolina’s X’s and O’s work on defense, installing his 4-3, cover 2 system and teaching it to a young Gamecocks defense entering spring practice next month. South Carolina’s incumbent coordinator, Lorenzo Ward, will now share the job with Hoke and focus more on the recruiting side of things, although he will also play a role in working with SC’s run defense.

The new Gamecocks co-coordinator is known as a detail-oriented coach, which should benefit the Gamecocks young, inexperienced core on defense, and his prowess in coaching defensive backs should help improve South Carolina’s 10th-ranked pass defense in the SEC last season.

“They’re going to play hard; they’re going to be disciplined; they’re going to know what they’re doing,” Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Lovie Smith, who hired Hoke in Chicago in 2009, told GoGamecocks.com last week at the NFL Combine. “Jon is a detail-oriented coach. They are going to play hard every snap.”

The dynamic of Hoke and Ward sharing the defensive coordinator title will likely present minor complications throughout spring practice and perhaps even fall camp this August, but the hope is that the combination of Hoke’s scheming expertise matched with Ward’s ability to win on the recruiting trail will lead to a new and improved Gamecocks defense in the coming years.

A few things are for certain: Hoke is not going to accept the same results the Gamecocks produced last season, he’s not going to concede to inexperience as an excuse and he’s not going to allow the little things to fall through the cracks during the preparation process.

South Carolina needs that kind of discipline on the defensive side of the ball, and Hoke is poised to bring it to Columbia.