After Colorado beat Weber State two weeks ago, Tyler Martinez said his next step as a leader was to speak up more, and to start “holding other people accountable and other position groups accountable.”
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Northwestern put that to the test sooner than anyone wanted. The Buffaloes lost 41-7 on Saturday in Evanston, Illinois, and on Tuesday the fifth-year linebacker described the days since as a correction to the defense’s opinion of itself.
“I think this last week was a big wake-up call,” Martinez said. “Checked our ego pretty good, not as good as we think we are.”
What concerns him now is what a loss like that can do to a locker room. As he laid it out, the danger is one position group blaming another, with players saying “hey, you guys need to cover, you guys need to pass rush,” until the defense is 11 fingers pointing in 11 different directions. For what it looks like when all 11 pull the same way, he pointed back to the opener at Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets’ offense never reached the end zone in Colorado’s 14-13 win. Their only touchdown came on a kickoff return.
“We can’t let a loss like that split us apart,” he said. “We need to come together and be a unit.”
Safety Randon Fontenette, a Vanderbilt transfer who led Colorado with 13 tackles against the Wildcats, took it a step further. The standard gets preached every day, he said, and “if somebody’s not living up to that standard, you’ve got to address it.”
Some of that came Tuesday.
“We had some tough conversations after practice,” Fontenette said. “We had to just face reality.”
It isn’t the first time either of them have made the point. After the 52-21 win over Weber State, both put the defense’s problems on aspects of the game the players control, such as communication, trust, and the little things, rather than the scheme. Fontenette said then that it would be fixed by Northwestern. Baylor is the next chance to show it.
The Buffs (2-1) travel to play the Bears (2-1) in the Big 12 opener for both teams on Saturday (10 a.m. MT, ESPN2).
Deion Sanders said Tuesday at his weekly news conference that a few players are no longer on the team, a result of ‘detrimental conduct.’ No official roster moves have followed in the time since his statement.
On Monday, Martinez was among the players who went to Sanders to ask what had happened. As he sees it, that’s what veterans are for.
When the players don’t know what’s going on, he said, it’s on the leaders to bridge the gap to the coaches. “So I think that was just our job, our responsibility, to go up there and clarify things.”
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As for Baylor, Fontenette called offensive coordinator Jake Spavital “very aggressive” and the Bears offense an Air Raid style — “something we haven’t been good with the past couple of weeks.” His fix for that has nothing to do with the playbook.
“It starts at practice, and it starts with the leaders being leaders, being more vocal, including me,” Fontenette said. He wants to be the one “not going for any BS, and just being that guy to put his foot down and really just bring guys along.”
Martinez has found one more reason to hold himself to that.
Before the Northwestern game, he found a “Dawg” patch on his jersey, a surprise from Sanders.
“If you look at some of the guys who’ve worn that in the past, that’s a big deal,” Martinez said. “I think it brings another level of accountability, and you can’t have that patch on your jersey and go out there and play like a scrub.”
A year ago he was at New Mexico State, where an injury ended his season after four starts. He led the Aggies with 96 tackles the year before. If someone had told him then that he would be wearing that patch now, he said, “I would have told you, whatever drug you’re on is good. I would have never believed it.”
He also pushed back, gently, on one reading of Saturday. Northwestern’s Joseph Himon II scored all three of his touchdowns catches on similar routes out of the backfield, and Martinez was asked how frustrating it is to see an offense keep going back to one thing. He wouldn’t call it one thing.
“I hate to be that guy, but sometimes the media, like, you guys assume that we’re in one coverage,” he said. “Sometimes the offense does just have a perfect play for what we have called, and props to them. They got us.”
When a defense can do something about it, he said, it comes down to “better eyes, hands and feet.”
Fontenette, who is from Freeport, Texas, will have family in the stands Saturday.
“I’m excited, man. Going back home is always good,” he said. “But I’m going to be more happy when we leave with a win, because that’s all I came here for.”
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