Last season was a tumultuous one for Towson football, with the school deciding to move on from longtime head coach Rob Ambrose after the Tigers went 6-5 overall and 4-4 in the Colonial Athletic Conference.
Ambrose went 76-76 overall in 13 seasons as head coach and took Towson to the FCS national championship game in 2013, but the school decided to move in a new direction after going 10-12 the past two seasons.
“My first two years here, yeah, we were a football team, but I didn’t feel that connection like we were all on the same page,” redshirt sophomore linebacker Mason Woods said. “I felt like we were all out there as individuals.”
Woods emerged as one of the bright spots last season, putting together a great freshman year for the Tigers with a team-high 77 tackles and FCS Freshman All-American honors from numerous publications. The 6-foot, 220-pound linebacker was the backbone of a defense that struggled overall, giving up nearly 28.0 points per game and almost 390 yards of total offense a contest.
Following the season, Woods entered his name in the transfer portal, looking for a new opportunity. However, he stuck with Towson in the end following the hire of current head coach Pete Shinnick, a Baltimore native who most recently saw consistent success at the Division II level with West Florida.
“The new coaching staff was calling me every day,” Woods said. “Just talking to them, hearing what they had to say, the way they talked about football, I wanted to play for them. I could hear that they wanted it just as bad as I do.”
Shinnick put his stamp on the program right away. One of his first hires was defensive coordinator Darian Dulin, who had coached alongside him at West Florida since 2017.
“[Woods] was back home already by the time that we got here,” Dulin said. “In December, we tried to call him and ask him to come visit with us. … The biggest thing that he had said he wanted was that he didn’t feel like the team was together. He felt like there were a lot of cliques within the team and guys weren’t bought in as much as he was.”
Though the team may have lacked chemistry last season, Woods was pitched on joining a close-knit group of players with the common goal of winning. That selling point was enough to bring him back to once again anchor the defense in this new era of Tigers football.
“My mindset has always been to hear them out, hear what they have to say,” Woods said. “Every coach has a different perspective on football. I like having coaching changes. It ups my arsenal. I look at football through their eyes. It’s a different view of football. … These new coaches brought in their plan to rebuild Towson and I felt like it was my job to buy in.”
It’s been an adjustment period for players and coaches as they get used to being around each other, but almost instantly, Dulin saw a lot in Woods. The defensive coordinator is hoping to unlock even more from his No. 1 linebacker.
“He’s been really humble and a sponge, I would say, in wanting to learn the system, wanting to find ways for him to be the best player he can be there,” Dulin said. “… He’s one of those guys that needed a little help, needed better understanding to be able to tap into all of his talents. I think he’s going to be able to play at that high level all of the time.”
Woods is excited about a new aggressive defensive mindset being put into place by Dulin. Woods says he’s a player who likes to attack, so the scheme and his mentality have been a perfect match, which should help the Tigers that much more in the end.
“[Dulin] has a bunch of schemes set up,” Woods said. “This is my first time being in a defense where we’re blitzing and going after them. … Everything is different. He doesn’t have just one way.”
It’s not just the schemes that are being changed, but the style of coaching that Shinnick is implementing. It starts with conduct — such as not cursing — and forcing coaches and players to find different ways to interact in the face of conflict.
Towson is preaching controlled aggression on the field to help the Tigers get back to the FCS playoffs for the first time since 2018, when they were eliminated by Duquesne in the first round.
The Tigers were picked to finish ninth in the CAA, making them an underdog heading into the season. The same can be said of Woods, as no publication placed him on a preseason All-American list despite the success he had in 2022.
No matter, Woods saw the vision of Shinnick and this new coaching staff and wanted to be part of it. His goal is to pave the way for Towson to be a contender. The Tigers kick off the season at Maryland on Sept. 2 and host Monmouth on Sept. 9 in their home opener.
“I want to see our team succeed,” Woods said. “I want us to get a ring. I want Towson to be a top program. I definitely want more. They don’t have me on any preseason All-American lists, so that’s just another chip on my shoulder as I go into the season. I like being the underdog.”
Photo Credit: ENP Photography
Issue 282: August/September 2023
Originally published Aug. 16, 2023