For Javon Hagan, patience and attitude are essential to playmaking, which is essential to winning a Mid-American Conference championship.
A lack of patience and focus was the reason Ohio’s defense struggled at times, letting the East Division slip through its grasp. Hagan – a team captain and a leader on defense – realizes the Bobcats’ success depends heavily on his leadership.
“I’m not a screamer type of guy, I just tell guys what they need to work on,” Hagan said. “I just pull them aside, so they don’t feel like they are being spotlighted. Everyone doesn’t respond the same.”
The 6-foot, redshirt junior safety also knows aspects of his game that need improvement. Last season too many teams took advantage of his see-ball, get-ball mentality.
“I’d be so hungry to get to the ball, and teams would make me pay for it,” Hagan said. “Watching film on how I was beat last year made me focus on how to stay patient more this year.”
But he isn’t mistaking patience for hesitance.
He’s a Jim Thorpe award watch list candidate. He knows when to pull the trigger: His aggression helped him record 85 tackles, seven pass breakups, one forced fumble, a fumble recovery and an interception last season.
His playmaking will be needed for the Bobcats to win their first conference title in 50 years. The Bobcats were ranked ninth in the conference for turnover margin in 2017, a stat that Hagan doesn’t relish.
So, he created the ultimate motivator: the turnover belt.
The idea was inspired by the University of Miami, which debuted a turnover chain last season.
The chain was used to motivate the defense into creating more turnovers, and whoever caused a turnover got to wear the chain. It helped the Hurricanes achieve the fifth-best turnover margin in the country.
Hagan hopes that the belt will produce similar results.
“It’s just something to motivate the defense,” he said. “I saw how the chain worked at Miami, but I wanted something different.
Hagan isn’t the only defender who believes the Bobcats need the turnover belt.
“There was a lot of turnovers left on the field for the Bobcat defense,” said Kylan Nelson, a redshirt senior and Hagan’s right-hand man in the secondary.
Fans will enjoy seeing the turnover belt change hands throughout the season, but it’s not the only change Hagan helped introduce to change the culture. He’s part of the team Unity Council, which introduced the red stripe for freshmen and the circle of trust.
These changes were instituted because the Bobcats needed to shake things up. Ohio’s rebuild has had much success under coach Frank Solich, but without a conference title the job still feels unfinished.
“We’ve gotten to the game (MAC championship) four times, in my mind should have won it twice, maybe even three times, but we didn’t,” Solich said.
The pressure to win the conference is even greater this season. Ohio is the favorite to win the MAC and with so many starters returning, the Bobcats aren’t sugar coating what their expectations are.
“If we don’t win the MAC this year then this season was a failure,” Hagan said. “We came so close last year, we have to win it this year.”
