Well-travelled Wiggins VC’s new defensive coordinator

With the departure of Cory Brodie, who took the Kaplan head football coaching job, Vermilion Catholic head football coach Broc Prejean was in the market for a new defensive coordinator.
A few phone calls here, a meeting there and Prejean ended up hiring Nathan Wiggins to take over the DC role for the Eagles for the 2021 season.
“I was looking for or someone who kind of had the same basic philosophy that I had with Coach Brodie and when I interviewed Coach Wiggins, I knew that we were on the same page when it came to defense and I hired him.”
So what does Wiggins bring to the Eagles for the 2021 season?
The former college player, who played his college ball at Adams State in Colorado, is a well-traveled assistant who is in his second year of coaching high school ball after spending the previous six years at the college or junior college level from his alma mater at Adams State to Pearl River Community College in Mississippi.
So how does a Yankee from Colorado end up at Vermilion Catholic?
“When I was at Pearl River, I coached with Zack Lockhart, who ended up getting the head football and AD job at Patterson before the start of last season,” Wiggins said. “I was in between jobs and my wife and I made the decision to come down to South Louisiana.
“We live in South Lafayette and I was looking for a place closer to home or where we could call home. It was a high priority to find something where my kids could grow up in this area.”
A linebacker by trade, Wiggins played four years at the MCAA Division II level and then one year in Germany and has spent every year since coaching linebackers/
“I did spend one season on the offensive side of the ball,” he said. “I enjoyed in and it was a fun experience for me but my heart is on defense.
“Mo matter the sport, I excelled on the defensive side of the ball and I just lover defense,” Wiggins said.
Wiggins said that this season will be his second year as a defensive coordinator and his defensive philosophy is an attacking style of defense.
“The way that football has become over time, defense has become a reactive thing,” he said. “I worrying about what we do and what our job is and making sure that it fits up to what they do so that our kids can focus more on what their job is and not have to stress too much about the different style of play that we are going to get each week/”
Prejean prefers a defense that have become the rage in football, the 3-3 stack with three down linemen, three linebackers and five defensive backs.
“I like the controlled chaos,” Wiggins said. “With a four man front you can draw it up on the board everywhere in the country and people know how to block it.
“Our advantage, being a small undersized team, is that they don’t know where we’re coming from. We can keep the field balanced and we can bring anybody from anywhere which is going to be our advantage.”
Wiggins said the players at VC have accepted and adjusted to his defense and were open to the changes it entailed.
“They’ve handled it well and grasped things pretty quickly,” Wiggins said. “One thing is that they take care of it and they spend time learning it off the field. That’s made my job easier.”
What Wiggins most would like to see is the VC defense create an identity of its own.
“VC is known for offense,” the coach said. “It’s my job to make sure that people know about our defense as well.”