Nov. 1, 2017
By Greg Ostendorf
AuburnTigers.com
AUBURN, Ala. -- Every time Jeff Holland comes flying off the edge and takes down a quarterback, he'll get up, put his hands together and take a bow. It looks like something out of Mortal Kombat or one of the Karate Kid movies.
"Students bow to their sensei, and that's what I do," Holland said.
The celebration started back in Week 4 at Missouri. Holland told his teammates prior to the game that he was going to bring it out after he made a big play. Sure enough, midway through the first quarter, Missouri tried to throw a short screen pass. But the Auburn edge rusher read the play and was right there to lay out the receiver and jar the ball loose. He got up, put his hands together and debuted the bow -- just as he promised he would.
Now it's taken on a life of its own.
Teammates have joined in on the celebration, bowing with Holland after he makes a big play. This past weekend, he went back to his high school in Florida and one of the players on his old team bowed after making a play. Holland was even invited to a local taekwondo class on campus by somebody who had seen the celebration and heard he was interested in martial arts.
It's a fitting salute for the one they call "Sensei Mud," but the bow, the nickname and the martial arts background is only part of the reason Holland is enjoying a breakout season at Auburn.
Holland knows a thing or two about getting to the quarterback. He currently leads the SEC with eight sacks, and he has 5.5 sacks in Auburn's five league games this season. Against Arkansas the last time out, he literally sacked the quarterback and forced a fumble on back-to-back plays.
So how's he do it?
"The key is separation from the offensive tackle, knowing what move you're going to bring, your counter move and studying his sets," Holland said.
That's where the martial arts background comes into play. Over the summer, Auburn brought a specialist down to work with the players on hand-to-hand combat. It was open to all positions, but it was geared towards the defensive linemen because the use of their hands is so important to shedding blocks and making plays in the backfield.
It clearly piqued Holland's interest. He showed up an hour before anybody else and stayed after to get in some extra one-on-one time.
"You could just tell that he took an interest in it and could see how it was going to benefit his game," Auburn strength and conditioning coach Ryan Russell said.
Now Holland goes through a similar hand-to-hand combat routine before, during and after most practices. He and fellow defensive linemen Derrick Brown and Paul James III can been seen on the field before every game working their hands with one of the assistant strength coaches or as they call it, "priming their weapons before battle."
"It gives me a big edge," Holland said. "Just separation from those tackles. Using the side sweep, the chop club, the stab club, things like that -- it just gives me a lot of separation from those big tackles, knocking their arms out because those guys are bigger and some are stronger."
"I think it gives them a psychological edge," Russell said. "The hand-eye coordination and all that stuff, it's something different that maybe a lot of other places aren't doing. And I think that makes them feel good, like `Hey, I got this stuff in my back pocket that I can pull out and use on these guys that they haven't seen before.'"
As a result, Holland has transformed from Carl Lawson's understudy to one of the most-feared pass-rushers in all of college football.
The martial arts work has played a role in Holland's breakout season, but it's one of a handful of things that have ultimately led him to this point. More importantly, he was given an opportunity. He waited patiently behind Lawson the past two years, and now that Lawson is wreaking havoc in NFL backfields with the Cincinnati Bengals, Holland is taking full advantage.
It hasn't come as a surprise to the Auburn coaches, though. They knew he had a knack for rushing the passer. They saw it every day at practice. They also saw his heart.
"The biggest thing about Jeff Holland is his heart," Auburn defensive coordinator Kevin Steele said. "His fighting spirit is real. He has a passion for the game. He works extremely hard. And he enjoys going out there and giving it everything he's got. Sometimes in pass rush, it just comes down to relentless effort, and he's got that."
Simply put, Holland loves the game of football. When he was younger, he was told he couldn't play football one year because he was too big to play in that division. He still remembers balling his eyes out when he discovered the news.
"Playing football makes me happy," Holland said. "I love doing it. Every time I step on the field, I do it like it's my last time."
That passion, that love for the game, it's why he does the hand-to-hand combat. It's why he's in the film room every Sunday studying the offensive tackles he will face the following week. It's why he bought into everything Coach Russell preached in the weight room and why he's become one of Russell's favorite players to work with on the team.
"There's probably not a guy in our program that loves football as much as Jeff and displays the passion and the motor that he shows every snap," Russell said. "He's fallen in love with the process. That's why he's having results. He's really bought into everything we do down here. He's lost body-fat percentage. He's leaned out. He's more explosive. He's more mobile through his ankles and his hips. There are a lot of things that go into that."
As the final month is upon us, there's still work to be done. Holland is only five sacks away from breaking the school's single-season record set by Nick Fairley (12) in 2010, and Auburn is four wins away from potentially winning the SEC West (with a loss by LSU) and crashing the College Football Playoff.
However, "Sensei Mud" knows better than to look ahead.
"We take it one game at at time," Holland said. "If we want to win four games straight, you've got to win the one in front of you."
Greg Ostendorf is a Senior Writer for AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: Follow @greg_ostendorf