The switch in title and duties on the Pittsburgh Steelers coaching staff during the offseason affected Teryl Austin’s life in at least one significant way.

“It is killing my golf game,” Austin said, laughing, Wednesday.

Austin’s promotion from senior defensive assistant/secondary to defensive coordinator in February might have changed his day-to-day work schedule, and it probably does leave him fewer free days to hit the links. But with five years of experience as an NFL coordinator for two teams, the gig isn’t entirely new for Austin.

“I am me. I am always going to be me,” Austin said before a minicamp practice at UPMC Rooney Sports Complex. “I know nothing else. So I don’t try to change all of a sudden because I am doing something different now. No, I am doing things the way I have always done them.”

For Austin, that means an aggressive mindset in fixing a Steelers defense that has a strong reputation but statistically fell off last season. Low-lighted by a dead-last league ranking against the run (allowing 146.1 yards per game), the Steelers had the No. 24 overall defense in terms of yardage (361.1 per game). It was league-average in takeaways with 22 in 17 games.

“We are going to be an aggressive defense. We are going to be sound. We are not going to give up big plays. We are going to keep scores low and give ourselves a chance to win,” Austin said. “I think that’s really what we want to see, and good defense requires getting off blocks, tackling, stopping the run and turning the ball over.

“If you can do those things, you’ve got a chance to be a real good defense.”

Austin presided over some pretty good defenses during his previous work as a coordinator, his Detroit Lions allowing the NFL’s third-fewest points and second-fewest yards in 2014.

Until last year, the Steelers had finished among the top six in the NFL in total defense each of the previous four seasons. That was under coordinator Keith Butler, who retired in January at age 65 after seven years in that gig and 23 seasons coaching in the NFL.

Austin was on the staff with Butler for three seasons. He said Wednesday that any changes to style or scheme won’t be explicitly to differ from Butler.

“I don’t know how to approach it differently (other than) I will approach it the way I always approach it,” Austin said. “And see if that’s the right way to do it.”

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While Butler finally acknowledged recently that coach Mike Tomlin was calling defensive plays during games, Austin said that going forward the hierarchy of the Steelers’ defensive coaching will be “like a normal staff where you have the coordinator who’s coordinating and putting things together.”

Austin acknowledged that “anything can happen on game day” but did not allow for ambiguity that he is in charge. The Steelers over the offseason hired former Miami Dolphins head coach and former New England Patriots defensive coordinator Brian Flores to backfill in Austin’s old role as “senior defensive assistant” (Flores’ focus is inside linebackers).

“We have input from the staff,” Austin said, “and the head coach comes in and adds what he wants to add and the things that he wants to see in his defense because it is his team. And then we go from there, and we build our defense.

“The bottom line is that it is our defense.”

Tomlin said any discernible changes to the defense on the field caused by Austin won’t be apparent for several more months heading into the season.

“We’re at the infancy of it right now,” Tomlin said, “and so those things happen in the journey — the imprint, the personality, the impacts. That will continually be revealed as we play.”

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