On how much pride he takes in teaching players
“Coaching is teaching, just another word for it. From what you do in the classroom, to what you do in life, to your experiences on the football field, that’s simply what it is. Great coaches take great pride in being teachers. To go out on a practice field and you just hear a bunch of yelling and screaming, what is really inside of that message? The guys in our locker room are prideful, they want to play at a high level, they want to do it right. That’s been shown time and time again. If they’re not hearing your message right, you’ve got to look at how are you describing that message to them and making sure that you frame it in the right way where they can accept it, understand it, then go do it. In this game, it’s important to speak from passion, not emotion. I think that’s something we talk about as a coaching staff quite a bit.”
On how comfortable he is with the defense heading into the opener
“I’m excited about that group. When we finished up spring, that was a really thin unit hit hard by the transfer portal, a lot of it before I had even gotten here. Adding the transfers that we added, experience for a portion of them, some youth that can have multiple years here, depth, right culture pieces as well. I think that was a huge part, being able to hit on those guys in May that has helped our defense. The other part of it is the way kids that have been here since January, February have really grown inside each of their position rooms. I look at the linebacker group, as a completely different meeting room than we were in spring ball, some of the guys came back from injury but just their growth as individuals, human beings, and understanding what we’re doing. (We’ve) added some young pieces in the secondary with a few transfers, as well. The depth at the defensive line position – there’s great competition, you have to strain every day. Every rep counts, there’s pressure on you to go perform at a really high level. You’ve got great coaches on that side of the ball. They’re very cohesive, there is a great understanding of what we’re doing defensively and I’m excited watch these guys play on Thursday night, I really am. Through training camp, we always pull clips when we go into our team meeting of guys playing with great effort and strain. We use the word ‘attack’ inside of our team meeting room and that group, there are orange jerseys flying around every single day and it’s been fun to watch.”
NEXT: Josh Heupel kicks off game week continued