Herm Edwards previews the Sun Devils' matchup against UNLV in his press conference on Monday, September 6
Opening Statement:
“Well week two for us and we got a lot of cleaning up to do on all three phases of our football team. I thought we talked about it this weekend and yesterday we had a little bit of a walkthrough to try to look at some things. UNLV when you watch them on tape, they got into a double overtime game. It was quite exciting at the end there for those guys. They have some talented players, both on offense and defense, big offensive front. They got an excellent runner in Williams, setting a bunch of records for those guys as far as historically at UNLV. Quarterback made a quarterback change, Brumfield, he’s a kid we actually recruited so we know a lot about him. Big, strong-armed guy, can throw the football. They got a big offensive line, does a pretty good job getting the people and defensively they have some speed over there, 3-4 defense and they do a nice job. Secondary is very active, linebacker is very active, they got a really good kicker as well. He made some field goals for them, once they’re side of plus forty he’s good, he’s got a good strong leg. They’re a team that has a lot of speed, athleticism, and they’re tough. They are a tough football team too, so we will have our work cut out for us but it’s about us now. When you look at our football team we’ve got to improve. We put ourselves in bad situations due to our own missed opportunities and being too emotional the first half. Second half I think we calmed down some. Good thing is we got a lot of young guys in the game which is kind of good for us. Just to see where they’re at and that’s kind of touchy because you only get four games with some of these guys, we got to be careful of what guys we are allowing to play and how we are doing all of this and that’s something we discussed a little bit. For the most part, I think our guys are excited about playing again at home against a team that is getting better from watching them on tape.”
On the surprising outcomes from Pac-12 week one play:
“Well, we talked about that. I talked about it actually, Wednesday night. That it is hard to win a football game. I think sometimes we look on paper, paper has never won a football game. It’s actually what you do out on the football field. I think when you look at what has happened in college football and I said it when I first took this job, there are a lot of upsets in college football and no one can ever figure it out. You knew going into opening day for a lot of teams that something was going to happen. You saw a lot of great games; you saw a lot of teams that were the underdog comeback and win. You talk about our conference, we scored the most points, we scored 41. Our differential margin was 27. That was the best in our conference. What does that mean? Nothing. It means we are 1-0 that’s all. I don’t worry about other teams in our conference, I have enough worries of our own. I think that’s what you realize as a coach, it’s hard to win a football game. I do know this, when we run the ball fairly decent, we have a chance. If you look at us over the last three years when we run it over 200+ yards, we are 9-1. I’m not saying we are a running team but we’re 9-1 so that’s what I do know and that’s a pretty good stat to have in your back pocket.”
On the penalties and the flow of the game:
“I think along with the fan base, no one knew how to act. Right, it was the first time we’ve seen fans. Our players were like, “wow this is fans”, and the fans were like, “wow we’re watching a football game.” It’s just funny how that works when you haven’t seen fans in almost two years. I just think all that, I had already computed that in my thinking and that’s why I kept harping on it. I said, “these guys have no idea what this is going to feel like.” They hadn’t played in front of fans and the fans haven’t seen us play football and so it was kind of one of those deals that it came together and you just saw it unfold. I think eventually when we got in at halftime, I kept talking to them and sure enough we went out there and the first play on offense we get another foul and I go here we go. It was only two in the second half, I think we calmed down some so I hope that we got it out of our system. But there’s this fine line between being passionate and emotional and you can’t get emotional because you make errors.”
On the defense’s ability to handle the run and passing game:
I thought… They did a pretty good job in pass coverage. Not a lot of leaks in the defense. It goes hand and hand, good coverage produces a good pass rush. They hit us on a couple runs which we have to make sure we tighten that up a little bit. They hit us on a 21 yard touchdown. Just kind of lost our way and our gaps something hit on the backside, it was a good play by the runner. But I thought for the most part taking the ball away is important for us always. To gain other possessions for our offense, that was a good thing. We tackled pretty good to be quite honest.When you think about football, anymore, we don’t have live tackles, we don’t have scrimmages. When I first got here people thought, “what is he talking about?” We don't tackle each other. We do tackling drills and we do all those things but live tackling we generally don’t do that; hardly at all with our starters. So I thought we tackle fairly well, we will find out how well we can tackle this week because of this running back. I tell you what, now, he’s a good football player. So, for the most part, special teams was a little sloppy at times, we talked about that. ...This is where it’s at when you think about emotion. When you think about fans, the guys get excited. I’ve been around a lot of football and when you score a touchdown, generally, the offensive line stays in there and you go for a point after. We had guys running off the field and I was looking at them going, “did we substitute for some reason?” I mean that is as simple as it gets. Then we had a defensive guy getting ready to run in there. I said, “it’s not blocked, we are actually trying to kick the PAT.” But that’s how emotional it was for these guys. I mean I looked at it and went, “this one was a new one for me.” So, those are the things we got to get cleaned up. Then we got rushed because the clock was ticking down and I wasn’t going to call a timeout. I kind of called Captain America and said, “Captain this is what you gotta do, when you see that you get up and go tell the center don’t hike the ball and we’ll be fine, we will take the delay.” Now, that shouldn’t happen anymore but all those little things you just kind of watch and go, “man, that’s where it’s at.”
On Curtis Hodges’ development:
“Well I think he’s excited about tight ends being a big part of our offense and that’s what we told him. I think for him, a guy that has been here for a long time, you know has had his kind of moments. This was the best game he’s played since I’ve been here. Not only catching the ball but blocking. If you watched him block and our offensive line, I’ll tell you what now, they did a really nice job of blocking. They really, really did. The runners are the runners but it all starts up front and Curtis was a big part of it, of the blocking part of it. Our receivers, wow, they were really good too, blocking. So, I’m happy for him because he’s been through a lot. He’s been injured, kind of in and out, he had all kinds of things going on, his life is kind of getting focused now. He wants an opportunity to play at the next level and I think if he continues to play like that he will get an opportunity.”
On competing against Harold Carmichael in practice:
“Well it's it's difficult being in a corner and in practice I remember my rookie year and Harold's (Carmichael) has gotten inducted into the Hall of Fame, as you folks know, and it was great to see him and visit with him and his wife. It was really fun, he met my girls, he knew my daughters. But I was taken by surprise, a little bit. I walked out there where the rookies are...and this was different football it was six weeks. It was six preseason games and it was two weeks before the veterans got to camp and I had heard about Harold Carmichael just watching him on television. And then the first day I line up one-on-one, he walks out there and I go, “He's really tall, and he's really big, right. So how do you defend this guy?” In practice I would go against Harold, and I'll tell you what; You think you have him covered, but you don't. Because of his length, right. And that's the problem, you got to be a pretty good athlete to go play the ball and he was strong and physical, it helped me. I mean, taught me how to be a pro actually between him and Roman Gabriel, who was the veteran quarterback behind (Ron) Jaworski. They would give me information every day, of how to be a professional football player. I couldn't thank him enough for that. That's why I was so excited about him finally getting in the Hall of Fame because he meant a lot to me as a rookie. It's been a good friend, and hard to cover now. I mean in the red zone, it wasn’t even fair, I used to watch him against other players, Jaws would just throw it up. The length gets you.”
On Eddie Czaplicki’s game:
Those are big shoes to fill obviously, and the one he kicked down there inside the one was really nice to see, and he was excited about it so I think as he continues to grow and kick, he’ll get better. He's a talented kid, he can punt and kick, but you don't want him to do both, you know it's too hard right now he has to be our punter. So I continue to hope he doesn't have to punt a lot because that means we're moving the ball, but when he does, I think that game helps him. Finally, when in the stadium, got his first kick, you know, and that's fun to watch.”
On the pass rush against potentially bigger offensive lines:
“Well, you know that you have to generate a pass rush, there's no doubt about that. And when you're only rushing four, and they're blocking five, you've got some one-on-one, somebody has to win and coverage always helps when you can cover the guys a little longer. It's kind of a marriage, coverage and rushing you either way you want to put them together but we have to do a better job of getting to the quarterback. We got him off the spot now. Sometimes you look at games you know you look at sacks. I don't get involved in that, I get involved with this guy standing on the spot. Well, first interception if you watch them go, it was caused by a good rush. The guy threw off his back foot so you know you can get into that stat game, and I always tell our linemen, “don't get into the stat game”, because then you guys have a bunch of guys playing lone wolf plays and they want to just, you know I'm gonna get my stats and then bad things happen because you have to stay having integrity in the rushing lanes, especially this week. Quarterback we're playing because he'll leave the pocket and run. All of those things are important, but for the most part, you always want to improve on your pass rush, there's no doubt about that.”
On the team’s health status:
“We had some mix for the first game, but I think most of our guys are ready to roll, or we will see what that's at; you know, it's always after the first game that you're always concerned with guys. The first real tackle football game against an opponent so it's a little bit different, but for the most part we came out of it pretty good.”
On keeping focus after big win margins:
“If you look at the film, no it's not real hard. I think we've always talked about a standard of how we want to play. And we didn't do a good enough job of that on our opening day. Opening day, it's kind of interesting. When you watch just football, period. You have all these thoughts in your mind of what it's going to look like and as a coach I've done enough of it and played it enough of them it’s like, you really don't know what it's gonna look like. You just sit there and you watch it and then you go okay, “how can I help fix it”, because that's what you do you try to fix it, you have this plan, it's like, “well we got this plan our offense and defense and, you know special teams and then the emotions come out,” and you go, “Uh oh, I have to adjust, and I got to talk to this guy and I got to go do this.” And so now I think we got a feel of what it feels like to play in a stadium with people. Right. It's little stuff like that… you know, you make decisions, you have no control. When all all comes out right and so communication from the coaches, how you do things on the sideline. I mean, the first thing I looked at, I kept looking back on the bench and there were so many people on the sideline, I said, “Man, this, this is, this is really interesting, right?” And so that was one of the things I had to talk about to the team I said look, “we have to be better on the sidelines doing things and there's a lot of guys walking around,” and said, “Man, it looked like it looked like downtown Manhattan. Some of you guys don't need to be walking around.” So now I got to place them where they're supposed to be right because it's the first game. This stuff is hard man, it really is, and you think you're ready to do it until you play a game and there's fans, and that makes a difference. That's why you guys love to go into stadiums where there's fans because it makes a difference, and when you haven't felt that in almost two years. It's a wonderful feeling. And I'm glad we're playing at home because we have a great family.”
On his expectations for the improvement heading into the UNLV game:
“Well I'm hoping, obviously, we're not as sloppy. As far as the fouls go, we don't get ourselves in some bad situations on first down. We were in nine situations whether it was first down and long situations, first and 15 or more. Three times second and 14 or more. I want to say third and 16 or more on third downs, and bad downs, you know, that’s bad downs. You can't be in those kinds of downs just to keep the ball going and to keep the drive going, those are hard to get out of and so we have to get away from that. There are going to be some negative plays every once in a while but football, to me on offense, is really important; just make first downs. And if you make first downs and get more plays then the field starts shrinking in the right way. We have to do a better job of that for sure. Defensively, we have a task ahead of us with this run game, because they do a nice job of running the ball so we have to get that stop.”
On the impact of practicing against the run:
“It does (help) and there's no doubt about that, but you still have to have your gap integrity and you have to trust that if I'm supposed to be an A to B or a C gap, I have to trust that I have to stay in this gap. Sometimes, defensively you want to make a play and you see stuff flash, he said, “well I'm going that way” and then they come back and all of a sudden, there's an open gap. We have to do a better job of that, of keeping our gap responsibility, and then tackling. We have to tackle this back man, this guy, he's really good. He's a good football player, this running back, Williams.”
On Ricky Pearsall’s maturity:
“Just his maturity, his freshman year through right now. That's the thing I enjoy the most; watching guys come in as freshmen. And just watch how they mature and all of a sudden, they have a voice. I mean his first year he didn't talk. It was like he would see me and kind of like… and now every time he sees me it's, “hey coach!” He would talk, so it's fun that the relationships that I get to have with some of these players watching them when they were freshmen to right now how they’ve developed and feel comfortable walking in my office, talking to me on the practice field. You see the maturity and the growth and the confidence, and he's a confident player, which is good because he's a really good football player.
On Darien Butler:
“Well, when you think about Darien, we recruited him, he was a blue shirt, because he was one of those guys who didn't have enough scholarships and we're going to blue shirt, you'd have to wait and then all of a sudden we had a scholarship come available, “Hey, you come in”, so he came in late into camp started as a freshman, and you watch this guy as a freshman team captain. One of the voices on defense. And when he speaks everybody listens: offensive players, defensive players. He doesn't say a lot, but when he says something guys go, “oh it's Darien talking.” The way he played. I mean, to me, he is much more knowledgeable of the game, because of the way he moves. He made some tackles in that game in the open field. I showed the team and said, “Hey man, look how this guy's playing.” There were a couple guys that really played well and he was one of them. There's no doubt about that. And I think he likes the style of this defense, where he can run and go play and AP is allowing him to do that so he had a really good game.”
.
Opening Statement:
“Well week two for us and we got a lot of cleaning up to do on all three phases of our football team. I thought we talked about it this weekend and yesterday we had a little bit of a walkthrough to try to look at some things. UNLV when you watch them on tape, they got into a double overtime game. It was quite exciting at the end there for those guys. They have some talented players, both on offense and defense, big offensive front. They got an excellent runner in Williams, setting a bunch of records for those guys as far as historically at UNLV. Quarterback made a quarterback change, Brumfield, he’s a kid we actually recruited so we know a lot about him. Big, strong-armed guy, can throw the football. They got a big offensive line, does a pretty good job getting the people and defensively they have some speed over there, 3-4 defense and they do a nice job. Secondary is very active, linebacker is very active, they got a really good kicker as well. He made some field goals for them, once they’re side of plus forty he’s good, he’s got a good strong leg. They’re a team that has a lot of speed, athleticism, and they’re tough. They are a tough football team too, so we will have our work cut out for us but it’s about us now. When you look at our football team we’ve got to improve. We put ourselves in bad situations due to our own missed opportunities and being too emotional the first half. Second half I think we calmed down some. Good thing is we got a lot of young guys in the game which is kind of good for us. Just to see where they’re at and that’s kind of touchy because you only get four games with some of these guys, we got to be careful of what guys we are allowing to play and how we are doing all of this and that’s something we discussed a little bit. For the most part, I think our guys are excited about playing again at home against a team that is getting better from watching them on tape.”
On the surprising outcomes from Pac-12 week one play:
“Well, we talked about that. I talked about it actually, Wednesday night. That it is hard to win a football game. I think sometimes we look on paper, paper has never won a football game. It’s actually what you do out on the football field. I think when you look at what has happened in college football and I said it when I first took this job, there are a lot of upsets in college football and no one can ever figure it out. You knew going into opening day for a lot of teams that something was going to happen. You saw a lot of great games; you saw a lot of teams that were the underdog comeback and win. You talk about our conference, we scored the most points, we scored 41. Our differential margin was 27. That was the best in our conference. What does that mean? Nothing. It means we are 1-0 that’s all. I don’t worry about other teams in our conference, I have enough worries of our own. I think that’s what you realize as a coach, it’s hard to win a football game. I do know this, when we run the ball fairly decent, we have a chance. If you look at us over the last three years when we run it over 200+ yards, we are 9-1. I’m not saying we are a running team but we’re 9-1 so that’s what I do know and that’s a pretty good stat to have in your back pocket.”
On the penalties and the flow of the game:
“I think along with the fan base, no one knew how to act. Right, it was the first time we’ve seen fans. Our players were like, “wow this is fans”, and the fans were like, “wow we’re watching a football game.” It’s just funny how that works when you haven’t seen fans in almost two years. I just think all that, I had already computed that in my thinking and that’s why I kept harping on it. I said, “these guys have no idea what this is going to feel like.” They hadn’t played in front of fans and the fans haven’t seen us play football and so it was kind of one of those deals that it came together and you just saw it unfold. I think eventually when we got in at halftime, I kept talking to them and sure enough we went out there and the first play on offense we get another foul and I go here we go. It was only two in the second half, I think we calmed down some so I hope that we got it out of our system. But there’s this fine line between being passionate and emotional and you can’t get emotional because you make errors.”
On the defense’s ability to handle the run and passing game:
I thought… They did a pretty good job in pass coverage. Not a lot of leaks in the defense. It goes hand and hand, good coverage produces a good pass rush. They hit us on a couple runs which we have to make sure we tighten that up a little bit. They hit us on a 21 yard touchdown. Just kind of lost our way and our gaps something hit on the backside, it was a good play by the runner. But I thought for the most part taking the ball away is important for us always. To gain other possessions for our offense, that was a good thing. We tackled pretty good to be quite honest.When you think about football, anymore, we don’t have live tackles, we don’t have scrimmages. When I first got here people thought, “what is he talking about?” We don't tackle each other. We do tackling drills and we do all those things but live tackling we generally don’t do that; hardly at all with our starters. So I thought we tackle fairly well, we will find out how well we can tackle this week because of this running back. I tell you what, now, he’s a good football player. So, for the most part, special teams was a little sloppy at times, we talked about that. ...This is where it’s at when you think about emotion. When you think about fans, the guys get excited. I’ve been around a lot of football and when you score a touchdown, generally, the offensive line stays in there and you go for a point after. We had guys running off the field and I was looking at them going, “did we substitute for some reason?” I mean that is as simple as it gets. Then we had a defensive guy getting ready to run in there. I said, “it’s not blocked, we are actually trying to kick the PAT.” But that’s how emotional it was for these guys. I mean I looked at it and went, “this one was a new one for me.” So, those are the things we got to get cleaned up. Then we got rushed because the clock was ticking down and I wasn’t going to call a timeout. I kind of called Captain America and said, “Captain this is what you gotta do, when you see that you get up and go tell the center don’t hike the ball and we’ll be fine, we will take the delay.” Now, that shouldn’t happen anymore but all those little things you just kind of watch and go, “man, that’s where it’s at.”
On Curtis Hodges’ development:
“Well I think he’s excited about tight ends being a big part of our offense and that’s what we told him. I think for him, a guy that has been here for a long time, you know has had his kind of moments. This was the best game he’s played since I’ve been here. Not only catching the ball but blocking. If you watched him block and our offensive line, I’ll tell you what now, they did a really nice job of blocking. They really, really did. The runners are the runners but it all starts up front and Curtis was a big part of it, of the blocking part of it. Our receivers, wow, they were really good too, blocking. So, I’m happy for him because he’s been through a lot. He’s been injured, kind of in and out, he had all kinds of things going on, his life is kind of getting focused now. He wants an opportunity to play at the next level and I think if he continues to play like that he will get an opportunity.”
On competing against Harold Carmichael in practice:
“Well it's it's difficult being in a corner and in practice I remember my rookie year and Harold's (Carmichael) has gotten inducted into the Hall of Fame, as you folks know, and it was great to see him and visit with him and his wife. It was really fun, he met my girls, he knew my daughters. But I was taken by surprise, a little bit. I walked out there where the rookies are...and this was different football it was six weeks. It was six preseason games and it was two weeks before the veterans got to camp and I had heard about Harold Carmichael just watching him on television. And then the first day I line up one-on-one, he walks out there and I go, “He's really tall, and he's really big, right. So how do you defend this guy?” In practice I would go against Harold, and I'll tell you what; You think you have him covered, but you don't. Because of his length, right. And that's the problem, you got to be a pretty good athlete to go play the ball and he was strong and physical, it helped me. I mean, taught me how to be a pro actually between him and Roman Gabriel, who was the veteran quarterback behind (Ron) Jaworski. They would give me information every day, of how to be a professional football player. I couldn't thank him enough for that. That's why I was so excited about him finally getting in the Hall of Fame because he meant a lot to me as a rookie. It's been a good friend, and hard to cover now. I mean in the red zone, it wasn’t even fair, I used to watch him against other players, Jaws would just throw it up. The length gets you.”
On Eddie Czaplicki’s game:
Those are big shoes to fill obviously, and the one he kicked down there inside the one was really nice to see, and he was excited about it so I think as he continues to grow and kick, he’ll get better. He's a talented kid, he can punt and kick, but you don't want him to do both, you know it's too hard right now he has to be our punter. So I continue to hope he doesn't have to punt a lot because that means we're moving the ball, but when he does, I think that game helps him. Finally, when in the stadium, got his first kick, you know, and that's fun to watch.”
On the pass rush against potentially bigger offensive lines:
“Well, you know that you have to generate a pass rush, there's no doubt about that. And when you're only rushing four, and they're blocking five, you've got some one-on-one, somebody has to win and coverage always helps when you can cover the guys a little longer. It's kind of a marriage, coverage and rushing you either way you want to put them together but we have to do a better job of getting to the quarterback. We got him off the spot now. Sometimes you look at games you know you look at sacks. I don't get involved in that, I get involved with this guy standing on the spot. Well, first interception if you watch them go, it was caused by a good rush. The guy threw off his back foot so you know you can get into that stat game, and I always tell our linemen, “don't get into the stat game”, because then you guys have a bunch of guys playing lone wolf plays and they want to just, you know I'm gonna get my stats and then bad things happen because you have to stay having integrity in the rushing lanes, especially this week. Quarterback we're playing because he'll leave the pocket and run. All of those things are important, but for the most part, you always want to improve on your pass rush, there's no doubt about that.”
On the team’s health status:
“We had some mix for the first game, but I think most of our guys are ready to roll, or we will see what that's at; you know, it's always after the first game that you're always concerned with guys. The first real tackle football game against an opponent so it's a little bit different, but for the most part we came out of it pretty good.”
On keeping focus after big win margins:
“If you look at the film, no it's not real hard. I think we've always talked about a standard of how we want to play. And we didn't do a good enough job of that on our opening day. Opening day, it's kind of interesting. When you watch just football, period. You have all these thoughts in your mind of what it's going to look like and as a coach I've done enough of it and played it enough of them it’s like, you really don't know what it's gonna look like. You just sit there and you watch it and then you go okay, “how can I help fix it”, because that's what you do you try to fix it, you have this plan, it's like, “well we got this plan our offense and defense and, you know special teams and then the emotions come out,” and you go, “Uh oh, I have to adjust, and I got to talk to this guy and I got to go do this.” And so now I think we got a feel of what it feels like to play in a stadium with people. Right. It's little stuff like that… you know, you make decisions, you have no control. When all all comes out right and so communication from the coaches, how you do things on the sideline. I mean, the first thing I looked at, I kept looking back on the bench and there were so many people on the sideline, I said, “Man, this, this is, this is really interesting, right?” And so that was one of the things I had to talk about to the team I said look, “we have to be better on the sidelines doing things and there's a lot of guys walking around,” and said, “Man, it looked like it looked like downtown Manhattan. Some of you guys don't need to be walking around.” So now I got to place them where they're supposed to be right because it's the first game. This stuff is hard man, it really is, and you think you're ready to do it until you play a game and there's fans, and that makes a difference. That's why you guys love to go into stadiums where there's fans because it makes a difference, and when you haven't felt that in almost two years. It's a wonderful feeling. And I'm glad we're playing at home because we have a great family.”
On his expectations for the improvement heading into the UNLV game:
“Well I'm hoping, obviously, we're not as sloppy. As far as the fouls go, we don't get ourselves in some bad situations on first down. We were in nine situations whether it was first down and long situations, first and 15 or more. Three times second and 14 or more. I want to say third and 16 or more on third downs, and bad downs, you know, that’s bad downs. You can't be in those kinds of downs just to keep the ball going and to keep the drive going, those are hard to get out of and so we have to get away from that. There are going to be some negative plays every once in a while but football, to me on offense, is really important; just make first downs. And if you make first downs and get more plays then the field starts shrinking in the right way. We have to do a better job of that for sure. Defensively, we have a task ahead of us with this run game, because they do a nice job of running the ball so we have to get that stop.”
On the impact of practicing against the run:
“It does (help) and there's no doubt about that, but you still have to have your gap integrity and you have to trust that if I'm supposed to be an A to B or a C gap, I have to trust that I have to stay in this gap. Sometimes, defensively you want to make a play and you see stuff flash, he said, “well I'm going that way” and then they come back and all of a sudden, there's an open gap. We have to do a better job of that, of keeping our gap responsibility, and then tackling. We have to tackle this back man, this guy, he's really good. He's a good football player, this running back, Williams.”
On Ricky Pearsall’s maturity:
“Just his maturity, his freshman year through right now. That's the thing I enjoy the most; watching guys come in as freshmen. And just watch how they mature and all of a sudden, they have a voice. I mean his first year he didn't talk. It was like he would see me and kind of like… and now every time he sees me it's, “hey coach!” He would talk, so it's fun that the relationships that I get to have with some of these players watching them when they were freshmen to right now how they’ve developed and feel comfortable walking in my office, talking to me on the practice field. You see the maturity and the growth and the confidence, and he's a confident player, which is good because he's a really good football player.
On Darien Butler:
“Well, when you think about Darien, we recruited him, he was a blue shirt, because he was one of those guys who didn't have enough scholarships and we're going to blue shirt, you'd have to wait and then all of a sudden we had a scholarship come available, “Hey, you come in”, so he came in late into camp started as a freshman, and you watch this guy as a freshman team captain. One of the voices on defense. And when he speaks everybody listens: offensive players, defensive players. He doesn't say a lot, but when he says something guys go, “oh it's Darien talking.” The way he played. I mean, to me, he is much more knowledgeable of the game, because of the way he moves. He made some tackles in that game in the open field. I showed the team and said, “Hey man, look how this guy's playing.” There were a couple guys that really played well and he was one of them. There's no doubt about that. And I think he likes the style of this defense, where he can run and go play and AP is allowing him to do that so he had a really good game.”
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