I think they're extremely active, up front.

It starts with Jernigan, but they got too deep.

I mean, they got guys in the backups that were five stars a couple years back. So I think they're active. They play on your side of line scrimmage. Something we got to keep them from doing. And then there are two linebackers are probably as fast side to side as anybody you've seen. and so you have those guys in Joyner and the guys on the back end,

you can have a play that looks pretty good at the beginning that maybe you think some gain 8, 10, 12 yards, and they recover so well it's 3-4-yard gains. So they got great team pursuit, and I think their overall team speed probably is the best thing they'll have. What do you think about their corner of the team? But before this game, what would you say is the best set of corners in the States this year? Oh, man, for this game. I really don't know who the best we've played are. I'd have to think longer than that. But these guys are probably right up there, and we'll know Monday Night. They may very well be the best. There's nothing I've seen on film that leads me to believe they're not the two bests we play. They're confidence you can tell.

They can play press man.

They can play off. They can play man. They can play zone. They're very well coached. Very confident guys. And, you know, when you look at a team that has 25 interceptions, I think, 16 different players with interceptions. You know, they got some ball hawks back there. So, you know, you look at all the bowl games. It's going to be on us and not turn the football over.

The team's turning it over.

The team's losing. with interceptions. You know they got some ball hawks back there. So, you know, you look at all the

bowl games, it's going to be on us to not turn the football over. The team's turning it over,

the team's turning it over, the team's losing. Have you all faced a team that has played good pressman defense against you all yet? Yeah, we have. Yeah, I mean, Alabama plays press man. LSU Georgia and SEC everybody plays press man.

So, you know, it won't be anything new from a schematic advantage

and it'll just come down to, you know, who executes and who wins the one-on-one battles

more than anything. How long have you known mouse on? Probably since about 96. I was a seventh grader at Shiloh, when he came as the head coach. So, you know, we go way back both of his player and coach. What were your first impressions of him? I mean, probably not remembering too far back in middle school, but... Yeah, when I was in seventh grade, he showed up. He was the new head coach, and I think he was the dean of students. And, you know, coach hadn't changed much. He's very business, very single-minded and focused on what's at hand. He's a disciplinary, and so he wasn't the kind of coach that's in the hall cutting up.

He's doing his job. Had a little bit of that fear factor that you would think from the seventh grader you'd see from your head high school coach. So he earned everybody's respect real quick. And then, of course, over the next few years, as I got to play for him more, you know, I got to see why he is the way he is and why he's successful. Do you think that that demeanor is why you're so successful or a big part of it?

I think so. You know, he has a unique ability to be steady and consistent and be true to who

he is no matter what. You know, when it's all about football, like I said, he's focused.

There's nothing that could be an outside

distraction. It's all about attention to detail, being a perfectionist, the discipline of things. He doesn't change from who he is. He hadn't changed from when I was in the seventh grade to now. You know, away from football, whenever that is, which is not very often for us, you know, you see him cut loose. and he's got a lot more personality body than people think,

but he does a good job of being all business-like when it comes to football. How is his system changed from when you had in high school to now? You know, the core foundation of it hasn't. The philosophy is the same. We want to go fast. You know, back then the play clock used to be different. They would wait, set the ball, then start the 25 second

clock. So, you know, we had more of a philosophy of snap the ball within the first five seconds of the clock being blown into play. Now they just roll it to 40 and here you go. So we really just try to go as fast as we possibly can. That hadn't changed. And the core plays, run, pass, the same things I was running when I played, believe it or not.

Now, a lot of it evolves over time.

You've got to tweak either to the league you're in, to your personnel. Obviously, I didn't run near as much zone read as Nick's running. So we changed things here or there, but the core foundation had changed a bit. Actually, can you talk just a little bit about as much zone read as you guys? since the LSU game, you guys run a lot more zone read. Can you talk about what was behind that decision? I'd say, you know, we're real big on, we've got our philosophy, that's never going to change, but we try to take the guys we have and put them in position to do what they do best. For example, last year we had a senior quarterback, played a lot of ball, and we weren't maybe as talented up front on the opposite line, so we threw more to open up the run. Now, we still ran for 200 plus yards a game, but it was a little different. You know, I think those first four games this year, we were kind of filling out our players and personnel. They were doing the same for us. You know, other than LSU, we were able to win those games, which helped. And I think after the LSU game, we had a buy week, and we were able to really decide on where we were going to be moving forward. At halftime LSU, we made the adjustment to run more zone reading the second half, pick up the tempo a little bit, it worked for us. And so from that point, we tried to build on that. And we had two weeks to really hone in and maybe do a couple extra things here or there to get ready for that. Because you hadn't done a whole lot of zone blocking before that, from what I've seen. Yeah, you know, we've always ran zone with the gap game. You know, like I said, early on in the season, I don't think we knew the, we knew Nick was a great athlete. I don't know if we knew how dynamic of a playmaker he could be. And I think also for Nick, those first two, three games, he's doing a lot of thinking. And it doesn't matter if it's drop back, passing game, or running. The more you're thinking, the slower you're going to react. I think probably about that same time we had the off week, he started feeling really comfortable with the base of what we were doing.

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