Media Day Interviews: Chase Winovich Comment Count

Ace

Previously: Jim Harbaugh, Kyle Kalis, Brian Cole



[Eric Upchurch/MGoBlog]

While I was looking for someone to talk to one-on-one yesterday, our photographer Eric Upchurch said redshirt freshman tight end Chase Winovich, who moved from outside linebacker this spring, seemed like a great interview. He was not wrong.

How is the transition from defense to offense going for you?

At first I wasn’t sure how to think about it, and just a little hesitant. I feel like, as most people are, going to a position that you’ve never played before and weren’t recruited as going through the recruiting process—it goes through your mind, here’s what you’re going to be, and then to go through a season playing [linebacker], you’re just having a blast with it, going up and hitting people and just playing physical and the chase. I always joked, I said, “they named me Chase, they didn’t name me Block or something else.”

But as the time went on I grew to really start liking it. The practices were more fun, [I was] more engaged, more versatile, you could take mental reps a lot, it was easier to see how people break, especially Jake Butt, and just go about their business, and I started to love it. So going into camp, I’ve never been this excited to go into a camp in my entire life.

With Coach Harbaugh and his styles of camps and his history with Stanford and San Diego and San Francisco, it’s going to be a battle, man. I want to be in the trenches or in the Apache helicopter this camp, you know, shooting the machine guns. That's how I view it. Every day is going to be a grind and if I can maximize the transition from summer to camp and linebacker to tight end and have those coincide, I think the days are going to go by great.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the interview.]

You mentioned watching Jake Butt run reps in practice. How much have your teammates helped you get comfortable at the position?

I think my teammates, especially the offense as a whole, they helped me and they were pretty understanding. The coaches really were understanding and tried to help me as best they could. Jake Butt helped a lot, just the way he practices with his routes and the way he knows the offense, it’s inspirational. That’s just as good as him talking to me is his inspiration to me. That part alone is great. I’m excited to go into camp where I can actually learn from him, you know? To learn what he does to be so successful. Because if you look at his speed and stuff, he’s good, but I think it’s more his technique is so good, it’s impressive.

Players are talking about four-hour long practices in the spring. What’s been the biggest difference in terms on intensity from Hoke to Harbaugh and what does it take to get accustomed to practicing that hard?

To me, in winter conditioning I tried to be first every single time, because I knew we were in store for something. I tried to do the same thing in the summer and try to prepare the best I can. You can’t really prepare for it, so when you show up you’ve got to know you gave everything you got. That’s really it.

For the practices themselves, the length is actually to our advantage. At first I think a lot of players viewed it as a negative thing, as a form of punishment for the way we played last season. A lot of players started to realize these practices really aren’t that terrible, per se. I mean, they’re long, they’re hard, but they’re actually to our advantage, and as time went on you started to be prepared of those types of practices. It made the spring game so easy. It went by in a flash. We were like, “that’s it?” After going through all those practices it was just amazing how quick it went by.

It sounds like Harbaugh isn’t necessarily letting you guys know the schedule ahead of time. What do you think that’s bringing to the team?

My brother-in-law pointed this out to me after he read an article talking about the unexpected stuff, he didn’t say this was in the article but he raised a really good point, he said, and it’s so true, Coach Harbaugh wants the players to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. It’s a feeling we could really use, the feeling of being uncomfortable. That feeling will carry on when we’re in a tight game, we’re away on the road against a ranked opponent. It’s going to help us.

Being uncomfortable is something that you have to train like a lot of other skills. The unpredictability, us not being able to plan our attack, when we’re going to work out, what we’re going to be doing, I think in the long run it’ll play to our advantage.

What’s the biggest thing for you personally and for the team that you’re looking to accomplish this fall camp?

I sat down with my brother-in-law and we made a list of goals for football camp and I’m not going to go too much into those. I want to better myself every day and be the best freshman tight end that I can be. Not only do I want to make myself better but I want to make the teammates around me better, like I know they will to me.

If all of us can compete and build each other up and we can keep stacking those bricks, by the end of camp and the rest of the season we’re going to have ourselves one heck of a fortress, man. We’re going to be a force to be reckoned with. That’s the plan, at least. That’s the plan of attack.

Comments

UMProud

August 7th, 2015 at 12:59 PM ^

This kid and the way they are "retooling" him at a position to better fit his skillset is a perfect example of why JH is a coaching genius and is successful wherever he goes.

BayWolves

August 7th, 2015 at 1:00 PM ^

Sounds like he has the fire within. Harbaugh has the men fully buying in and this, combined with excellent player development and competent in game coaching, is when big dividends are paid.




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mgobaran

August 7th, 2015 at 1:02 PM ^

That was a good interview. You don't have to dig anything out of that kid.

It seems to me from how these players answer the questions about 4 hour practices, playing a different position, the intensity, etc. that if the guys hesitate for one second, they are going to end up miles behind the other guys. 

Hope Chase ends up doing great things here. He definitely brings the right attitude.

 

I want to be in the trenches or in the Apache helicopter this camp, you know, shooting the machine guns.

Wolfman

August 7th, 2015 at 2:21 PM ^

at some point during his career. I remembered watching his h.s. film and loved his intensity and his knack at reading the blocking scheme of his opponent and knowing where he would meet the path of least resistance and then acting on it.  It resulted in numerous offensive plays by the opposition just being blown up before they had a chance to materialize.

I do not question JH in any matter related to football.  There is a very real chance that he can take this ability to find the soft spot in opposing secondaries as well. I love his attitude about learning by just watching those w/more experience at the position. It also speaks well in regard to Butt and why he was able to separate from the others vying for the same position. This kid is a winner. 

riverrat

August 7th, 2015 at 6:00 PM ^

This is all fascinating to me, and speaks to one of the things fueling my mancrush on HARBAUGH. He's taken the disciplinarian/pushpushpushpushpush style of Bo and updated it.  The coaches on here know way more about this than I do, but it seems as if this coaching staff has added the need for discipline and driving the team to be better but made that part of a larger effort to be a true team. It also feels as if these coaches (and they can speak to it, since so many of them played and/or coached in the NFL) are in an odd way sympathetic to what the players are going through, even as they push them past the point of being comfortable. It's a combination of this-is-what-it-takes and we-will-get-you-there-even-if-you-think-it-will-kill-you that seems fresh...

 

aManNamedBrady

August 7th, 2015 at 6:50 PM ^

I'm beginning to suspect that all these kids absorbing Harbaugh's stream-of-conciousness metaphors are beginning to synthesize new ones. Putting one's self into an Apache attack helicopter in camp could have come out of the mouth of the Master Himself....and I suspect player interviews are going to be much more entertaining over the years.

cegovotof

August 8th, 2015 at 2:53 PM ^

    just before I looked at the check which said $7694 , I didnt believe that my brother actually bringing in money part time on there computar. . there dads buddy haz done this less than 9 months and resantly cleard the mortgage on there house and bought a new Mazda MX-5 . you could check here

 
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MChem83

August 11th, 2015 at 6:34 AM ^

If he might start getting some looks back at LB, now that McCray is out of action for the forseeable future.  Not necessarily a huge need for this year, (though we are a little more vulnerable to injuries now), but we'll need guys to be ready to step in next year, and it doesn't sound like McCray is going to get much actual game time for quite a while.