Previously: Jim Harbaugh, Kyle Kalis, Brian Cole, Chase Winovich, Drake Harris,Jabrill Peppers, Royce Jenkins-Stone, Willie Henry, Jourdan Lewis, Wyatt Shallman

[Eric Upchurch/MGoBlog]

James Ross III should find more playing time in 2015 as an inside and outside linebacker as opposed to 2014, when he was almost exclusively a SAM. He talked about this as well as what else we can expect from the defense this fall in our one-on-one interview.

First of all, what were you working on this summer?

“Well, we did a lot of individual practice as far as with the linebackers and then 7-on-7, stuff like that. Just more understanding of the defense, understanding my role and what I’m going to be playing, and how to attack that.”

And what do you know about your role going into fall camp? How is it different and how is it similar?

“Last year I was pretty much just at one area. I was playing SAM and I didn’t play much more than that, so this year I will be playing inside and outside because my freshman and sophomore year that’s what I was more accustomed to is inside. So I will be playing both this year.”

Is that just going to depend on the personnel you’re facing week-to-week or is that intended to mix looks on defense and keep your opponent guessing?

“We’ve got a lot of stuff going on as far as our defense. We run multiple so we’ve got a couple different defenses we can throw at them. Also, just like you say personnel and things of that nature.”

When you say run multiple, what are some of the things that we can expect to see this season?

“You know, I’m pretty sure Coach Durkin’s talked about running 3-4 and things like that. Just running multiple defenses, different looks, things like that. Different ways of attacking things and making it tough for opposing offenses to play us.”

Who is someone who you’ve seen in practice who you think could have a breakout year this year?

“It’s tough to say. All I know is in the spring and the offseason a lot of people were putting in a lot of work. I feel like as a team as a whole everybody’s made a significant jump in what they can do and that’s why I’m excited for the first practice tomorrow to see how what we did helped us and contributed.”

I know you’ve only had spring ball and still have all of fall camp ahead, but how have the practices been different since Coach Harbaugh got here?

“Practice when we had Coach Hoke was just real intense, but you feel like when we have Coach Harbaugh it’s- it’s just structured…even though with Coach Hoke everything was structured- periods, squads, everything like that. In the spring one thing is we just had longer practices and it made us pay attention to finishing practice. That was the most important factor. So that’s what we’re planning on doing in these upcoming practices because that was our biggest problem last year was finishing games.”