So how is it replacing David Long?

“David Long, tough player to replace.”

Don said coming in that he was sort of worried about where the secondary would be but then Ambry [Thomas] came along—

“Ambry’s come along, Vincent Gray’s come along, Jaylen Kelly-Powell’s come along. You can’t count out Gemon Green. So, we’ve got some—guys have been working extremely hard and doing really well and then, you know, we’ve got DJ coming in this summer, so it’ll be interesting.”

MGoLOLThoughtIWasTheOnlyOneWhoWouldAskAboutGrayAndI’dSlowPlayItAllCoolButLookTheThirdQuestionIs What’s different about Vincent this year from last year?

“He’s just comfortable. He’s very comfortable. He’s a very naturally talented, gifted guy. So he knows the system now and now he’s just going out there and playing, he’s not thinking. It’s really a beautiful thing.”

Does the new offense give more of a challenge for your guys?

“Yeah, it’s great for us, really. The RPO deal, we love it. You’ve just got to be very disciplined on the backend. The linebackers got to be disciplined. I think it’s gonna help us tremendously going forward for sure.”

Has anything surprised you about the group so far?

“Well, I guess you could say I’m pleasantly happy that Vincent has come along, that Jaylen Kelly-Powell has come along, and that Ambry is just—the sky’s limit with that guy. He’s really had a great spring, so happy for those guys and certainly happy for us as a defense that they’re playing well.”

Where has Ambry made the most improvement from this time last year?

“Well, I think in his technique, in places at the line of scrimmage, and the fact that he knows that he has an opportunity to start, he’s really embraced that role and he’s becoming a leader. He’s becoming a leader in our room. He’s been great all around.”

Does it sometimes hold someone back when they know it’s going to be tough to break into that group? Like last year Ambry clearly wasn’t going to be a starter.

“Right. Well now, see, that’s the great thing about it: they see that there’s light, they see that there’s a opportunity, they see that there’s competition for the other spots that are open so I think it’s helped everybody along the way get better. Definitely.”

[After THE JUMP: on Lavert, who's at nickel, the act of enrolling early, and the Ohio State game]

A little more understanding about Lavert [Hill] this spring than you were last?

“Oh yeah, shoot, man, he’s great. He’s been awesome. He has been excellent in the classroom. A real leader in there for us. He’s on the board quite a bit. He’s vocal when guys aren’t doing the right things in the room, so yeah, he’s locked in, ready to go.”

Is Hawkins still the guy at nickel?

“Yeah, B-Hawk’s there. He’ll just drop right down in there, which is fine because he’s handled it very well. He’s added great value to our back end. He’s made us better. He’s having a great spring, Brad Hawkins.”

You mentioned Jaylen Kelly-Powell. Is he a corner now?

“Yeah, he’s at corner. He’s at corner and working at nickel, too, him and Brad. He’s really slowed things down in his mind and he’s having a great spring. He’s really competing. He’s making great plays on the football and enjoy having him in the room, for sure.”

I think you mentioned Vincent Gray during bowl prep. When did you first start seeing strides from him last year?

“Well, I really didn’t to be very honest. You just watch him move, physically he has—he’s a very gifted guy, and you just watch his movements and you’re like, ‘Wow.’ Now he’s putting it all together with his play. It’s pretty impressive. I mean, the sky’s the limit for that kid.”

You didn’t mention Myles Sims. What’s he got to do to get in there?

“Yeah, Myles, he’s just got to be more consistent. He put together a couple nice practices and then he just kind of—just got to stay and get better every day. He’s got the skillset. He has it. He’s just got to get consistent.”

What have been your early impressions of Jalen Perry?

“Jalen? Young. I keep telling myself—hitting myself on the head because he should be at the prom, you know? He’s here with us now. He’s gifted, he’s got the skillset, but he’s still in high school. He’s got a little ways to go catching up, understanding the speed of the game, the technique that we use. Yeah, he’s a gifted athlete. In high school, you just go out and you can cover a guy most of the time. Here it’s not that way, and he’s just got to learn our way or man-on-man.”

What’s the advantage of having a guy like that enroll early instead of coming in in the fall?

“Well, I mean, he’s getting all this under his belt now so he’ll walk in in the fall, he won’t have to go through the Bridge process for school and hopefully with his mind—he’s a very bright kid—he’ll retain all this and just be able to walk in and have it under his belt and feel very com—feel a little more comfortable than he did walking in here raw, green as hell. Now at least he’s got this system under his belt and know what he’s getting into in the fall.”

What’s that conversation like when a guy’s trying to decide whether to enroll early?

“Well, you know, being a father of two Division I players, the father and mother don’t want them to go. But as a coach [laughs], it’s a beautiful thing. It’s a valuable thing because they walk into things, they’re not running into it so they’re walking into school, they’re walking into weightlifting and winter conditioning, then they get into spring ball, so it’s not piled on all at once. So it’s a nice progression, whereas when you get these guys that come in in the fall, it’s difficult. School right out of the gate, now you’re trying to compete for a job, and it’s not an easy task. So that would be the conversation. And I get it as a parent, and I get it as a coach.”

Ambry says he’s the fastest guy on the team, maybe the fastest—

“He thinks he’s the fastest guy in the NCAA!”

Yeah, he does.

“He’s fast.”

He is fast. One of the guys said early on in the spring that sometimes speed can be a problem in man.

“Well, it can be. If he doesn’t know how to control it it absolutely can be, because our guys are taught to stay below a lot of the routes and once a route gets vertical you don’t want to slip into sixth gear right away and that can be a problem because then you’re above it and then you get all the underneath routes and that’s where you get into trouble. So yeah, it could be a problem but for him it’s not because he understands it. That’s helpful.”

Has he learned some more control and that sort of stuff this spring?

“I think Ambry started coming on at the end of last year. Really do. Probably middle to the end of last year he started figuring it out. Started figuring out his body, started figuring out what he can and can’t do and started really understanding our technique, so that was helpful for him.”

I think last year you had a solid group of three with Lavert, David, and Brandon Watson. Do you feel like you have that this year?

“Absolutely. I think Lavert, Vincent Gray, and Ambry are very solid. Then you add to the mix JKP, Jaylen Kelly-Powell, you feel pretty good about things. You really do.”

Has it been business as usual in terms of scheme and teaching and everything else? Are you guys doing anything tweaked this year?

“No, it’s business as usual for sure.”

Josh Gattis played defensive back in college and said that that’s helped shape how he constructs an offense and knows how to attack a defense. Do you see that in the way this offense is running?

“Yeah, well, RPOs are meant to do that. They put you in a run-pass conflict and if you’re not disciplined, like we talked about earlier, that absolutely can happen. So he’s got some good schemes and he’s got some really good quarterback runs against our man stuff where really the quarterback isn’t accounted for. You got to have him accounted by our gap discipline, so he’s got some nice schemes in there. He really does. He’s doing a great job. Good guy, too.”

Did Lavert talk to you at all before he decided to come back? Did you have discussions with him, and what was your reaction when he decided?

“Well, I was very happy but no, we did not have a discussion. We didn’t. We were all very excited he was coming back. Good move for him.”

What do you expect from him in his final season?

“I mean, I think he’s just gonna be lights out and he’s gonna pick up where he left off. I really do. I think he sees what his future could be and he sees what he can do to help this team win a Big Ten championship so he’s all in. He’s all about the team. He’s been great.”

Lot of growth from him the last two-and-a-half years, would you say?

“Oh, tremendous growth. Yep, big time.”

Don came in here, I’m sure you read the comments. He said those last few games, particularly Ohio State, were pretty devastating for him. When you look at that game film do you sit down and wonder how did this team do what they did to you and how do you fix that?

“Well, it’s more—like Don, it lingered on for me for a while because it’s not—and I give all the credit in the world to Ohio State, but what we didn’t do, what we should have done on things we work on every single day of the week that we didn’t do, that we didn’t execute, and that’s the thing that stuck in my craw is we didn’t execute, and if we would have executed a completion wouldn’t have been a touchdown, it would have been a completion, tackle. Completion, tackle. So those were the very frustrating things for me was execution on those couple plays that turned into big plays for Ohio State.”

So you felt like your gameplan was equipped to handle that?

“Oh, 100%, absolutely equipped. Just didn’t execute.”

Why do you think they didn’t execute?

“I have no idea. If I knew that, they would have executed. I wish I knew.” [laughs]

A lot of the criticism coming out of that game had a pretty sizeable faction of people calling to go to more zone. Why is man still the way the—

“Well, the way we play our man, we have built-in protection modes, I guess you could say, because of all the rubs and picks. So yeah, zone takes care of it right away but in some of our man schemes we do have that zone principle involved, some checks involved, so it’s all there. It’s just execution.”

What have you seen from the safeties on the back end?

“Like I said earlier, I think Brad Hawkins has had a hell of a spring. I think Josh Metellus has taken a leadership role. He’s doing a hell of a job covering the back end, communicating on the back end. I think J’Marick Woods is gonna have some opportunities for some jobs out there. Tough kid. He’s getting a real good feel of the defense. So those guys are coming along really well.”

Which receivers gave your group the toughest time this spring?

“Well, you know, unfortunately they were a little nicked up but Mikey, little Mikey Sainristil, he’s the guy. He’s having a hell of spring. He’s fun to watch, he’s fun to cover, and he’s hard to cover but he’s pretty electric.”

He’s a guy who was a cornerback in high school—

“Yeah, we’re still trying to steal him! [laughs] But being where we are with the receivers he’s best there, for sure.”

What makes him so good?

“Well, first of all, he’s very athletic, he’s very quick, and he’s fast. And when he touches the ball he’s just got this magic. I mean, I’ve watched his highlight film from high school I think seven, eight times. It’s just fun to watch. Defensively he’s a little jitter bug. He’s out there, boom, boom, boom. But when he gets the ball in his hands, he just goes and he finds ways to break tackles, he finds ways to gain yards and score touchdowns. He’ll be exciting for us.”

You played some cornerback way back when.

“Ohhhh yeah.”

When you watch the offense, how are these quarterbacks—Shea and Dylan and Joe—adapting to this offense?

“I think pretty good, I really do. I think they all got a pretty good feel for it.”

Does Shea seem to—

“Shea’s been great. I think he’s been a really good leader off the field. I think Dylan has been too. It’s an interesting competition. It really is. It’s fun. It’s fun to watch because as we all know, it brings out the best in all of us, so it can only help. It’s been good.”