[Fuller]

Things Discussed

• Chase Winovich doesn't think he's played his best game yet
• Winovich on the reason behind his sack celebration
• Some Fortnite talk
• Ben Mason is that dude
• David Long on that tweet

[After THE JUMP: Quotes, mostly]

 

Chase Winovich

 

Is that the most you’ve ever been double-teamed?

 

“Yeah, I love the smoke. And it’s a great opportunity for my fellow defensive linemen. Kwity Paye really stepped up. Josh Uche, great game as well. And that’s the great thing, it’s like, about our defense, that’s one difference between this year and last year, is that we got guys — you know how Rashan (Gary) unfortunately went down and had a shoulder problem — other people stepped up. And the attention kinda shifted away from him and maybe a little bit more onto me, somebody else was there to make plays. And ultimately, we got the W.”

 

…

 

Do you feel like you’re playing at a different level?

 

“I feel like I’m definitely playing better than some of my best football, but I still feel like I haven’t played my best football. I’m still, I’m setting myself up for that game where it’s like, this is Chase Winovich. And I don’t think I’ve played that game yet. I think it’s coming.”

 

What’s the game look like?

 

“What’s the game look like? The way I see it in my head, if I look at it from a numbers standpoint, I would look at it and say, multiple sacks. Just from a grading out percentage, from a pass rush point of view, I’d say, just simply unblockable. That game where it’s just like, no matter what they did, no matter how many people they put on me, in my head, that’s what I’m chasing. So it’s like, whenever I come out and have a good game, a lot of people tell me how great it was and stuff, it’s just, in my head, I need to be better. I want to be a shark in a game full of guppies.”

 

How long have you been thinking about this game? Do you dream about it? How long has it been on your mind?

 

“That game?”

 

Yeah

 

“You’re always in pursuit of it. It’s not just one game, it’s the thing about having success, is sometimes success can hurt you way more than a loss ever could. And, so, I’m sure the coaches here do a great job of making sure we stay humble and we stay working. Just, I focus on trying to get there and stay at that level. And I think we’re ascending, with the help of the coaches, including the training staff, everyone else involved.”

 

…

 

Should I know what you’re doing with your hands, when you’re celebrating?

 

“Oh yeah, my friend Kate, she’s in the hospital in Chicago. And my other friend, Matt Thompson, had reached out to me and relayed this message that she’s a big Michigan fan. I think he asked me to send her something, and I said, ‘I’m gonna actually be in Chicago for Big Ten Media Day, I got something better.’ So I worked it out with the mom and I was just like, ‘I would love to swing by and take a visit.’ So I ended up visiting her and her family in the hospital, and just sat down with them for probably 20-30 minutes. And just hearing her story, it was amazing. A fellow Michigan student, just how much passion she had for the school, especially our football program, all the smack talk she did to all the other nurses and stuff. It was just — everything about it just inspired me, and I left with not only a great appreciation for not only life, but just the mission that this team was on. And I knew we were playing at Northwestern, she probably wasn’t gonna be able to go, but I knew I wanted to do something to help make it special. So I threw up the crown, which her mom helped me with. Which is, her sorority at Michigan, Zeta, that’s their sign. And for me, it’s like, it means nothing to throw up something after a sack, but I knew it meant a lot to her and I wanted to make it special.”

 

Did you talk to her after the game?

 

“I did, yeah. I talked to her at her home.”

…

 

How’s she doing?

 

“... She took a bad turn about a month ago and things weren’t looking very good, but thankfully, she’s coming back, and things are actually looking a lot brighter now. And so her trajectory is looking better. And hopefully she just stays on that road.”

 

…

 

Chase, I’m sure you’re locked in on the moment, but continuing to prove yourself as an NFL prospect, how much do you think about that, how do you feel you are doing on that road?

 

“It’s always on my mind. But it’s just one of those things where, in the pecking order of things to do, it’s relatively — it’s somewhere in the middle. I wouldn’t say it’s like, everything else has to take care of itself, and then that is kinda like — you get so caught up in — if you’re an archer, coach Harbaugh talks about this, if you’re an archer and you’re trying to hit the target, you’re thinking about the gold prize. All of the sudden, you’re thinking about the gold prize and not the target you’re trying to hit. For me it’s, I try to go out there and be the best football player I can every day in practice and on the field on Saturday, and be the best teammate. And whatever that yields is what it yields. It looks — the trajectory, what I’ve heard and gathered from people, is that the trajectory is ascending pretty quickly. So I’m just trying to do my part to make sure it stays that way.”

 

…

 

What’s it like rooming with Shea (Patterson)? You guys do anything fun? I mean, he said you play a lot of Fortnite.

 

“There’s been a lot of rumors about my inability to play Fortnite. I don’t know how —”

 

He said you weren’t that good. He said you play a lot but you’re not the best

 

“Yeah, he said I play the most. I’d like to say, he definitely plays more Fortnite than I do. Alright, like, not even close. I dabble in the game. When it comes to Fortnite, I am more of the quarterback, by the way. He’s more of a defensive end, I’d say. Just hides in the back and I go out and kill everybody. But, yeah, so we can both go and talk some smack. Anyways, what was your question?”

 

(Everyone laughs)

 

“What’s it like to room with Shea?”

 

Yes

 

“Shea is great. He just cracks me up. He’s very, just the way he operates, I don’t want to give away too much of his persona and personality. You guys can do that for yourselves. But he’s not malicious in everything he does. He’ll just go out there and if there’s some garlic bread there, he’ll just dabble in it, enjoy it. It’s not malicious, he just is funny. It cracks me up.”

 

Garlic bread?

 

“It’s a joke, because I had Noodles and Company the other night. He had gone out there, there’s garlic bread there, so he’s eating the garlic bread and put it back in the bag. And so I walk out, I’m like, ‘They didn’t give me any garlic bread.’ And then I was like, ‘Had to be Shea,’ cause he’s the only one there. But he just — he cracks me up. He’s a great friend and great teammate. He’s always, he’s not on Fortnite, he’s looking over film, we’re always talking about just, what our offense and defense looks like. We’re always focused on the task at hand.”

 

 

[Marc-Gregor Campredon]

Stephen Spanellis

 

Where has the line made its biggest strides over the past three or four weeks?

 

“I think we’re just playing physical, and you can tell. I think we’re consistent, and that’s big as well, as an offensive line. I think you started to have certain plays that we do very well. And just, I think as a playcaller, that’s a good feeling where you have a set of plays that, you know if you call them, they’re gonna work.”

 

Have you started to see some things grow off of those base sets? … Is that expanding now? Can you guys see that happening weekly?

 

“Oh yeah, we’re definitely expanding the playbook. And what it is, it’s like, we have the base plays and you have different ways of running the same kinds of plays. So, you disguise the play and the defense has never seen it run out of that set. Or maybe you run a set that you always run a particular play out of and you’re like, ‘Whoa, let’s run a different play. See how that works.’ ”

 

…

 

From what you saw — it looked like a switch was flipped in the second quarter. What was different from the guys up front from the second quarter on in Saturday’s performance?

 

“It’s hard to say. I don’t think that — I don’t know that necessarily something happened with the guys up front. I think we, as an offense, figured out what types of plays that we need to run. And maybe the plays that we were calling at the beginning of the game, for whatever reason, their gameplan was working against them. And we made some adjustments. We adjusted our playcalls a little bit and we found a few plays that we really liked, and worked. And they weren’t necessarily plays that we thought — we took a while, we found the plays that were gonna work. We just kinda pounded them, and once you find a few plays that work, it kinda opens up the offense. You start going back to some of the old plays and maybe some play-action passes and so on.”

 

…

 

Does Ben Mason — do you kinda look at him as one of you guys? The way he’s physical and the way he plays?

 

“Oh, I was just confused by, ‘one of you.’ You mean like, as an offensive lineman?”

 

Yeah, not really. But just as a blocker and that physical presence.”

 

“I don’t think Ben Mason’s like anyone. That man is one of a kind, truly unique. And you can just see it in his eyes, that he just wants to shove his face into somebody else’s face, at full-speed. He doesn’t really have any — he doesn’t have any reservations about throwing his body on the line, he really wants to. Which is kind of rare. I can’t say necessarily that I have no reservations, but I think he kind of has the potential to be like a Brandon Jacobs-esque kind of player for us, if we end up using him as a running back more. But also, he’s just the greatest blocker. He’s probably the best fullback in the country, I would imagine. Not that I’ve scouted all the fullbacks, but he’s just — he’s big, he’s athletic, he can run. He’s smart. He knows the plays. He cares a lot about football. He’s basically everything you look for in a fullback.”

 

[Barron]

David Long

 

David, you had some words for people on social media. Talk a little bit about how hard it is to wade through that crap.

 

“You gotta put your head down and stay in the foxhole. Like coach (Don) Brown said, nobody knows what we go through here, so you gotta keep it at that. Just keep working.”

 

Was there anything in particular that spurred that response?

 

“Nothing in particular.”

 

Just general criticism?

 

“Yeah.”

 

You guys do have the #1 defense in the nation. That does put things in perspective, doesn’t it?

 

“Yeah, we still trying to just be the best that we can, fix everything from last week.”

 

To what do you attribute the slow start last week?

 

“I can’t put my finger on it. Credit to them, they came out hunting. We just made adjustments, got back in there and competed. Fought our tails off to get back in the game and ultimately win it.”

 

Looked like early on they ran a lot of quick slant patterns, stuff like that. What is the key to stopping that stuff?

 

“Just same thing, just lock in. Lock in. Get our feet under ourselves and just focus. Take the coaching, make the adjustments and go in there and do what we know we need to do.”

 

…

 

How long did it take you to get comfortable with the mentality you described earlier, you’re by yourself (in man coverage), have to move on after something happens. How long did it take you to really get comfortable with something like that?

 

“I can’t pinpoint it, but just experience in practice, in games and situations where you’re critical. It’s one things to do it in practice, but a situation in a game, put that memory and experience in your back pocket so that you can do better the next time. It’s critical.”

 

…

 

Going back to your tweet, why did you feel the need to put that out there?

 

“Just people don’t know what we got through here. So, they should just leave it at that and let us work and let us do what we do.”