We’re just days away from the season opener against SEMO and defensive coordinator Joe Klanderman met with the media Thursday.
Take a look below to see what he had to say.
On his eagerness to see new pieces of the defense…
“It’s going to be an interesting deal, and it’s going to be a work in progress for several weeks, I would guess. We’ve got an interesting mixture of guys that have played a lot of football and I feel really comfortable with, and other guys are going to have pretty big key roles, probably bigger as time goes on that we haven’t seen yet or don’t know very much about. Seeing all those guys respond to the lights is going to be big thing.”
On Asa Newsom’s position on the depth chart…
“Well for starters, he’s physically very mature and very ready. He came in as a kid that had weight, he had length, he was really well-developed body wise, and had good body control, unusual body control for a young guy. When you couple that with the fact he’s got a really high IQ. He’s being taught some things that he’s never heard before, believe me, but he’s got a great capacity for learning. When he makes mistakes, he rarely makes repeated mistakes. I think that as that continues to build and his experience and amount of snaps continues to grow, he’s just going to get better and better. He’ll be a big, big factor toward the end of the year.”
On trying to get ahead early against SEMO to try to play younger players…
“I’m not banking on that at all. We haven’t talked about that at all. You bet, SEMO’s a good football team, in particular offensively. They are explosive on offense. They put up yards and points on people. Coaching at that level, I just know how they’re going to approach this game, when they get a chance to play a Power 5 opponent. So, not something that we’ve really even discussed as a staff at all.”
On how Austin Moore is progressing…
“As much as a machine can progress. He’s uploading the new software, and he continues on. He’s incredible. Talk about one of the steadiest guys I have ever been around. He doesn’t have a bad day, doesn’t have a bad period, he just continues to go. I think he really gives a lot of strength. You talk about Asa Newsom, some of those guys – Austin Romaine, some of the younger linebackers –just the steadying presence of Austin is phenomenal for them.”
On how defense can go from good to great…
“I’m hoping that we become a much better tackling team. I thought we tackled well at the first part of last year, and I thought at the end of the season that wasn’t the case. You look at the Alabama game and you look at some of the later games, we weren’t a good tackling team. I think that really put us in some advantageous third downs early in the season, and at the end of the year, it was a whole bunch more 3rd and 2s, 3rd and 1s that could have easily been 3rd and 7s and 3rd and 8s. With young guys, that concerns me. That’s something that we don’t do a lot of live stuff with. That’s not a Coach’s philosophy. We’ll do it occasionally. We’ll do it a couple of times, but it’s not like we’re doing it every day. Just the speed of the game, I think those guys just have to trust that they’re good football players and they were brought here for a reason, some of those guys that haven’t done it. I’m certain that will improve as the year goes on.”
