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UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 21, 2017

Drue Tranquill

South Bend, Indiana

Q. What's it like facing Stanford, and what kind of opponent are they each and every year?
DRUE TRANQUILL: It's a great game, a rivalry game, a game I think we all look forward to, especially being the last game of the season and us getting a chance to go play at their home where we haven't won since '04 or '07, I believe, so a great opportunity and a great challenge, and guys are excited.

Q. What's the biggest challenge the defense faces obviously with Bryce Love being such a talented back? What makes him a special player?
DRUE TRANQUILL: Yeah, he's obviously an incredible player, gets a lot of attention, and it's well-deserved. He's dynamic, great vision, and brings a lot to the table in terms of what he can do at the running back position. We'll have to contain him and be aware. They've got a lot of other playmakers, as well, and got a quarterback that can get the ball to those guys.

Q. What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving?
DRUE TRANQUILL: Oh, I could go on and on down the list, but as I was journalling this morning actually -- obviously I'm thankful for everyone in this building and my family and my Lord and savior Jesus Christ, but I was thinking in particular, I'm really thankful for my grandfather. We call him "Big Daddy" in our family, but whether it was my travel baseball -- he moved in with us probably about 12 years ago to kind of help my parents taking all our kids to all their sporting events and stuff, and he was always the one taking me to my baseball tournaments, staying in hotels with me, and taking me around everywhere, so I'm really thankful for him and just the investment he gave to help me pursue my dreams.

Q. Last week you guys were on the field a considerable amount of time. How did you come out of that game physically? How are you feeling about going to Stanford, a different kind of a running attack that you'll be running against, and talk a little bit about what you know about Love's backup, Scarlett?
DRUE TRANQUILL: Yeah, on the field for over 40 minutes last week. Definitely felt that after the game, but was able to get some good treatment on Sunday, so I feel good heading into this week, feel really good heading into practice today. Was definitely fatigue in the fourth quarter, more so than I think other games, having been on the field so long, but that's expected when you're on the field 40 minutes against a team like Navy who's going to show sustained grit and show sustained effort throughout the course of the game. Great opponent, great challenge, and then happy to come out with a victory.

I got to watch his backup a little bit last week when he came out of the game in the third quarter. Seems to be a physical back, downhill runner, a good one-cut guy, can make you miss, and physical. I think he embodies what Stanford tries to be about, and that's tough, pro-style football, and that's being efficient, keeping the ball away from their opponent, and playing tough. He seemed to do that from what I saw.

Q. Coach Kelly was in here a little while ago just talking more about Bryce Love, and I wondered if you could give just specific examples of what you've seen on film, why he is so difficult to defend. He was talking about how he breaks that first tackle and his elite speed.
DRUE TRANQUILL: Yeah, he's hard to bring down. He's a guy that you have to swarm tackle. He can make guys miss in the open field. I think you see a lot of the traits that Christian McCaffrey had in him, his ability to get out in open space, quick laterally, and also explosive up and down the field with his speed. So we'll have to contain him and do a good job of having an eye on him at all times in order to eliminate explosive plays.

Q. How does Stanford's offense change from Chris to Costello at quarterback?
DRUE TRANQUILL: I don't know, I haven't checked out too much film on him and before how it was, but I know Stanford will present a challenge in that they're more of a pro-style offense. We haven't faced a pro-style offense this year necessarily, and so we'll obviously have some different adjustments for that. But they've got playmakers all over the field, and so we'll have to defend them like any other week.

Q. I was curious as the season comes to an end some of the younger linebackers in your meeting room, who has maybe impressed you or guys that you look and say, this guy has got a really bright future here even if he hasn't been on the field yet this season?
DRUE TRANQUILL: Yeah, I think a guy we look to right away is Jamir Jones. He's almost 6'5" and just long, lean. He's getting the understanding of the defense and playing fast, so he's a guy when you have a guy like that in your arsenal, he's a weapon, and he can probably play for us right now. He just continues to grow and continues to take what Coach Lee says, and Coach Lee always talks about the steady application of the small advantage, and each and every day Jamir seems to come out and work and work to get better, so I've admired that about him.

Q. Last year about this time, Brian Kelly was trying to put together a template, and he didn't want just a comeback year in 2017, he wanted something that was sustainable beyond that. I'm curious as a player do you see those kind of things that are sustainable in the new model, and if so, what kind of jumps out at you?
DRUE TRANQUILL: I would say just -- obviously we can talk about the weight room culture all day, and I think when you spend nearly 70 percent of your time with those coaches and with your physical and technical development, I think that's key to having a sustainable model in terms of a culture of a winning football team. I think if you look at teams who have been successful, that's kind of where they've started. This idea of a dominant culture where guys enjoy coming in and playing football, and it's not necessarily feeling like a job. I think if you look at what coach Dabo Swinney has done at Clemson, all the juice those guys have in their workouts and everything, I think that's something we've been able to do here this year, and it's helped us be successful, and I think it'll continue to help us be successful.

Q. With Coach Kelly, just his job status being in the spotlight all off-season and going into this fall, I'm curious as a player, are you insulated from that, or can you get a sense of what makes the Notre Dame job such a tough job for a coach?
DRUE TRANQUILL: Yeah, I mean, we all have our spots, right, in the program, and I've got to focus on being the best player. Obviously when you're having a down season like last year, I think guys are aware of all the talk that's going on. But when you have a program like Notre Dame with such rich tradition, I can only imagine the pressure it is to be the CEO and the head coach of this football team. There's pressure on him from each and every single. We're having the incredible season we do and we have a bad performance against Miami and all of a sudden everyone is looking to fire Brian Kelly. I can't imagine the pressure he goes through on a day-to-day basis, and I admire him for what he's done, the people he's put in place for us to succeed and help us become the best men we can be.

Q. You mentioned journaling and you've mentioned that before. When did you start doing that, and what do you think you get out of that process?
DRUE TRANQUILL: I'd say I consistently started journaling probably freshman year heading into college consistently. I did it a little bit in high school, and I kind of got it from like my small group time. It's something I do in my quiet time when I'm reading the word, sometimes just self-reflecting and evaluating myself. I really think it's great to be able to look back at especially some of the harder times in my time here, whether it was my injuries, and look kind of what my mental state was, how I was on a day-to-day basis and how I was able to bounce back from things. Any time I encounter difficulty I can go back and see how I handled it and handle it in a similar way.

Q. How often do you do that?
DRUE TRANQUILL: Journaling? Every day.

Q. And then I'm just curious, obviously you're still in the course of the season, but what do you think as a captain, as a senior, what do you think this season means to you now and what do you think it will mean to you when you look back on it?
DRUE TRANQUILL: I mean, it means a lot. I don't know that I'm in a state of reflection yet to really understand how much it means to me because we've got to beat Stanford this week, and that's our mindset, and that's my mindset. I think after this game we'll have obviously a little time to reflect on the season it has been. But it means a lot to be in the position we are now. We weren't in that position last year, and so to be able to bounce back my senior year and just see the guys buy into something special and make it something special and work so hard for something, we've been going to this thing now 11 months, and it seems like it's flown by, but when you really sit back and think about it, it was a lot of hard work, and when you start counting on your hands the number of tough workouts, the number of grueling team runs, the number of times where you just wanted to fall over and curl up in a ball, it really makes you respect the work we've put in to get to this point.

Q. Obviously you guys are 9-2 and the fans will look and say this is a special season, but when did you know, okay, what's happening here is special?
DRUE TRANQUILL: I'd have to say sometime in summer conditioning, just the workouts we were going through with -- in the weight room, transitioning right out to the field and just the grueling workouts and the guys coming consistently on a day-in-and-day-out basis, and there seemed to be no lag in guys and no desire to quit, and there was just a resolve that I saw amongst the guys that was special, and I saw an offense who was explosive and was going to score points, and I saw a defense who was buying around their new defensive coordinator and coming together. I don't think I understood how special our defense was going to be, and then suddenly we were just playing out of our shoes and Coach Elko has just been incredible and our position coaches have been great. Probably sometime during the summer.

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