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TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 25, 2019

Riko Jeffers

Lubbock, Texas

Q. Jordyn Brooks, obviously, a finalist for the Butkus Award. What has it meant for you to be able to play alongside a guy like that? How much has he taught you and help you grow as a player?
RIKO JEFFERS: A lot. Tremendously. Jordyn's, we watch film together all the time. We hang out a lot together. It's just great seeing all the success that he's had this year. It kind of sucks that we haven't been able to do as good as we wanted to. But it's great to be able to see him actually get all of the love that he deserves from all the hard work he puts in and stuff like that.

Q. What have you seen from Devin Duvernay? He does so many different things. What kind of challenges does he give to your defense?
RIKO JEFFERS: Devin Duvernay? Me and Devin went to high school together, so I'm really familiar with Devin. He's a tremendous athlete. I've seen him do some really crazy things at some times. He has tremendous hands and some great speed. And he's just a playmaker, so, I mean, it will be a good challenge for our defense to stop him.

Q. How was he in high school? Did you ever have to, were you guys ever matched up against each other?
RIKO JEFFERS: Yeah, I mean, he's a great competition to have. Sometimes we got some heated practices because we're both very just competitive and stuff like that. But Devin's a really great guy.

Q. Do the linebackers still go out once a week or a couple times a week as a unit, like for dinner and all that and bring Jordyn and some of the other fellows?
RIKO JEFFERS: Yeah. We'll do film together every week. We'll come over to either my house or Jordyn's house or something like that. We'll all get together and have, somebody will cook sometimes. We'll have Taco Tuesday or something like that.

Q. Will this be the last one with Jordyn this week?
RIKO JEFFERS: Yeah, sadly, it will.

Q. For you, you guys have faced plenty of dual-threat quarterbacks, but what makes Sam Ehlinger different?
RIKO JEFFERS: He's good at running. He tucks the ball and he'll try to get as many yards as he can. And then he's pretty accurate with throwing. So it's not -- it's just this conference there is a lot of great dual-threat quarterbacks and it's just a great challenge to play against them on Saturdays.

Q. Seems like he's a guy who likes contact. You as a linebacker, do you like kind of smile whenever you get a quarterback who wants contact?
RIKO JEFFERS: Yeah, I mean we'll see who is really the toughest, who is really about it, you know what I'm saying? But it's great for guys to have tough mentalities like that with this sport that we play in.

Q. What would a win this weekend, this Friday mean for you?
RIKO JEFFERS: It would mean a lot. We have had a lot of tough losses, but we still have a common goal and we still know that we can do better and represent the double T better. So I mean it will pretty much propel us into next year and get everybody on the right mind track of knowing that we can compete and we can play with everybody. We just have to go out there and it to our best abilities.

Q. Is there anything added because it's Texas this week?
RIKO JEFFERS: Yeah, for sure. I mean a lot of guys wanted to go to Texas and stuff like that and get overlooked by Texas and things like that. And Texas is always the big school supposedly, but so it would mean a lot to be able to go to Austin and be able to get a road win again because we haven't had three road wins in a row in Austin.

Q. Did you have any recruiting interaction with Texas?
RIKO JEFFERS: Not very much. I went on, like, an unofficial visit, but not very much.

Q. What have you thought of Xavier's development this year?
RIKO JEFFERS: I mean, I think he's progressed every week. He continues to get better and continues to get in his book and study film, so he doesn't make as many errors as the beginning. But that's really through everybody, everybody should progress throughout the season that way. I think he has some really good talent and it will be good for us next year.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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