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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 30, 2009

Joe Haden

THE MODERATOR: We'll have Florida with us from right now until 12:30 Central, where we will have Alabama join us. We do have the Florida student-athletes with us. We'll be speaking with Tim Tebow, Joe Haden and Carlos Dunlap.
Joe, could you give us your thoughts on the upcoming championship game against Alabama?
JOE HADEN: I think it's going to be a really good game; two very strong defenses and two good offenses. I think it's going to be a really good game. We've got our guys. They've got their guys. It's going to be a really good game.
THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. I was wondering if you could kind of compare your defense with Alabama's: Are there things you do similarly, and are there big differences with what you do or the personnel?
JOE HADEN: I know they have a really good defense, as far as their stats. But their personnel, they've got their middle linebacker Rolando. Spikes. I think those two do a really good job in the middle.
Arenas, he does a good job blitzing. Terrence Cody on the D line. They have good players all around. Terrence Cody for the pass, and Rolando for the run. And we've got Carlos and Spikes and myself and Janoris. Just all around really good athletes all over the place. And they can play man coverage all over. And they have a lot of people in the box.

Q. And from what you've seen of Greg McElroy, tell me a little bit about facing him and the challenges there and also with Julio Jones and how much will you be matched up on Julio?
JOE HADEN: Julio, I think he likes the boundary, the short side of the field more often. I play boundary corner. So whenever he lines up to the short side I'll be lined up against him. Whenever he lines up to the field, he'll be lined up against Janoris. And Julio, he's a really big, strong guy. Pretty fast. What I'm going to do is try to get my hands on him, throw off the timing. Stuff like that and the same thing with Janoris, get my hands on him, try to throw off his timing and try to keep him off a little bit.

Q. I wanted to ask you about Ryan Stamper and what he means to your offense.
JOE HADEN: Coach always says he's one of the most consistent players on the entire team. Whatever you ask him to do he'll do it. Great tackler. He knows the game. He's not so fast. But on the field he looks fast. He anticipates stuff. He knows what's going to happen before it does, you can get a jump on it. He's been a leader, whole defense, he doesn't just know what his position is; he makes all the checks. If we have certain checks, certain offenses, he makes all the calls and he just really kind will do exactly what's going on out there.

Q. Coach Meyer said yesterday he was voted the team captain before he even started the game. That's a pretty big statement about somebody. What is it about him that makes him such a good leader?
JOE HADEN: He's like a coach on the field. Even if he wasn't out there on the field he's still making calls to everybody, just talking to us while we're out on the field. When the 1s used to be out there, he was on the 2s. He's on the sidelines making calls for the 1s. Stuff like that. He never complained.
He never made any -- just always was positive about the whole thing, even if he felt like he should have started you would never know it. All the young linebackers he helped them out, Jelani and Bostic, showing them the ropes, teaching them things. Everybody looked at him like a leader, like a captain.

Q. Could you talk about the importance of this game as it pertains to this season? You guys have been -- all season long the expectation has been that this is a team that is projected to win not only SEC and national title, and now you're here basically to achieve those goals. It basically comes down to this game.
JOE HADEN: It definitely does. We had a plan to go to the SEC Championship. That's the whole goal. That's the mindset for the whole team. Coach said, if you set yourself on going undefeated, he tried to keep that away from us. If you lose a game, then was the season a failure. He didn't want that to be the case. Now we're all sitting here undefeated. SEC Championship, we win this, we go on to the national championship.
So basically this is the game. So everybody is just getting real focused. And today defense comes in at 2:00 watch film together. And we want to treat this week like a championship week.

Q. Could you talk a little bit about how the last two years you and Alabama have distanced yourself from the rest of the league? I think you're 31-1 in regular season games between the two of you and one losses by a point. Do you think that will continue to go on?
JOE HADEN: I think they have a really straight, good strong program. We have a good program. And just the players on the team, they're just winners.
You've got people -- when you watch Alabama play, it looks like they're playing for each other, too. Like the way we play for each other. We don't just play for individual stats. We don't just play for ourselves.
We play for our teammates, because you could tell that if you really care about your teammates, makes you go that much harder for them. I don't know how Alabama is doing it, but looks like they really care about each other, too, the way they play, all the passion and emotion.

Q. And both these teams are ranked in the top eight, I think it is, in every defensive category. Does that put more pressure on you as a defense that you know that the other defense is probably going to play pretty well, too?
JOE HADEN: Not really. Not as much. It just makes -- you know, you can control what you can control. And our defense, we feel like we go out there and we play like we play. Our play will speak for itself. We know Tim and the boys are going to get the offense straight.
We feel when we go out there, we'll have to play defense how we've always been playing. And Tim and the boys will get it done on the offense. As long as we do what we've been doing, we should be okay.

Q. Can you just talk about the challenges that McElroy presents to your defense?
JOE HADEN: Well, actually as far as McElroy, I haven't really watched him too much. I've just been watching -- I've been having individual clips of Julio. So today is going to be the first day, about 2:00, is when I'll be able to watch him. I haven't seen too much. I've just been watching Julio, honestly. I'm sorry.

Q. The offense, though, in general, do you see some similarities between your offense this season and what Alabama's been able to accomplish?
JOE HADEN: In a different way, yes, because they have a power running back with Trent Richardson. With their running game, definitely.
We have a different way of doing it like with the scat backs and with Tebow and him running the ball like that. But establishing the running game is definitely a big similarity between our offense and their offense. They might do it in a different way as far as just power and power, the power game. But we do it in a different way.

Q. I know you returned a whole lot, pretty much all your starters on defense from last year. In what respects has the defense gotten better or changed this year versus what you had last year?
JOE HADEN: I feel it's a little bit as far as the cornerback position, I can speak of, I feel we've gotten better as a secondary. Might not have had as many interceptions. But as far as they haven't had too many big plays on us. We've been preventing the big play. And nobody's really thrown the ball too much on us. So I feel that's one thing.
Last year we definitely stopped the run really well. We had a whole lot of sacks. Defensive line and linebackers, they kept it up, increased a little bit, getting more pressure and getting a lot of hits on the quarterback and linebackers stopping all the runs.
And the biggest thing that we improved on was the secondary and stopping the big plays and not letting them pass the ball on us as much at all.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

End of FastScripts

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