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COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF SEMIFINAL AT THE CAPITAL ONE ORANGE BOWL: CLEMSON VS OKLAHOMA

December 27, 2015

Zack Sanchez

Miami Gardens, Florida

Q. First of all, the obvious question, how nice is it to be here and prepare for a National Championship run?
ZACK SANCHEZ: It's real nice. Miami is a beautiful place. Just getting in yesterday, just what we saw yesterday, it's a nice city. Getting to practice yesterday was good, and it's been a good first day.

Q. You're considered sort of a gambler, go for a lot of interceptions. Have you always been that way?
ZACK SANCHEZ: Yeah, I think it's something I've always been. I always wanted to make a play for the team. That gets me in trouble sometimes.

Q. How do you decide, make the decision? Is it before a play? Is it in the middle of a play?
ZACK SANCHEZ: It's a split-second decision, man. I'm either all in or all out. Just kind of go as how I feel throughout the game. But it's more of a in-the-moment thing than kind of just guessing or anything like that.

Q. It doesn't sound like you get your butt in a sling too often, but Bob Stoops yesterday said they like the way you play and said we know how to cover up in case a disaster happens, but we like it when we get the ball back?
ZACK SANCHEZ: Yeah, definitely, and the last three games obviously were a struggle with the injury I had. But to be back full speed now, I'm just excited to get out there and be able to make plays again.

Q. What's the difference between this time this year and this time last year?
ZACK SANCHEZ: We're just better. Up and down we're just better. Chemistry is better as a team. Guys are more mature. Guys are focused, dialed in, so I think it's something we lacked throughout the season last year. We're just a better team than we were a year ago.

Q. (Inaudible.)
ZACK SANCHEZ: Coach Stoops isn't that much different. I think he kind of has to adjust with the team that he has each year, and with this team I don't think he's had to do too much. We're just a lot of self-motivated guys. He does a good job of getting us prepared and things like that. But when it comes down to it, we're the ones out there playing and we've got to play, and he understands that. It hasn't been too much different from Coach Stoops. He has the same expectations every year.

Q. Back to your playing style (inaudible) you tell him not to take that gambling style from your game. Why is that?
ZACK SANCHEZ: Just because he's such a disciplined player, and I think it would be bad for his game for him to do that. But J.T. is going to make plays regardless. He's another instinctive guy, too, so he has a knack for getting the ball. Other than that, his game is damned near perfect. I want him to be more aggressive at times, but at the end of the day I want him to play his game and not try to do everything that I did. Obviously to be his own coordinator, he's done it this past year, and he's been great.

Q. Did the leadership this year find a way to get the team together?
ZACK SANCHEZ: Yeah, we definitely did.

Q. In what way?
ZACK SANCHEZ: We had a team meeting the first day we were back, and some -- the leadership group we had already installed some rules and regulations that we were going to go with throughout the spring and just change the culture in the locker room because it was getting bad. It wasn't who this program was or who we wanted to be as the older guys on the team.

We just came up with different rules and disciplinary things that we were going to do, and it wasn't going to come from the coaches, it was going to come from the guys in the locker room and the guys took hold of that and were all in about it. Accountability was a big thing for everybody, and we just went in that direction and it's been good for us ever since.

Q. You said that something was going bad. What was it?
ZACK SANCHEZ: Just the culture, man. It was a little selfish a year ago, and it came from the older guys, and that's not something that the younger guys need to be seeing. We made that a big part for us, that that wasn't going to be a thing. Everybody was going to be all in. It was going to be about the team and not about one person.

Q. Once you guys found a way to get together, did that help you stay together throughout the SAEs?
ZACK SANCHEZ: Oh, definitely. You never think something like that could happen, you don't expect anything like that to happen. You just know it does, but not to the magnitude it happened at our school, and I think it brought us that much closer together as a team. You know, it's obviously helped us get to this point we're at right now.

Q. It did help you, though, you think?
ZACK SANCHEZ: Definitely. Team chemistry helps in any sport. If you're not clicking on all cylinders, you can't win.

Q. Was it hard to stay together right in that moment?
ZACK SANCHEZ: No. You know, obviously guys come from different walks of life, but everybody put down their own beliefs for the betterment of the team and what the leadership thought, so that was huge for us.

Q. (Inaudible.)
ZACK SANCHEZ: Just class stuff, missing class, missing workouts, missing breakfast checks and dinners and things of that sort, weren't going to be tolerated by anybody. If I was missing dinner I was in there doing punishment. That was just the biggest thing is guys weren't going to be like, well, I can miss this, it's all right. I can show up late to a workout and it's all right. That was just kind of the culture we had gotten into and we needed to get away from.

Q. What was the player-led punishment?
ZACK SANCHEZ: It was just different stuff in the weight room, whether it be running or different exercises that weren't comfortable or weren't fun.

Q. Last year at this time there were a lot of rumors about Mike Stoops' future. Can you talk about the work he's put in?
ZACK SANCHEZ: Coach Mike is a hard worker, man. People can say what they want. A lot of people don't even know half the stuff they talk about football. They see one bad game and think they're experts. But he's been doing it for a long time. Coach Mike is not going anywhere. He's won at a lot of places. He's won a tremendous amount of big games, and you have one bad season and people think all hell has broke loose, and it's just dumb. Half the people don't even know what they're talking about. But Coach Mike is the same guy. He works just as hard as he did last year, but at the end of the day it's just us playing better as a defense. Coaches take a lot of heat for the bad play that we put on the field. Ultimately we take accountability for a lot of that stuff, and especially myself personally. I don't like anybody being talked about on my defense or my coach or myself. We don't take that lightly, and it's just a bunch of people that hide behind a computer and talk and don't really know the game.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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