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COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF SEMIFINAL AT THE CAPITAL ONE ORANGE BOWL: CLEMSON VS OKLAHOMADecember 27, 2015Zack SanchezAhmad ThomasDominique AlexanderMike StoopsCharles TapperMiami 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. Q. Talk about playing in this type of game. AHMAD THOMAS: It's nothing new to me. I've played big games all my life. Ever since I was in Little League I played semifinals, Super Bowl games, and now I played state games, and I'm back in the Orange Bowl. Like me being from Miami, that's a dream, because you know, everybody from Miami wants to play in the Orange Bowl game. I just want to make the best of it and come out with a win. Q. What's the demand been like from your family or friends for tickets or time? AHMAD THOMAS: Man, like I told the interviewers back in Oklahoma, I woke up, because we didn't know what bowl game we was playing in, I woke up and I had 120 messages from people I never even heard of, from friends I didn't even know I had. I need two tickets, I need three tickets. I'm like, oh, man. It's kind of frustrating, but I'm looking for tickets for people that I know and people that matter. Q. How many did you wind up getting? AHMAD THOMAS: 16 right now. I've got more coming, but Q. From your teammates? AHMAD THOMAS: Yeah, I need at least 40, for all my cousins and all my friends and all my ex teammates out at college that are going to come down. I show some love to them, because like one of my friends plays for Purdue and another one plays for Syracuse, but all my other friends play for Florida State, Florida, stuff like that. When I come down they're not here because they've got bowl games, too, so I just show love to people that need it. Q. You talked about playing in big games before. Besides this, what's the biggest game you've played in? AHMAD THOMAS: Ooh, every year, OU Texas, OU vs. OSU. Man, those are huge games. And I didn't even know nothing about those games because I'm a Miami kid, so I never really knew about OU like that until my mama wanted me to leave out of Miami. We didn't know these games are huge, man. And then we played Tennessee at their place, and there was 110,000. I've played a lot of big games. And my freshman year we played Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. It's big games and opportunities are out there for everybody to get seen. I've played in a lot of big games as soon as I got in college, and before I went in college. Q. What about in Miami? AHMAD THOMAS: In college or? Q. In high school or before. AHMAD THOMAS: In high school, ever since my team in high school, I went to state in 10th grade, 11th grade, 12th grade, and those were all big games and I played a role in all of those games. I know how it feels to win and I know how it feels to lose. So when I got to college and we won the Big 12 and we won the Sugar Bowl, I knew how it felt to win, so I knew what it really took to win, too. Q. Have you ever played a game in this stadium? AHMAD THOMAS: Yeah, in high school I played Booker T and I played Northwestern. Q. Did you win? AHMAD THOMAS: We won, yeah. Q. Is that a pretty cool experience playing in a big stadium like that at the time? AHMAD THOMAS: Yeah, it is, and it's so ironic because when we played Clemson last year, every year we played our state game in high school there. Ever year we played our state game there. Q. Have you talked to your ex coaches at Central? AHMAD THOMAS: Yeah, every time I come home I talk to my coaches. Even when I'm not home I talk to my coaches because they're the reason I'm at where I'm at. Q. Tell us about the journey, going from here to now two, three years later, what it's taken to get to this point for you, what that was like for you? AHMAD THOMAS: I had to be wise, because you know, Miami, there's a lot of things you can get into, a lot of wrong decisions you can make. I'm not saying I made all the right decisions because I didn't, but I made good decisions more than I made bad decisions. I listened to people. People thought I wasn't listening to them, but I was. But when you're young, you want to do what you want to do, and I did what I had to do to get out of here because if I didn't really want to play football I could have been in the streets. A lot of my friends didn't play football. I built a lot of friendships and then I started surrounding myself with the right people, and I started listening to them. I started listening to my mama. I started listening to my coaches. I started listening to everybody that wanted the best for me. I started listening to everybody that wanted the best for me, and it turned out to be good. It's real hard to raise a kid in Miami because you've got drug dealers on the corner from your house, you've got people robbing people, you've got kids my cousin's husband's friend just got killed in front of his kids. I was seeing that on Facebook. All my friends in elementary school and middle school got killed, and I see that on Facebook when I'm up at Oklahoma, and I'm thinking, I'm looking at that like, I'm glad I left, because I could have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. I couldn't have been doing that in the streets or none of that. I could have been in that wrong place at the wrong time and gotten killed, so that why I'm glad that I left. I'm glad that I met the people that I met when I left, and it's just crazy. It's crazy for everybody in Miami because you never know what's going to happen. Q. Did you always feel like you wanted to go far away when you were picking a college? AHMAD THOMAS: I mean, yeah. When I started listening to my mom, when I started listening to my coaches, I started thinking because I was being called by so many colleges, and I just had to I needed that time to myself to think, and then when I talked to Coach Stoops, I was talking to them for almost a week straight, and that was on top of other colleges, so when I had my downtime when I would think, I was like, man, I need to make up my mind before it's too late. Q. You're going to get asked about, you keep a guy on him the whole time, but I don't know if you can do that in terms of compromising your defense. How do you balance that out? DOMINIQUE ALEXANDER: We've got a lot of athletes, especially at our position at linebacker. For me, we have guys that guys on our defense that we can do what we do and then we'll be able to contain. We necessarily don't have to have one guy on him the whole time because everybody else will do their job and help to contain. Q. Do you think Devante is going to be on the field a lot this game? DOMINIQUE ALEXANDER: Uh huh. He'll be on the field a lot, yes, sir. Q. Is there anyone comparable you guys have faced to Deshaun Watson? DOMINIQUE ALEXANDER: Trevone Boykin. I mean, we didn't face him this year, but the guys that we've had on our defense, we've all played and we have experience so we've seen guys like that over the years. Seeing a guy like Baker being mobile like that and then being able to have a guy like Trevor, practicing against him, being mobile like that, that's something great to see every day at practice, as well. Q. What's the key against a guy like Watson? DOMINIQUE ALEXANDER: You've got to keep him contained. He's up for the Heisman. He's one of the top players in the country. He played for an undefeated team this year. To keep him contained, everybody has got to do their job. We've got to make more plays on him than he does on us. Q. Trevor plays Watson in practice? DOMINIQUE ALEXANDER: Sometimes. We do different things because Trevor is mobile and he can run and he's a great athlete, so from time to time we'll stick him back there just to give us a different look. Q. Outside Deshaun what stands out to you about the Clemson offense? DOMINIQUE ALEXANDER: I like the running back No. 9. He's a great runner. He's a downhill very downhill. Our coaches respect him. We respect him. The receiver, No. 3. They have big play receivers. The O line is good. To me they have a real good complete team. They feed off each other, but No. 4 is definitely the head. Q. You saw some obviously great quarterbacks in your league this year. Did he set that bar kind of above? DOMINIQUE ALEXANDER: Most definitely. He wouldn't be up for the Heisman if he wasn't. He's definitely one of the top quarterbacks in the country. Q. Is it the combination of both that he can do? DOMINIQUE ALEXANDER: Yes, sir. Any time you have a guy who can run and pass, it makes it tough. You look at our quarterback, Baker, that's what makes him so dangerous because you can't keep him in the pocket. If he gets out of the pocket he can extend the play so much he can just make a big play happen, and that's what he's able to do with his feet and his arm. Q. Are they similar at all? DOMINIQUE ALEXANDER: I mean, they have similar games. I think they're both just great competitors and great players. Q. What's changed about you guys' defense from last year? You had a lot of struggles last year and it seems like that's one of the strengths of the team. DOMINIQUE ALEXANDER: Personally I feel as if our defense is just a lot of guys doing their job. We have a lot of guys playing hard. Like I said, going back to Baker, we have a guy like Baker, we see his body on the line every single play when he's on the field. When we're on defense it's hard for us not to go back on the field and do the same and go play hard. When you have 11 guys out there playing hard and doing their job, it's hard not to be successful. Q. Was that not the case last year? DOMINIQUE ALEXANDER: It was just I don't think everybody understood the defense as well as we do now. I think our experience is showing right now, and that's the reason why we're playing the way that we're playing right now. Q. You guys missed out on Trevone this year, playing TCU. A lot of your players say they look to him in terms of what they're going to see. How did facing guys like that in the past prepare you for what you're going to see this week? MIKE STOOPS: Well, I think your scheme has to prepare you for it, too, and then getting your players prepared for what they're going to see. He has a lot of Baker in him, too, in the throwing game, but the design runs are those are a lot of design plays for him. In the scheme you have to make sure it can account for him. The breakdown plays are just athletic plays that he's going to make that any athletic quarterback can make. Just his ability, though, to handle the football, we've got to make sure whatever we're doing, we can account for him. You still can't overplay him because they have so many other great players on the perimeter, too. That's what makes their offense effective. Q. Having veteran linebackers help in this situation? MIKE STOOPS: Yeah, I think it does. I think our whole defense is veteran. There's a lot of Tennessee in what they do. There's a little bit of Texas in what they do. You have to look at games prior and see if that's going to be a part of it. Our scheme limited us probably more so in the Texas game, in the quarterback run game. So you have to have more answers, and you have more time in this preparation to really look at different defenses, see what helps us with the quarterback. Q. Sanchez made a lot of big plays for you. He's also been burned some. Do you like the style of corner he is, a guy that goes for interceptions and takes gambles? MIKE STOOPS: Well, I think Zach has to be calculated in those types of plays. I don't think you can ever be overly aggressive where you put your defense in a bad situation. You know, Zach has been calculated in his ability to try to jump things when it's the right time. But he has to know he still has to play within the confines of the defense and be disciplined. Again, he's an aggressive player. To me a lot of plays were just jump balls in that Okie State game, and just having him healthy is going to help his play, as well. He just has to be patient and not force the game, and that's what he's always done, and not get overly aggressive, because we can't put our defense in that situation. Q. Why has your defensive line been so much better this year and so disruptive? Is it that good secondary play? MIKE STOOPS: It all goes together. These guys Diron has done a great job with those guys. We have just played well as a group. I think that's when you're all levels of our defense have been productive, and that's when you have something that's really good. I don't know if we overwhelm you in any particular place, but we're awfully good at all three levels of our defense, and that's what you need to be successful against the teams that we see kind of week in and week out. That will be the case in this game. You've got to be good up front. You've got to stay on your feet, stay in your lanes, but you've got to be able to give pressure. It sounds or spy the quarterback. It's hard to do every play. You've got to have guys that can get off blocks and stand on their feet and be able to chase the quarterback down. They have to be athletic enough to be able to do that. Q. This is probably oversimplifying it, but the great Oklahoma defenses under Bob have had great defensive lines. Does this fit in there? MIKE STOOPS: Yeah, this is very similar to when you talk about defensive lines, I had Striker and I had Du'Vonta because we play those guys at the line of scrimmage a lot of times. That's what makes us who we are, those two guys, along with the inside three. Those five guys we put there, four, or depending on four and a nickel, those guys are all disruptive players and they're all athletic. They put pressure on the offenses to make plays, too, and that's what's good about this group. We're multiple. We're athletic. We can come from different angles, and that's been good for us. Q. Does this defense kind of relate (inaudible)? MIKE STOOPS: It's a little bit like that group. You have your Striker and maybe Zach, you have your we didn't have a bunch of guys that everybody knew about back in 2000, either. These guys have again, I think our greatest strength has been our whole group. There's been a guy here or a guy there's a guy in every game or two guys in every game, but they're always different when you really look at it. Whether it's Jordan Thomas one game or Zach or Steven Parker or Dom or Striker, Tap comes on. You just need playmakers, and we have a variety of players that can do that, and that's really been our greatest strength has been playing together as a team and being able to execute, and that will be big. There won't be one or two guys in this game. You're going to need the whole group to play well and be able to execute to stop this type of offense. Q. What are some of the biggest differences between your defense this year and last year? MIKE STOOPS: Well, the corner, one cornerback position is different. You've got an all conference player, two of them, at both corner positions, really balance your defense out where you can put more stress on those guys when you feel like you have two guys that can really cover to that extent, help you. I think that has been probably our biggest, and then just our overall execution with our outside linebackers, inside linebackers has been better. We've found some balance in our team in not exposing ourselves a year ago. We were sixth in the run and sixth to the bottom in pass defense. We weren't a real balanced team. This year we just have a better mix, and I think that's just overall scheme knowledge, position on the football and execution with our whole group. Q. What separates Watson and his ability to throw the deep ball? Talk about the kind of stresses that puts on your defense and the challenge of stopping that aspect. MIKE STOOPS: Well, I think he puts stress on you because you have to account for him. You can't every play, but you know that he wants to they want to feature him when they need to. When things aren't going well, that's the one guy that can make a play for them, and then it stresses your defense even more, and you're out there single covered. That's where they're good in getting the ball vertically down the field. They're going to take their shots. They're a shot team. There are four or five times a game where he's going to go vertical and he's going to give his receiver an opportunity to catch the ball. That's where you've got to there's only so much help in a game like this where guys are stressed, and our corners understand that, know when the shots are coming, and try to get yourself in great position. But his ability to get the ball down the field accurately and give his receivers opportunities to make plays is really what makes him an outstanding player. He's dynamic running the ball, but he's a thrower first and foremost. I think he wants to be a thrower, and again, but they still run him aggressively, and that's something we have to account for. Q. Can you put him in context as a prospect? You've obviously played dozens of great quarterbacks over the years. MIKE STOOPS: You know, I don't know. It's hard to say that until you play a guy. I think you have a better understanding. He didn't play a year ago, what kind of upside, where his strengths as much tape as you watch, until you play him, you understand you see the ball come out of his hand, his timing on things. Those are hard decisions to make. But as of right now for a sophomore, I don't know if there's many people better, and to be able to do the things he can do with the football. And his ability looks like he manages the game, understands what they're trying to do, and we'll know more as we try to tweak our defense to see how quickly he's able to see what we're trying to do. Q. When you have two teams that have explosive offenses, when you have a three and out, is that almost like having a turnover? MIKE STOOPS: I never looked at it that way, but yeah, we've got to start counting that as a turnover, a three and out. That would be a new stat (laughing). That doesn't happen very often. It gives you a lot of momentum and it gives you confidence in the game, and that's going to be important in a game like this, trying to keep when they start to find their rhythm and they're hitting things, it puts you on your heels a little bit, so changing our calls up, changing our leverage points, those are all going to be important elements to this game, showing them different looks, different fits. It's going to be a big part of what we're going to try to do in this game to try to give them different things to look at and understand where we're coming from at different times of the game. Q. Given this offense has sort of dominated the game here in recent years, do you as a defensive coordinator assess certain stats differently or what you define a success? MIKE STOOPS: You know, I know when we play good defense and I know when we play bad defense. People can write what they want or look at it statistically. Coaches know what's good and acceptable and what isn't based upon there's a lot of variables that go into that. Again, stats can be misleading in a lot of ways, but we all understand what's acceptable and what isn't and what you're playing against. It carries from week to week and league to league. To compare our league to some other leagues wouldn't be just, either, but again, that's where people just look at statistics. But to me games are it still gets down to match ups. We may match up better with some teams than others, so again, it's different. It's a different era statistically speaking for what we play week in and week out. Q. The Big 12, some of your defenses get a bad rap because of some of the explosive offenses in the league? MIKE STOOPS: Again, I worry about Oklahoma. I'm not worried about the nine other teams in our league. But I know what those nine other defensive coordinators go through week in and week out. I'm not going to defend or help or whatever. I'm responsible for Oklahoma's success and failures defensively. But I certainly understand the stress everyone is under and the type of players it takes to defend these offenses, what you need to be successful. I think it's really difficult if you don't have great players across the board because there is so much stress and people know how to attack those stress points. There's only so much help to go around, so I certainly see what the issues are. But we certainly we have our own standard here, and we understand what that is every time we step on the field and what's acceptable and what isn't acceptable, and certainly a year ago wasn't very acceptable. Q. What kind of an added wrinkle does Jordan Leggett add? MIKE STOOPS: He gives them variety. He gives them a lot of different sets, and they move him around and put him in a lot of different positions to make plays, to be a blocker, to be a receiver, and he gives them multiple he's a very multiple player, so that's what he creates for you, and how are you going to match up. Are you going to play nickel, are you going to play regular? Those are all what they're trying to see, how we're going to play with this guy in the game. That's what he gives you, a very he can play inside and outside. Q. (Inaudible.) MIKE STOOPS: Because there's only so much help you can get out there and these receivers are big and athletic and very good with the football, going to get the ball. They figure that's as good a play as running the ball up the middle, give my receiver a chance over a corner and let him go make a play. Q. It's almost not impossible stuff but you're basically relying on a guy MIKE STOOPS: Exactly, yeah, and every now and then they're going to make some plays, but you have to win the majority of those battles if you want to be successful. Q. Ahmad was talking last year, he said you were very frustrated, and I said what's the difference between last year and this year, and he said you've got a nice girl now. MIKE STOOPS: Right, and I've got a great corner out there, too. (Laughter.) It's more the latter than the (laughing). Q. Is there some serendipity to playing Brent? MIKE STOOPS: I love Brent. He's like a brother to me. When the game starts, we don't even you don't even recognize who you're playing. I could be playing Bob, it really wouldn't matter. I'm just happy for his success professionally. There's no question he was you know, we work well together. Like I said, I miss coming back and him not being there more than anything. You know, again, it's hard to make things right in that situation. I certainly have had a lot of opportunities to go a lot of different places when I left Arizona. I was the most comfortable going back to Oklahoma. It was the best job that I thought of my opportunities, whether it be wherever it was. I have a lot of people, but Oklahoma was a place that I thought you could win a championship, a National Championship, and I was comfortable. I know what to expect with Bob, and I knew what to expect with Brent. If that was different, then that was going to be different. How we were going to work it out, me and Brent talked for a week, and this Clemson deal was too good. People say that me or Bob, that's ludicrous. Brent knew where he stood in his position with Oklahoma and what he did. We complemented each other well, but it just wasn't meant to be. I think it's worked out well for both of us, and I couldn't be more happy for him and his family, and I think Dabo is a great guy to work for, too. It's hard to leave and change is difficult, but he's made a name for himself, and that's important. Q. It's a team game, but how much personal satisfaction do you think Coach Mike Stoops has in the turnaround in the defense from last year to this year? CHARLES TAPPER: I think it's a lot of purpose. I think it's still a team thing. None of us really are bragging about personal achievements. I mean, we didn't even know if Striker won the All American, but we didn't find out that we were all it's not like we were striving for that. That's just something that happened to us being a part of a great defense. I think Coach Mike is the same way. I think he's out there just calling the plays, and just hoping that his I guess you can say his sons or his younger guys are out there making plays. Q. Zach said that a lot of people behind computers write negative stuff about him, Ahmad said he has a new girlfriend. How have you seen Coach Mike's change this year on the field? CHARLES TAPPER: I don't think he's changed at all. He's a passionate guy. He's passionate about what he does. When you're outside looking in, it's kind of crazy that you see him cussing us out, making fun of us, but you've got to understand you've got to take what's coming out of the message. He loves you, and if he wasn't doing it so hard, that means he's not passionate about what he does. Different people do it different ways, but that's just Coach Mike, and we understand that. We understand that we've got to take the message out of what he's trying to say and we've got to understand that he really loves us and he's just passionate about what he does. Q. What approach do you guys take to stop Deshaun Watson? CHARLES TAPPER: We don't really go into this the same way we go against any team in the Big 12 because like in the Big 12 we see those kind of offenses with those kind of quarterbacks all the time. You have Trevone Boykin, you have Baker Mayfield, guys like that you see them all the time, so we didn't really change any game plans, make up any special things because we see those type of mobile quarterbacks. If you're running zone read, which is a hard play to defend, who can scramble at any time, call a QB draw or a QB carry, those are things that are hard to deal with. Q. You mentioned a lot of quarterbacks. Does he remind you of one of the guys that you've faced this year? CHARLES TAPPER: I would definitely say that he's in his own lane. He's really shown that he's in his own lane. He's great at what he does, especially at the sophomore level. The closest guy to him is Baker. I feel like Baker is a little different, but this guy, Deshaun Watson, he's like a running back at the quarterback position. Q. Have you gone against Baker in practice? CHARLES TAPPER: Oh, we've been seeing Baker a lot. When you see Bake it's not fun because you can't tackle him, you can't make those little diving tackles. You've got to try to tag him. So trying to tag Bake is almost impossible because he's so quick, and his shiftiness, it's like, man, come on, let me tag you so we can end this play. He's a competitor, so every play he's trying to win. We've been seeing a lot of him. I know one time I slapped him so hard, I said, man, you're going to feel this slap. Q. When is the first time that he really impressed you, either in practice or a game? CHARLES TAPPER: Oh, last year on scout team when he was destroying us. We had probably the best scout team with him and DGB. It was like dynamite. Those two could go play at any time but they're on scout team. The scout team, we can kind of rough them up a little bit, but it was still hard to rough them up because we couldn't catch them. We were trying our hardest to try to catch him, but he was still shaking us. He was still scrambling around on scout, making amazing plays. Coach Mike was still coaching us up, like tag him. When we saw him on scout team, we knew he was going to be something special. Q. Because of how Deshaun runs you'd call him a running back. Do you put someone like Jordan Evans or Dom on him or do you do something special? CHARLES TAPPER: No, we play him the exact same. We use the front seven to stop him. I mean, we've been stopping the run almost every game, so if he tries to run the ball we're going to apply the pressure and get after him and hit him up a little bit, make him reconsider running that ball. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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