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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYSJuly 21, 2010Mark IngramHOOVER, ALABAMA THE MODERATOR: For Alabama, we have Mark Ingram. Mark, if you could give us an opening statement on the upcoming season, then we will take questions for the audience. MARK INGRAM: First of all, I'd like to say I'm glad to be here speaking with you guys. It's been a rough off-season. We've been working hard every single day out in this heat. We're coming off of a very successful year last year, but we're really looking forward to this upcoming year, getting ready to play San Jose State first game and taking it one game from there. THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Can you talk about the expectation level? Florida had it last year coming off a national championship. Can you talk about dealing with being the target on your backs all year? MARK INGRAM: We know that we have bullseyes on our back, teams that want to knock us off. They're going to bring their best week in and week out. We're focused on ourselves, bettering ourselves as a team, individually and collectively as a unit every single day. We can't be focused on what other teams are doing. We can only control what we do as a team. That's what our main focus is on, becoming a better team each and every day and giving ourselves a chance to win each Saturday. Q. After the kind of year you had last year, what kinds of things have you done this off-season to work on? MARK INGRAM: I've done a lot. I've been working hard. I've been critiquing myself. Been watching a lot of film. Working on drills to better my feet. Trying to become smart in the film room, more aware what the defenses are doing, what our offense does in certain circumstances. Been working on pass protection. Just different techniques to better my game in every aspect. Q. A lot of guys are taking out insurance on themselves as they look forward to their professional careers. Have you done so? Can you tell me, if you've done so, how you made that decision? MARK INGRAM: I did take out an insurance policy. It was just a decision me and my family made. We thought it was a good thing to do, a good investment to make. Me and my family thought it was a good idea, so that's what we did. Q. After winning the Heisman Trophy last year, winning it two times in a row, is that a personal goal of yours? Is that something you're looking forward to accomplishing? MARK INGRAM: Of course, that would be great. It's not my main focus. My main focus right now is to better myself as a player each and every day, become the best player I can be for my football team, make the best out of what I can do, put myself in the best position where I can make a lot of plays so I can help our team win games. In that way, I'll be successful to myself. Not just winning the Heisman Trophy will determine whether I'm successful or not. Q. Each of the last few seasons, the LSU-Alabama game has been close. Can you talk about your feelings on that rivalry? MARK INGRAM: That game has been tough every single year. The first year we went into double overtime. Last year we went into crunch time. Julio made a big play to help us win that game. That is a game I look forward to every single year, just going to their place. We're going back to their place. I'm a competitor. I love going there. One of the best atmospheres to play in in college football. They play tough. They play hard-nosed football. We play tough and hard-nosed football. They have great athletes. We have great athletes. Every year it's going to be a great game, great competition, and a game I look forward to. Q. Considering what you did last year, did you ask anybody what it takes to make the cover of the Alabama media guide? MARK INGRAM: I just know if you play good and make a lot of plays, you have a good shot of being on the media guide (laughter). Q. The two guys that came with you today. What is it like in practice going against Dont'a Hightower and what it's like playing with Greg McElroy? MARK INGRAM: Dont'a is a beast, he's a man out there. He's big, strong, fast. He can run from sideline to sideline. He can pass-rush. He can cover. He's a complete package as far as a linebacker goes. He's smart. He's a great leader. You can't ask for much more from a teammate. I'm glad he's on my team and I'm not going against him all the time. Greg, he's a great leader on our team. He's a great game manager. He keeps the huddle calm, keeps everybody intact, settled down. He makes great decisions as far as the game goes. He's a great quarterback. I'm glad to be playing in the same huddle with him. Q. Mark, Trent Richardson has gotten an awful lot of publicity about being a great back, possibly being your equal. How much does it push you to have a guy like that behind you? MARK INGRAM: We compete every single day. He makes me better. I make him better. It's just nothing but an advantage to our team just to have a 1-2 punch like that. Because when I'm in there, I'm fresh, he comes in, he's fresh, we're both making plays, both being explosive. It's nothing but an advantage to our team. He pushes me, I push him. We both get better by it. He's great. He's like a little brother to me. Q. It's said when you lost to Florida a year ago, the next day, you began motivating yourself to win that game. Was that one of the motivating factors for you and the runningbacks who broke so many tackles against Florida? Do you keep up with Tim Tebow since your Heisman? MARK INGRAM: The motivation to break all those tackles, run hard, make plays, wasn't just because we lost to them. That was our motivation to beat them. Each and every game we play, even in practice, we try to never let the first man bring us down. We try to make it rough on the defense, to punish 'em all the way from the first run to the last run to wear 'em down. That's our goal as runners. We want to make big plays. We never want to let the first man break us down. That's why we take pride. You always have to contact and break tackles. Me and Tim have kept up our relationship. I just talked to him last week. He's doing great out there at the Broncos. He likes it. He's just a great guy to know. Q. Inside the walls and inside the gates at Alabama, who are the leaders on this team? List a couple guys that are leaders that people don't recognize. Give me a breakout young player that you think really caught your eye early on that we might see a lot from this year. MARK INGRAM: The leaders on the team, we have lots of leaders. Greg McElroy, Dont'a Hightower, Julio, Marcell. We just have several leaders on the team that have been stepping up and taking leadership roles, been real vocal during summer workouts. A lot of the young players have been doing great. We have three young receivers right now, Keiwone, Malone, White, a receiver from Texas, and a guy from Macon, Georgia. I think those three are going to be real great receivers when they step foot on the field. Kirkpatrick has been doing great. BJ Scott has been doing a good job out there. So we just have a lot of young players that have been stepping up, showing that they can play, they can contribute to the team when we need them to. Q. Who are your closest friends on the team? How do you rank friendship among teammates as an important part of success? Do teammates have to be friends or is that something that kind of comes and goes with guys? MARK INGRAM: I think one thing with our team is we're not really -- it's not really cliqued up. It's not really you have a group of guys here, a group of guys here, a group of guys here. I think everybody involves themselves with each other. Everybody gets along well. That leads to the field where we just all click because we all hang out off the field and all get along with each other. We think of each other as family. That's how our organization is. We think we're a family. That leads to how we play on the field. We all have each other's back. We all going to go to war with the guy next to us, fight with the guy next to us. When we step on the field, we got to play the football game, you know, the next person has our back because we're with them all the time. My closest friends on the team. I have several teams. I'm close with Robby Green, Julio Jones, Trent Richardson, just a lot of the guys. We're all real good friends. I just can't name a whole bunch of 'em because we're all really close. Q. Talk about Greg McElroy, how he progressed from last year? What is different about him? Is he a different leader, quarterback? MARK INGRAM: He's just a lot more confident. He knows a lot more about the game. He managed the game real well. He's just a great leader out there. He's real calm. He's been a vocal leader out there. He motivates the young guys to be the best they can be. He's been doing a great job so far. Q. Obviously you were leader on the field last year winning the Heisman Trophy. What sort of things do you feel you need to motivate the young people that weren't a part of the championship season last year? What sort of things are you going to do to try to motivate them and teach them to be champions? MARK INGRAM: Just show 'em how to work every single day, show 'em how to study film, show 'em what it takes to be a champion. They're going to respond to what they see. All the older players that were part of the championship team, we're going to have to lead by example, show them how to work, show them how to be champions. That's what we've been trying to do this whole summer, workouts. When practice starts, we're going to show them how to practice like champions as well. In every aspect, as far as not only on the field, but off the field, going to class, getting a good education. They have to be a complete package if they want to be successful on the field. Q. I imagine, since winning the Heisman, you've become more recognizable. Has your life changed off the field? MARK INGRAM: Definitely. Everywhere I go, people recognize me. They meet me, want to take pictures. That's exciting. Something you dream of as a kid. Having kids come up to you, you're a role model for them, they want to grow up like you are, it's humbling, a blessing. I'm excited I can impact a younger person's life like that. That's real special to me, real touching to me. Q. It is a different team that you'll have on the field this year. Do you feel this is a team that it's an opportunity to repeat national champions? It's Alabama's to win or lose as far as a national title? MARK INGRAM: We believe we have the players, the athletes, the mentality we need to give ourselves a chance to play for a national championship again and win it again. I think we have a lot of our players coming back on offense. But on defense, we lost a lot. We have a lot of young guys that step up and they're play-makers, get to the ball, make a lot of plays. They're fast and explosive. They do a lot of great things on that side of the ball. I think they can be better. It's a matter of everybody individually getting better, then us improving as a unit, gelling as a unit, to give ourselves the best opportunity to win each game each Saturday one game at a time. Hopefully that will lead us to a national championship again. Q. There's been a lot of talk about agents. How do you recognize, Hey, this guy may be a runner? How much of that have you gotten and how do you deal with it? MARK INGRAM: We have a great program in our organization that teaches us how to deal with situations like that. Everybody is educated on how to deal with situations and approach those situations. My main focus right now is on this football team and this football season. So anything else is irrelevant to me. I really don't pay any attention to anything else but whatever it takes to become a better player individually and help this team win games. Q. Do you hear a lot of those kind of things, though? MARK INGRAM: You hear things like that, but I don't pay attention to it at all. Q. Going back to last year, nobody expected the pistol offense to be implemented into the game plan. How did you like running the pistol offense and do you think it personally benefited you? MARK INGRAM: It was just a different look to give our offense, just different formation to get in, run different plays out of. I think it was real beneficial to us. We started using it a lot towards the end of the year. It became a successful formation for us. We gave a lot of different plays, a lot of different looks out of it. I think it was successful. Hopefully we can continue that success and keep building on it. Q. How hard has it been since winning the Heisman to be accommodating to people who want to take a picture, but you have to be wary of what they really want. Is this an agent or a runner of an agent? Are you more worried than you used to be because your profile went up immensely? MARK INGRAM: I'm just more aware. I just try and feel things out, watch things. I just try and be polite and treat people how I want to be treated. When somebody asks me for a picture, as long as there's not 40 or 50 people behind them asking for pictures, I'll take a picture, sign an autograph. Just try to learn how to handle the situations as you go. Q. You're the type of runner that gets a lot of yards after contact. Is that something you pride yourself on? How do you work on that? MARK INGRAM: Yards after contact I think is a mental thing, not letting the first man bring you down, trying to get as many yards as you can, try and make a play when your team needs the play. You just need to make a play for them. It's something mental. I don't think it's something you can work on. You can work on getting your knees up, pad level low. When it comes to game time, it's your willingness, your desire to keep getting extra guys, keep fighting, try and make a play for the team. Q. Last year both as a team and personally you accomplished pretty much everything you possibly could. Going into this year, mentally, now that you know what you had to do to reach the top, does that make it easier because you know what to do or tougher because you know what you had to go through to reach the top last year? MARK INGRAM: It's never gonna be easy. But we know what it takes to get back to that point and win the championship. We know what we did, how hard we worked. But now we're working even harder. We got to keep pushing ourselves harder because we have a bullseye on our back. Every team is going to give us their best shot when they play us. I'm sure we're circled on everybody's schedule this year. We're not worried about anybody else but ourselves, trying to get better, put ourselves in the best position to win each game each Saturday and take it one game at a time. THE MODERATOR: Mark, thank you. End of FastScripts |
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