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VIZIO BCS NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: AUBURN v FLORIDA STATEJanuary 3, 2014Devonta FreemanPASADENA, CALIFORNIA THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: I mean, it was hard. He put us in tough situations for a reason, so we could overcome those situations and stuff. When I was growing up in Miami, it was hard. But it's hard out here for a lot more people out here. There are a lot of people that are more less fortunate than I was. I was one of those guys that managed to make it out. I just think there were a lot of rough times I can remember coming up. Q. You don't find that every day. DEVONTA FREEMAN: I was young. I think I was 14, working at a funeral home. I kind of experienced death a lot. Dwight Johnson he was one of the ones that gave me my first job. Helped me to get extra money and help my mom out. I used to carry flowers, carry the casket or something, the poll bearer. Throw the flowers in when they was going under the ground, open the limo for people when they arrived. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: I didn't touch the body. If I wanted to touch a body, I could, but I didn't work on them as much. Q. But they were there? DEVONTA FREEMAN: They was there. I done seen all that, the inside cut up, how they embalmed the body. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: Of course, there were gunshots all the time. You had to be careful, where I grew up from, the projects, Little Haiti, Liberty City. You could be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You never know who was beefing with who, who just have got in argument with somebody. You could just be walking and the gun shot could be just right there. You could get caught up in it at any time. Q. Did you get close? DEVONTA FREEMAN: The gun shots? Yes, a lot of times. I remember one time I was in the projects, we was playing football. Some guy just started shooting there. I should have stayed where I was, but I decided to run to try to get back to my house. The bullets were hitting the wall where I was running at. It missed me. One time I was at this party at Overtown. They just started shooting at the party. People was getting hit. I kept running, but didn't get hit. Q. How old were you when you started playing football and somebody started shooting? DEVONTA FREEMAN: I've been in so many. I remember the one when I was in the O, I was like 14. The one at Overtown, I was like 16. Q. Do you think you were blessed? DEVONTA FREEMAN: Before I got here, I was telling the Lord how thankful I am, how blessed I am. I came from nothing. That's my motivation at the end of the day. I just always thank the Lord. I always know it's the Lord. I keep my trust and faith in Him. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: My brother has been through the same thing I've been through, Teddy Bridgewater, Joseph Yearby, Dalvin Cook, a lot of guys out there been through the same stuff I've been through, came up with me. Same stuff. But you manage to try to make it out. Q. Is it just the way life is? DEVONTA FREEMAN: It's just the way life is. I feel like everything we do is for a reason, God put us in a situation for a reason. We can look back, do something for kids, say, I remember when I had this. Everything is possible. Q. For all the numbers, no one ever talks about you. DEVONTA FREEMAN: That's good. I like not being the big target. We got so many weapons on the team, we could do anything at any moment. To me, anybody can make the play. So that's how I feel about it. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: I've even been going through that in Miami when I was going through high school. I wasn't the best guy in my city. I was just one of the hardest workers in my city. Talk about Teddy Bridgewater or Charles Gaines, something like that. It didn't bother me. It's based on who you like. You can't get mad at it. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: I feel like I can do it all. I'm unselfish, great heart, tough, physical, consistency. I think that's one of the main reasons. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: It means a lot, especially to do something that hasn't been done. Q. He's old. DEVONTA FREEMAN: That's what I'm saying. It would be great to get it. But if I don't get it, and we win the national championship, that's great, too. Q. Do you know how many you need in this game? DEVONTA FREEMAN: No. I've just been so focused. Yesterday when I seen that crystal ball, I want that bad. I haven't been looking at my stats at all. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: Yeah, I mean, I would do cutting grasses, raking the yards or something just to keep money in my pocket. I worked at a car wash, too. I just liked keeping money in my pocket. Q. There's a lot of ways to make money. DEVONTA FREEMAN: There's a lot of ways to make money. Q. Bad ways, too. How did you manage to stay away from that? DEVONTA FREEMAN: I didn't want to go to jail. There were a lot of people I was close to, lost them to jail. I saw the time they got. When they went in there, nobody was there for them. I didn't want to do that. Even when I was young, I was keeping people out of jail, trying to work hard. I didn't want to go that route. If somebody would give me some work. Luke, I asked him, Can I get some work? He was like, he was one of the ones that said he would give me work anytime, but he wasn't going to give it to me for free. So he would always make me wash the walls, pick up limbs out of his yard, wash the car, things like that, just to keep money in my pocket. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: I mean, like $120 was good money to me. Q. To me, too. DEVONTA FREEMAN: I was like 14, 15. Q. For picking up the yard? DEVONTA FREEMAN: Yes. I would go in like any neighborhood, not just the inner city neighborhoods. I would go anywhere. Q. What do you think made the difference of you staying on this side of the road rather than going on the dark side, other stuff that might have ended up being trouble? DEVONTA FREEMAN: The difference? I just didn't want to do it. I saw my mama struggle. I saw her smile. That would give me strength when I saw her smile. I just wanted others to smile. She was just proud of me when I bring in a little food into the house, so give her money and stuff like that. Q. Can you imagine looking at her face and saying, Mom, I got arrested? DEVONTA FREEMAN: I couldn't imagine doing that. It would break her heart, yeah. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: I think I was like six, seven years old. I always wanted a football. My mom got me a football and a baseball and baseball bat for Christmas every year. Ever since then, I had that drive for football. I just seen what it mean and how it can help you. I started loving it more. I've been loving football since I was like seven, though. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: Yeah. It's been my dream since I've been playing football. I'm always going to think about it. Q. Does that mean you go? DEVONTA FREEMAN: I haven't made a decision yet on nothing. I just want to win a championship. That's my whole thing. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: I'd just be lost for words. I don't know. I don't know how I'd feel. I've been winning on every level, but I've never won on the collegiate level. Q. This Auburn defense has been giving up a lot of yards on the ground. What do you think of it going into a game like this? You guys have put up so many points facing a defense like this. DEVONTA FREEMAN: I feel they don't mess up a lot. They don't make a lot of mental mistakes and stuff like that. Sometimes they may get out of place. Sometimes they may miss tackles. They do a lot of great things with they defense. And the offense, the offensive linemen messing them up and all stuff like that. They do a lot of things. We going to have to (indiscernible) that will solve a lot of problems. Q. They wear teams down, allow four points a game. What have you noticed about that? Who sticks out? DEVONTA FREEMAN: One of my brothers, Cadillac Williams, Number 27. We grew up in the same neighborhood. He's a very good player. I think he's their best player. They got a lot of good players on this team. I think he's the best player, stuff like that. Q. Is that a concern for you guys, knowing they give up a lot of points, but when they get in the fourth quarter, they find a way to win? What are they doing? DEVONTA FREEMAN: I just feel like it's all about teams finishing in the fourth quarter. You can't play 40, 45 minutes. You have to play the whole 60 minutes in one game. I feel like that's what we do real good. We just finish. We take it one play at a time. I think we're going to be able to handle it. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: It means a lot to me. It's starting to hit me now, now that it's like three days away for the game. It feels good to be part of our brotherlyhood. Great bonds. Q. The resurgence, can you talk about that as the freshmen class, Let's be the ones? DEVONTA FREEMAN: I remember when I first got recruited. I was young, but I remember telling coach, Before I leave, I want to get a championship. We going to get one. We're going to work hard, do whatever it take to get a championship. I came in before the other freshmens. I enrolled in college. All of us, I remember us talking about it, last year we didn't get it. This year we took one day at a time, that's January. Now we hit January again. It's been a whole year we've been talking about it. Q. Talking about it three years ago, slowly churned, got here. DEVONTA FREEMAN: At first we didn't understand what coach meant, Being consistent. We were just young guys. Anything that can happen at any moment. We didn't understand it. Well, I didn't understand it.  I think a lot of guys didn't buy into what he was saying. This year, he made a way to make all the guys buy in. We decided to take it one day at a time, try to be more consistent than anybody else. Q. Is there a lot of pride being part of that class? DEVONTA FREEMAN: Yes. Q. You said your cousin was No.27. DEVONTA FREEMAN: That's not my cousin. We kind of grew up in the same neighborhood. He's a good friend of mine named Cadillac Williams, plays the strong nickel for Auburn. Q. What do you know about him? DEVONTA FREEMAN: He's a strong hitter. Play with a lot of heart. Q. Did he hang out with you at all? DEVONTA FREEMAN: Yeah, I hung out with him a lot before. Our first football team, we played for that same park. Q. Youth league? DEVONTA FREEMAN: Yeah, the youth league. Q. Can you talk about your childhood? Was it just you and your mom? DEVONTA FREEMAN: It was me alone with five others. The oldest is seven now. We just had a newborn. The newborn wasn't born back then. It was me and five others with my grandma and one of my cousins. Q. In a house? And apartment? DEVONTA FREEMAN: We stayed in the projects. Was a five‑bedroom townhouse. Q. You had it better than a lot of people with five rooms. DEVONTA FREEMAN: Yeah. But it was a rough neighborhood. That's for sure. Q. Tell me more about that neighborhood. Were there fights? DEVONTA FREEMAN: I guarantee you, you turn on First 48, right now, you will find that place year‑round, throughout the whole year. It's just dangerous, man. Got a lot of guys that's out there, don't want what they sell. A lot of guys get caught in the streets. A lot of guys go to school, went out to the streets. I went to school, went to practice, went home, went to sleep. Q. (Question regarding the NFL and making a contribution to kids.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: I want to start a foundation. I just want to give back to the kids about my life story, get great people to come talk to them, people that came up like I came up in rough neighborhoods, hard times, that these kids know anything is possible. All you have to do is go out there and make it, anything is possible. Q. Would you be as tough as you are now or where you came from made you as tough as what you are? DEVONTA FREEMAN: I don't know. I feel like if I was the same person I am right now, I feel like I'd be the same person. But I want to know probably how the struggle would feel, from always getting treated like a baby at home, coming to college, I wouldn't probably be as tough, knowing how to take coach, run as hard as I do. I probably wouldn't know what any of that stuff means. Q. Seems like you're a product of where you grew up. DEVONTA FREEMAN: Toughness came with that. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: I mean, I did actually, but not as hard as he did. My coach, he coached real hard, but not as hard as Trickett. Trickett going to get it out of you. If you going to be a baby, you ain't going to be a baby too long. He's going to bring it out of you quick. A lot of guys can't deal with it. I feel like you have to take coaching. That's the difference between a boy and a man. I feel like the guys that cannot take coaching is the guys that fall off, basically. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: Not really. Not as hard as the offensive lineman. That is his job, to worry about the offensive linemen. You got to make this read, make that read. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: Yeah, all day. All day. He always getting after them. Our coaches stay after us because they want us to be consistent, not to take this game or anything for granted in life. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: It was really hard for Bobby. Bobby was starting freshman year. Started freshman year, came back next year and didn't start, same for me. We told each other, Man, just work hard. I knew that was God testing us to work hard. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: Yeah, I slowed down a lot. When you going to break that thousand yards? I'm going to work hard. I'm going to try to break it this year. Q. Did you feel it was within reach going through your career? DEVONTA FREEMAN: Yeah. He always gave me his number if I wanted to talk about anything, call him. I called him up. He always give me good words and advice. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: You got to put the numbers aside. You can't be selfish. It could be a game where you could get five carries. It could be a game where you get 10 carries. But there's so many good players on this team, we all got to share the ball. There's only one ball. Q. (Question regarding Carlos.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: Yeah, I already knew he's the fastest ones we got. I just knew his athletic ability, he could play any position on the field. He know how to get to the end zone. That's all you need, yeah. He do a great job at finding the end zone, making good reads and stuff. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: I look at all the runningbacks that gets a lot of carries and stuff like that. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: I mean, I would like that. I get a hundred yards off 10 carries, I'm good with that (laughter). Q. The friendly rivalry between the team between classes, what is that like within the team? DEVONTA FREEMAN: We always just argue about that, but it's friendly arguments. There's a competition out there and stuff. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: I think I known Luke for about 11 years, 11 years. He always one of the guys that was hard on me. Always told me, You got to go out there and go get it. No man going to give you nothing for free. Everything I asked for, he made me work for. Same with Dwight Jackson. He made me work for it. Luke was a great mentor in my life. Always told me how his life relate to mine, stuff like that. Q. (No microphone.) DEVONTA FREEMAN: At least once a week we're talking. He's a businessman. The stuff that he do, that's not him. He's doing it because it's entertainment, and good money. That's what he do. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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