On the offensive line

Man, it’s such a blessing for us to compete against our offensive line. I do think they’re the best o-line in the country. I think they’re the best-coached o-line in the country. I think Sherrone Moore is one of the best, at any position, one of the best football coaches I’ve had a chance to be around. All the way back to spring ball, you sort of saw coming in, OK, this team, this is the o-line that won that Joe Moore Award. What am I getting myself into? It’s a tremendous opportunity for us every day to compete against, to get good against, to get better against. Then you add in Olu, a guy like that. I wasn’t here, I don’t really know what it looked like, but I know right now they’re humming and they’re dominating.

On why the defense has been good at limiting first downs the last five games

I don’t know that there was a specific thing that changed, we certainly want to get off the field as fast as possible. So really, when we take the field, our No. 1 goal is to try to get the ball from the offense. We’d love to do that in one play but, if not, we’d love to do that in three plays, so that we get off the field. I also think when you play complementary football, which we’ve done a tremendous job of, so our offense can go on a long drive. I think it’s a huge mentality for us to go out and get a quick three-and-out and put pressure back on the other team’s defense. they might have just been on a six or seven-minute drive, to go right back out there, not have as much time to adjust, not have as much time to make corrections, and get them right back on the field. It’s definitely something we talked about.

On Sherrone Moore

Sherrone is, just from a personality standpoint, from a leader standpoint, like just how he leads men. I mean, he’s very, very consistent in his approach. He brings a tremendous amount of energy. He coaches from a very, not that he doesn’t coach his guys hard, but I think he coaches from a very positive mindset, which I think the guys really appreciate. It’s fun to watch him work every day.

On how the players were able to adapt to him

We were able to keep a lot of things consistent. The advantage that I feel I’ve had is guys in a second year have a lot of similar terminologies, a lot of the same concepts. You know, we’ve certainly done some things differently. To pinpoint, our blitz rates might be different or the way we pressure at times might be different. But overall, it’s a lot of the stuff that we had in our playbook over the years. Just super pleased with the guys’ mindset, the mentality to let somebody new come in, sort of buy-in to us, to gain trust in each other and now to play the way we want to play. So hopefully we finish the thing off the right way.

On Will Johnson's emergence

Will’s I think like a lot of freshmen as you go through your first year, you learn the process and figure out what works best for you and to get you ready to play on Saturdays. I’ve seen just his level of preparation can continue to evolve throughout the season. I think you learn in high school, you’re the best player, you’re the best player on the field. Here, everybody’s good. Regardless of the opponent, regardless of the receivers, they can all play, they’re all there for a reason. Will’s really bought into just studying more to take care of his body, really preparing in the right way. He’s got tremendous size, he’s got tremendous length, he knows how to be physical. He’s certainly evolved and very happy with how he’s playing currently.

On the defense adapting to the 'second year' of the system

All the way back to the beginning, it’s one of the reasons I was brought here, was to keep continuity with what we were doing. So I was confident in myself to come in and really sort of—I didn’t know exactly what Mike was running last year. I mean, I had an idea just based on some conversations. So, to come in and kind of dive into it, and all the exact terminology he was using and things like that, I think that was the whole goal is just—we lost some really good players, some key players lost. Lost, Mike, and it’s like, how can we keep this thing moving in the right direction? Everybody kind of enjoyed the defense and liked what we were doing from a schematic standpoint. So just really tried to keep it going and add things. Whether I was here or not, I think there would have been—the defense always evolves, and you’re always trying to find a way to get better. You’re always in that, when you do play well, or produce that like people spend the offseason studying you. So you’re always gotta be trying to stay a step ahead. So that’s something we’ve really tried to focus on. But definitely, definitely enjoying year two for these guys, and the confidence that they’re able to have within the second year.

On whether halftime adjustments have been overblown

I think it’s a little bit of it. Anytime you give something up like you want to make adjustments as fast as possible. So, there’s times when we’ve tried to make an adjustment after one drive in the first quarter. I think a majority of it is a credit to our players, the mentality that they have when we go in at halftime. We’re able to sort of just reset, refocus, and figure out what may or may not have hurt us. But it’s a credit to the players and their mentality, it’s a credit to Coach Herb and kind of the condition that our team has. It’s a credit to our offense. Because a lot of these long drives and then quick three-and-outs happen in the third quarter, especially over the last five games. We probably have played the least amount of snaps in the third quarter of anybody and that’s mainly a credit to our ability to run the ball on sustained drives, and then us maybe, hey, you get one quick three-and-out and that might be the only drive you played that quarter. So it’s a total group, team culture effort to play well in the second half.

On how his SEC experience has helped him

I think it’s a combination of there being good defenses, it’s a combination of, maybe it’s a year or whatever, like, I don’t know. Maybe there are less experienced quarterbacks? I haven’t looked at it from a big, broad perspective like that. I think stylistically it is a little bit more of control the ball type of offense is a lot of them, try to run the ball and try to slow the game down. The SEC has evolved into where there a lot of these teams are playing faster tempo and trying to score points. You know, just kind of—it’s very cyclical, in my mind. So I think there’s been years where it’s probably been the other way. I don’t really probably have a great answer for it other than it’s still a tremendous testnand it’s a credit to our guys for just showing up every week and trying to play the best we can.

On his SEC experience preparing him for Ohio State

I think experience and past experiences are all opportunities to learn and use going forward. So, had tremendous experience, tremendous adversity at times in the SEC last year. We will see a lot of those offenses. So definitely everything that’s happened up to this point is a chance to use for us going forward.

On how much attention he's given Ohio State this year

They’re a team that we think about all the time, but to me, it’s a total shortchange of who we’re playing this week and play. We’ve got the leading rusher in college football walking in here to our stadium on Saturday and he has our full attention right now.

On how much the defense has actually been tested this season

Look, you can control some things. I think the No. 1 thing you can control is how you play against whoever you play against. So certainly pleased with the guys’ effort, the guys’ mentality, the guys’ mindset how we’ve been able to play. Man, there’s stuff every week that you go into the game nervous about, worried about. So, I think the guys have just done a good job of focusing on every single day trying to get a little bit better. Knowing that, yeah, the way the schedule falls, no matter what the order of schedule is, you want to be playing your best football at the end of the season and so try to evolve, try to get a little bit better each week. Like where we’re at in that regard. The story is far from being written on this group and we’ll find out a lot in the next couple of weeks.

On the biggest contributor the defense's success this season

I think it’s just the players. I mean, these guys, we have a lot of talented players, they play really well together, they really enjoy playing together. They’re a very competitive group that wants to be perfect. You’re never going to be perfect, but they want to get better every day, they want to continue to have success. They work really, really hard at it and I’ve said it from the beginning, these guys really prepare every week as if we’re playing whoever—the Green Bay Packers. So it goes to those guys and their level of preparation. I think Coach Herb and what he does with these guys in the offseason to mentally and physically prepare them for the 12-week grind—so mostly credit to those guys and also the other coaches with us on defense have done a great job. Like I said, we got a lot of work to do still to be where we want to be at the end of the year.

On how much the offense's ball control has helped the defense

A huge piece of it. Just our ability to run the football, sustain them, sustain drives, not turn the ball over. It’s a coordinator’s dream to be with this style of offense, and because it’s not only on game day, it’s playing against the physical style like that daily, how much better, to me, it makes you. Being able to stop the run and being able to stop the pass, being able to stop a quarterback that can run so they, not only in the games, do a tremendous job controlling the ball, controlling the clock, but also in the work we get to do against each other. I think we both make each other better.

On the growth of Eyabi Okie

It’s a credit to him and Coach Elston and Dylan Roney, who work with those guys. Just his ability to grow throughout the year, learn the defense, pick up on everything. I don’t even worry about it now that we’re at this point of does he know that? He pretty much has everything. He really dives into the culture here and been a great teammate and learned a lot probably from Coach Herb and the way he sets the culture, and the tone for us in the weight room. So it’s been really cool to see his journey and his progress throughout the year. I’m looking forward to seeing him play over these next couple of weeks.

On what he focuses on getting better at

To me, it’s every little detail. So we still want to attack the football a little bit more. We want to get the ball. We want to set our offense up on shorter fields or score on defense. Those types of things. We want to take better angles to the ball and not have any missed tackles. We want to make sure that we’re communicating at a level that it’s going to take for us to play our best over these next couple of weeks and then and then just not lose sight of—it’s really just the small, like the core values of how we want to play that have allowed us to play that way. So it’s how we block destruct. It’s how we run to the ball. It’s how we communicate, how we attack the football. Focusing on those key things as we get to the stretch run here.