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On whether he has spoken to any of the guys on the defensive line…
I haven’t spoken with them that much, but (Muhammad) Wilkerson gave me a shout out on Instagram that said, "Welcome to the team." I commented on that and was saying, "Thank you for welcoming me to the team." That really has been the only interaction. I haven’t really been able to see anyone in person.
On how much Wilkerson’s Instagram post meant to him…
It means a lot to me because they’re vets. They’ve already been in the program for a while, they’re really don’t have anything to prove besides just keep doing what they do. It means a lot to be welcomed in from vets and from guys that I’m going to be practicing with and next to all the time.
On how different this defense is from what he did in college…
It’s really not too different. We ran a lot of the same defenses at USC, like a 3-4 defense. But I think here, it’s a lot more attacking (where) at USC we did a lot of reading, trying to read the o-linemen and follow their footsteps. Whereas here, we just take an initial step and then put our hands on the linemen. So far, we’ve been taking a lot of slants and stunts getting a lot of d-line movement.
On what Coach Bowles message was to the team …
He was just saying, everybody loosen up. He said he could feel the tension in the room. He said, football is football, and at the end of the day we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t know how to play. He was saying just come, be loose, and just play the game of football.