Running a bit late this morning. We get Bookbinder and Johnson discussing their respective position groups. As always, this is a non-transcript, just me listening and typing as fast as possible. Not direct quotes. Have yourself a day!

Linebacker Coach Josh Bookbinder

• [Ben Roberts and Jacob Rodrigues] Both those guys, down the stretch, we were playing pretty good defense. High intelligence and effort guys. We have good depth and excited about the guys behind them.
• Bryce [Ramirez] made the transition and has flourished. We all know his story, he is a football guy and wants knowledge, John Curry is really coming on, smart character guy.
• Wes Smith and Trent Low at the middle linebacker.
• Ben’s 2nd year and Jacob’s 3rd year, having experience and consistency. Great foundation. Defense has volume, those lightbulbs start to go off, from a leadership standpoint, we have 3 guys at linebacker that can be leaders for that team.
• [John] Curry understands the defense, smart and learns well, he’s athletic and has natural tools. He’s consistent and shows up every day.
• Have a group of guys that treat it like professionals, are in the building all of the time, they are bought in and are putting in the time and effort to be great. We have those guys that it is a profession for them.
• It’s everything, it’s a coach driven team versus a player driven team.
• Justin Horne, redshirted, played a little of special teams and he’s getting better every day. Gage Elder has had really big improvement in the spring.
• Bowl games are awesome, but when you are preparing for a bowl game and you have 3 weeks to prepare, you get 3 weeks of no sleep, it was terrible preparing for Cal, they were really impressive and well coached, but we stopped the run early and taking that into the offseason and tried to build off of that.
• I’m coaching perfection, sometimes the guys don’t like that, but in terms of showing up every day and being process driven. They practice hard and practice physically. They are great people too.
• Jacob [Rodriguez’s] injury at this point is more preventative or maintenance on the ankle, he’s in there every day to make sure he prevents.

Wide Receiver Coach Justin Johnson

• I think the guys we’ve added have done a great job blending with the culture and creating culture, especially with Josh [Kelly] and brings a level of maturity, and Caleb [Douglas], he’s played ball before, and they’ve done a great job of fitting into the room.
• [Josh Kelly] He’s come in and worked hard, guys want to see you work hard and earn your stripes and be a great team mate. Freaky catch radius, great feel for the game, super smart, silky smooth route runner, anything he puts his hands on he catches, high IQ guy. He’s a football player.
• He’ll play inside or play outisde. We’ll figure it out when we kickoff.
• Caleb Douglas gives you some stretch outside, does a great job of high-pointing balls, extreme catch radius, has speed. Brings a lot of things to the table. I think he’s going to bring some things vertically.
• I think all of the guys have done a great job of doing what we’ve asked them to do. Coy Eakin has done everything we’ve asked him to do. Jordan Brown the same thing. Drae McCray continues to improve. Brady Boyd as well. We have some competition.
• Don’t really compare and contrast from year to year, there’s always new faces and guys who have gotten older and guys who want to take the next step, but don’t compare to last year. This group is high level accountability and attention to detail.
• Can definitely there is a sense of urgency and they understand the team that we have. This team this spring has lined up and gone to work every day and attacked the day. The practice yesterday was highly competitive, offense and defense was engaged.
• Some of those young guys get opportunities, Coy, Drae, and Jordan have continued to trend. TJ West and Kelby Valsin are flashing too.
• Micah [Hudson] is a great football player, but with him not going through everything, just make sure he is mentally engaged, make sure he puts the work in before the time comes and we’ll be excited about it.
• Those guys are doing a great job, we talk about maximizing opportunities, some of those guys have run with the 2’s and in team settings and have done the most with their opportunities.
• Kelby [Valsin] is playing inside, he can do both, he’s smart enough, high IQ kid, smooth route runner, I think Kelby can function at any position, still early in his career to just put him in one spot. They learn every spot.
• We knew the type of players we were getting. How they get acclimated, you watch the film you know who guys are, we hit on the guys culture wise and acclimated to the team and the room.
• Douglas, at Baylor we had him committed and I’m really close with some of his high school coaches and we’ve known about him for a long time.

Zach Thomas talks about his time at Texas Tech and his 1995 pick-6 among other things.