from Alexandria Echo Press's Eric Morken:
http://www.echopress.com/sports/375...-embraces-high-expectations-after-citrus-bowl
EM: You have talked in the past about expecting your defense to improve with each additional year in the program. Do you expect next year’s defense to be better than last year?
Claeys: I really do. We lost a few kids, but I think we’re going to have safeties, Antonio Johnson and Damarius Travis both played. The two corners both played. Linebacker, two of the three are coming back, but Everett Williams has stepped in a done a great job. D-line, we have about everybody back. We have more kids on defense back than we’ve had and they’ve played well in Big Ten games against some good football teams. So you take a year and develop them, I’ll be disappointed if we don’t play better on defense. Hopefully, that will be enough to get us over the hump.”
EM: You played a lot of young guys on that defensive line last year, true freshmen. What are your expectations for that group after gaining that experience?
Claeys: We went through spring ball and Andrew [Stelter] and Gaelin Elmore, they’ve added the strength and they’ve added weight. Andrew is up to about 280 when we went through the spring. Last year, he’s playing inside in the Big Ten at 255, so he got pushed around a little bit.
He’s a great competitor and Gary Moore has continued to get better. That’s the thing – where it hurt us a little bit to have to play them early on with Scott [Ekpe’s] injury. Now Scott’s back from his injury, so now on the d-line we have a tremendous amount of depth.
At linebacker we have more depth than what we’ve had. The one place is the safeties. We’re going to have to stay healthy long enough to let some of the younger kids get some experience there. Besides that, we’re as deep as we’ve been.”
EM: You lost your leading tackler from last year in Damien Wilson from that linebacker core. Are you pretty comfortable with that group heading into the season?
Claeys: From what we’ve seen, like I said Everett has done a good job. We got back Cody [Poock] from his knee injury. Him and Everett both worked in the middle during the spring and both had a great spring. We still have Jack Lynn on the edge and De’Vondre Campbell on the edge.
Jon Celestin played awfully well for us as a true freshman and had a good spring. Jacob Huff is a freshman who came in at the semester and was unbelievable what he did as a true freshman. That’s the one position we haven’t had the depth and that’s why I think we’ll be better. We have the depth there this year.”
EM: Did anybody jump out at you during spring ball that fans might not know about but can make an impression this season?
Claeys: I think [linebacker] Julian Huff is the one because he plays physical. He can run, and he’s not intimidated by anybody. Him and Jon Celestin are two very good young players.
http://www.echopress.com/sports/375...-embraces-high-expectations-after-citrus-bowl
EM: You have talked in the past about expecting your defense to improve with each additional year in the program. Do you expect next year’s defense to be better than last year?
Claeys: I really do. We lost a few kids, but I think we’re going to have safeties, Antonio Johnson and Damarius Travis both played. The two corners both played. Linebacker, two of the three are coming back, but Everett Williams has stepped in a done a great job. D-line, we have about everybody back. We have more kids on defense back than we’ve had and they’ve played well in Big Ten games against some good football teams. So you take a year and develop them, I’ll be disappointed if we don’t play better on defense. Hopefully, that will be enough to get us over the hump.”
EM: You played a lot of young guys on that defensive line last year, true freshmen. What are your expectations for that group after gaining that experience?
Claeys: We went through spring ball and Andrew [Stelter] and Gaelin Elmore, they’ve added the strength and they’ve added weight. Andrew is up to about 280 when we went through the spring. Last year, he’s playing inside in the Big Ten at 255, so he got pushed around a little bit.
He’s a great competitor and Gary Moore has continued to get better. That’s the thing – where it hurt us a little bit to have to play them early on with Scott [Ekpe’s] injury. Now Scott’s back from his injury, so now on the d-line we have a tremendous amount of depth.
At linebacker we have more depth than what we’ve had. The one place is the safeties. We’re going to have to stay healthy long enough to let some of the younger kids get some experience there. Besides that, we’re as deep as we’ve been.”
EM: You lost your leading tackler from last year in Damien Wilson from that linebacker core. Are you pretty comfortable with that group heading into the season?
Claeys: From what we’ve seen, like I said Everett has done a good job. We got back Cody [Poock] from his knee injury. Him and Everett both worked in the middle during the spring and both had a great spring. We still have Jack Lynn on the edge and De’Vondre Campbell on the edge.
Jon Celestin played awfully well for us as a true freshman and had a good spring. Jacob Huff is a freshman who came in at the semester and was unbelievable what he did as a true freshman. That’s the one position we haven’t had the depth and that’s why I think we’ll be better. We have the depth there this year.”
EM: Did anybody jump out at you during spring ball that fans might not know about but can make an impression this season?
Claeys: I think [linebacker] Julian Huff is the one because he plays physical. He can run, and he’s not intimidated by anybody. Him and Jon Celestin are two very good young players.
