Coach Q&A: Brandon Shelby, Jason Jones discuss IU's secondary

BS: We know that great teams are player led. If we have to sit there and pull and push, you are not going to go very far. Maybe last year, us coaches did too much of that. To see Cam Jones, Tiawan Mullen, Jaylin Williams, and the [leaders] on the offensive side of the ball step up and set the standard of what we want to do is the beginning piece to have a good season. Does it guarantee it? No. You still have to put in the work. It is great to see guys take the team into their own hands, make it player-led and player connected. I think that is what we see a little more now, they are connected. They are together a little bit more, laughing and joking. I think the guys are a little more cohesive than last year. Like I said, that does not correlate to wins and losses, but it gives you an opportunity to hold each other accountable to the standards that they have and that we have for them.

On the winning habits of the team…

BS: When you build any great culture, you have to make sure that when you have success you go back to the building blocks. Because the building blocks were there when these guys were freshmen and sophomores, we just had to dust it off. Coach [Tom Allen] had a quote that I tweeted out. "A king that starts acting like a king, won't be a king for very long." We still have to go out there and serve. We still have to do the little things that maybe we took to granted. As coaches, we have to go back and look at every little thing we do and make sure that the culture and the way that we want things, did we relax a little? With that being said, I think we [got back to] that in the offseason. We have to set the tone as coaches. We have to set the tone. We know Coach Allen is going to set the tone. We have to make sure we hold true to that. We hold true when we get tired, and we hold true when they get tired. Long story short, they always had that inside of them because they knew what it looked like. We just had to go back to the foundation. Great companies, great teams … when you look at the most successful teams year in and year out, players know the expectations. Each semester, we go back to this is football and these are the expectations. When you meet these expectations, this is what you get. If you do not meet these expectations, this is what you get. We have methodically done that going into this offseason and into fall camp.

On what he has seen from Jaylin Williams this offseason…

BS: Jaylin has been here for almost five years now. He is a guy that maturity wise continues to grow. He has come a long way. Last year he had to take on that kind of role because we were so injured. You guys probably do not know this, but we were sometimes going into games knowing that we had two guys. Period. There were games where he was going 80-something snaps with cracked ribs. He would not pull himself out. Right there, you know that he is physically tough. He is a tough guy. What I want him to make sure that he does is to start acting like a pro and get the mental side, even when you are tired, even when you know the playbook. Continue to take notes. He has been here for a long time, so he knows all the checks.

A few years ago, I did an internship with the Houston Texans, and I remember this about JJ Watt. He is a big-time dude. He came to every meeting as a guy that knew the playbook but is taking notes. He is out there before practice working on his pass-rush skills. I try telling those guys that if they want to be a pro like that, and if they want to be a $100-million man, they have to put in the work and your teammates have to see it. That is the one thing that I am pushing J-Will to do this year. He is very talented, very fast and he knows the playbook. Get these young guys right. Take them under your wing. Take them out there and get them 50 [repetitions] on the jugs with you and work on the techniques. That is what you have to do if you want the opportunity to play at the next level. It does not start now, it started in the summer.

I think that, so far, he has done a good job of that. He is a tough dude. Mentally, we have to make sure that we do a great job in the fourth quarter. That is where he needs to step up and make those plays. Do not just go get a PBU, go get the interception and get takeaways. That is what I expect from him this fall.

Jason Jones

On getting Devon Matthews back…

JJ: One of the things that [Devon] brings is the experience. He has played a lot of football. He has been in a lot of big games. He knows what it takes to win. He knows the work that needs to be put in during the preseason and during the season. Having his leadership and experience back there is huge for our defense. He is one of those guys that even when he was out, he stayed connected. He was in every meeting. He was still watching film on his own. When they cleared him to come back, besides being out there on the field getting reps, mentally he knew everything that we were doing. It has been really good. I am proud of him and happy to have him back.

On Bryant Fitzgerald…

JJ: Fitz has played a lot of positions for us. He is one of those guys that has moved around a lot in our defense, so he really understands what is going on. When we looked at it in the spring, it was about trying to get the best 11 guys on the field. We knew that Noah Pierre had really taken a step and we wanted to find a way to get him on the field. The best way to get him on the field was to move Fitz back to free safety. He has done a great job. I think that after two or three days of spring practice, he was back there making checks and communicating. But he has always done that, even when he was playing husky or the nickel position. He was still communicating and talking. Having two safeties back there that will talk to the corners and the linebackers is huge. The more communication that we have, the less mistakes that we will make. That has been a blessing for our defense. He is doing a great job at free safety.

On Matthews' leadership…

JJ: It says a lot about him as a young man. It also says a lot about what he thinks about the program. One of the conversations that he had with me was that the reason he chose to come to Indiana was because he wanted to come here and do something different. He wanted to come here and do something different. He said "Coach, we did not finish the right way." He wanted to come back and finish this thing the right way. It was him and some of the other leaders on the team: Jaylin Williams, Fitz, Noah Pierre. Those guys were also saying the same thing. They wanted to come back and finish this thing the right way. When you have a leader like Monster that says that, everyone else follows. It says a lot about his character as a young man and what he thinks about the program.

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