April 18, 2008

Senior safety Michael Mitchell

On trying to fill the void left by Todd Koenig:

I think we'll be fine. You can't truly replace a guy like that, not just because of what he did on the field, but the things he gave us off of it as well. He was an awesome teammate, an incredible leader and one of my best friends on this team. It's going to be tough without him, but I think our other guys have stepped up and I know we'll have the best guy out there.

On his teammates in the secondary:

You can tell Hilton (Dawson III) is an amazing athlete. He's going to be very, very good in the years to come. I still say Donovan Fletcher is one of the best ball hawks on our team. If you throw it, he's going to get it. One of Neil's (Jereb) strengths is stopping the run. If you run the ball at him, he's definitely stout. He has a lot of dynamite in that small body. Overall, our safeties are good. We've got a lot of balanced guys who can stop the run and play pass coverage. I think we're going to be pretty good.

On his expectations for the season:

I'm just hungry because last year was so disappointing. Not even because I was injured, but because we went 6-6 and that team had so much potential. I could see losing one or two games, but there's no way we should've lost six. One of the things Mark (Parson) and I talked about was just to be as hungry as we can. If there is a fight for a meal between you and guy that is hungry, the guy that is hungry is going to win.

Junior cornerback Idris Lawrence

On the newcomers:

They're playing well. They're flying around and making little mistakes here and there, but who isn't at this point of the spring?

On his expectations for the season:

We just have to improve on last year. I think we were probably in the bottom half of the league in passes defended last season, but next year we want to be in the top three. We just have to make plays on the ball and give our team a chance to win.

Senior cornerback Mark Parson

On the team's progress this spring:

Right now, we're just working on a few things, like trying to get better in our press coverage and trying to move our feet and get our technique better.

On trying to fill the void left by Todd Koenig:

Right now, we have some guys that have been in the system for a little while, like Steven Jackson and Donovan Fletcher. They've been able to watch Todd for a couple of years, so I think they'll be able to step in there.