Deleted Scenes: Lessons Learned by the Defense

I have a story in today's Telegraph on the lessons the defense learned after last year's disappointments. There were a bunch of quotes I couldn't squeeze into the story, though, so here they are...

Jeff Owens on what the defense needs to improve on the most...
"Two things I believe need to happen -- stopping the run and turnovers. If you stop the run, you force teams to pass and make teams do something they don't want to do. When you get turnovers, the offense has more chances to put points on the board."

Owens on the lack of togetherness on last year's D...
"I can remember last year when I was hurt, it felt like I wasn't a part of the team. I wasn't at practice, I wasn't on the bus, I didn't go to the games. You felt like you were disconnected from everyone, and a lot of the guys who were injured felt the same way. This year more guys have come together, and last year the injuries did affect us."

Owens on the lessons to take from last year...
"The one thing I want to take from last year is working on our consistency. Some days we played good, some we played bad. I think to be successful both on the field and off the field, you've got to be consistent, so that's what we're working on."

Demarcus Dobbs on being motivated by last year's problems...
"It's hard not to use people talking bad about you as fuel. It's always in the back of our minds how we struggled last year, how we struggled on defense. We have a tradition, and we want to hold up our end of the deal and pull our weight."

Reshad Jones on how last year influenced this offseason...
"It was a really big motivator. We knew how many points we gave up, and we knew what we had to work toward and what we had to correct in order to be successful."

Rennie Curran on the importance of unity in the locker room...
"You want to have that camaraderie, that unity, it just helps -- especially in those tough times when things get close and adversity strikes. You want to have guys that trust each other, that know when times get hard, you've got each other's back."

Curran on what it means to have everyone stay out of trouble during the offseason...
"It's a real proud feeling to know where we came from last year and how much that affected our season and how we all responded. The leadership helped people realize why we came here -- and that was to go to school, play football and hopefully make a living for yourself one day. We just realized that and refocused and come in day in and day out and handle whatever task we were faced with."

Curran on the different feeling surrounding this year's D...
"It's been night and day with the morale of the team, the attitude of the guys. Whether it's running 10 hundreds or whatever, everybody's just focusing on doing whatever it takes. It's great to have all the guys buy in and know that when they come to Butts-Mehre, it's time to work, that they separate the work from the play."

Bryan Evans on how the seniors made a plan for the offseason...
"Our senior leaders on defense started it by having more meetings in the offseason. Our freshmen right now are way ahead of where we were when we came in. We met almost every day during the offseason, just trying to get the basics down, so now all they have to do is learn the in-depth part. We won't have to focus on things we already learned, we can just keep going smooth."

Willie Martinez on the defense's leadership...
"This year they've done a great job since January. I like our leadership. We're trying to be flexible, figure out who are the guys, develop a two-deep, but I think our leadership is pretty solid with guys like Rennie Curran and Jeff Owens in the middle of your defense. We're just trying to develop more depth and see where we'll be Sept. 5."