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Fall Camp Day Four: Q&A With Cameron Saffle

After Thursday afternoon's closed practice, outside linebacker Cameron Saffle took a bit of time to chat with GoldenBearReport about the first four days of practice. Saffle, a candidate for the Lott Impact Award this season, and with the offseason finished and his impression work set to the side (a video of his work is here, he noted that an opportunity with Marvel comics is on the table in the near future), he has "just been focused on football, and everyone on the team as well."

How are you feeling four days in now that you have shoulder pads on?

“Actual shoulder pads on, coach was preaching today earlier that it’s a lot different when you get pads on, everyone can do it with helmets on, but can you do it with pads on, and I think it’ll be a good film session. We’ll have a look at what we need to work on in terms of technique and just seeing who’s tough and what guys are willing to put it on the line for their teammates and that’s kinda what we’re striving for right now, having a purpose in everything we do. You’re not just out here, you’re not out here just to get the day over with, you’re out here to accomplish a goal, and we’re striving toward different goals every day, which is awesome. Four days in man, it’s crazy how fast you pick this up and to be honest I’d say I’m surprised, but I’m not surprised. We had a great offseason of training, and we haven’t missed a beat coming off of spring ball coming off spring ball earlier in the year, so I’m really excited about this week so far.”

How do you evaluate your play early on while not wearing pads?

“Couple things, how do you feel body-wise, everyone’s pretty much healthy, which is awesome, and then you can see how well you conditioned this summer and how much work you put in, because obviously you’re gonna be breathing hard and working hard, so that’s a good thing to evaluate yourself on. And just how fast the team picks up everything, like I’ve talked about. Also coming out here with energy and purpose, like I said. Coach Wilcox preaches it, and most of the staff as well, everyone can do it the first four days, but can we do it three week down the road when things start getting tiring because you’re doing it everyday. That’s gonna be our goal when we get down the road, but every day we’re going day by day.”

Has something you’ve focused on during the offseason been the stuff that you aren’t comfortable with, like pass drops?

“Yeah, absolutely, and that’s something that we’ve had as our strength coach (Torre Becton) made certain drills throughout the season when we workout, for different position groups, which is awesome. Linebackers and big-skill, big-skill being bigger receivers, linebackers, and running backs, he’ll do drills with us for us to be able to drop better and receivers do their thing, and O-linemen, D-linemen lift weights and we run, and they do other stuff like that. So he’s incorporated a lot of stuff over the summer to get us ready for our positions coming into camp right now.”

Is it more ‘quick-twitch’ stuff right now?

“Anything and everything you could think of. Resistance running, quick twitch, all the necessities and some extra stuff. He’s brought out a lot of stuff that we’ve never seen before which is cool. He’s a creative dude and he loves his job and he does it to the fullest.”

What’s something that he’s done that you haven’t seen before?

“Just the way that the system works, so there’s a whole system within weight training, how your body functions and how your body gains weight and how your body gains muscle. It’s just a system that I don’t think we all fully understand, but we have 100% trust in him. He does a good job of explaining how everything works, so we learn off of what he teaches us.”

How are you feeling about your counterparts at the position?

“Yeah, Noah, Cam, Funch, Evan, Russell, Trevor Howard, it’s awesome, I was talking about it earlier, we all transitioned from defensive line, the transition for us was all the same. It wasn’t an individual thing in terms of worrying about yourself, it was a group effort. We all came together and said, ‘hey, what’s going to make us better at this position,’ because it’s all new to us. So that’s what we strive for in spring ball, and that’s what we’ve worked on individually as a group, we worked on our drills, and now we finally get a chance to put it into motion, and it’s come well together in the last couple days.”

How are you feeling about the defense so far, despite not being able to do much on the hitting side of things?

“The defense today, and everyone has their days, and that’s the best part, we get to push each other in this competitive spirit, and this offense, defense, it’s competitive man. The defense did really well today, we had a lot of takeaways, and so I’m excited. It’s gonna be up and downs, and it’s great to have that in practice because when it comes to a game, how you respond is how you’re gonna respond, so you’ve got to see it now before you see it in a game.”

How much are you looking forward to the season?

“We know what’s ahead of us, and the biggest thing that coach has talked to us about is ‘it’s day by day.’ If we can get a little bit better every single day, if you stack all those days on top of each other we’ve gotten a lot better, and that’s what we’re focused on right now, and that’s where our heads need to be. It’s a faceless opponent wherever we go, whoever comes here, so we’re not worried about that, and having that mindset is gonna help us this year.”

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