Jackson was asked to give an overview of his position group and his thoughts on the defensive line through Fall Camp so far. “Really good, I have an older group, I have four seniors in the group. So doing more fine-tuning with those guys and doing a lot less organized, and there’s a lot of player lead stuff going on, so it’s been good.”
Jackson was specifically asked about was Troy transfer T.J. Jackson, and what he brings to the position unit. “He’s been a winner. They’ve done a great job through his career down at Troy,” Jackson began. “He’s won a lot of football games, played in a lot of high pressure situations. He provides pass rush, he’s versatile. He can play interior defensive line, he can play exterior. He’s very good at moving around, lateral quickness. So he’s got a lot of different tools that we could use.”
When asked about the leadership on the defensive line, Jackson explained that everyone finds their own ways to lead. “More of them lead by example (more) than anything. I know Sean (Martin) came in here the other day and snitched on me, but I tell him, let me be the bad guy and then those guys pick each other up. They don’t need to take my lead on getting upset or being negative. I’ll correct folks and most times I tell them to be the good cop just to limit me. They drown me out.”
Safety Aubrey Burks mentioned in a previous press conference that Jackson would help him with pass rush moves. When asked about Burks’ progress, Jackson said that it’s going well. “He’s crafty at blitzing, he’s got something special to him coming off the edge of the nickel and we’re going to be in for a treat watching this year.” Jackson also mentioned that he’s learning just as much from Burks as he is teaching, as the safety offers a new perspective on blitzing, with emphasis on where Burks’ eyes are looking.
When asked about a collective goal for the defensive line, Jackson dismissed any statistical goals. “I’m not going to quantify it other than we want to be the most physical unit in the country. Same way we were talking in the spring, the physicality is going to be our number one trait, our number one goal.”
You can watch the entire press conference here:
