Gamble Talks Leadership

Catching up with a bunch of players today over at Butts-Mehre and I'll have lots more stuff coming up later today and the rest of the week, but here are some very interesting comments from linebacker Darryl Gamble from this afternoon's early media session...

On the environment so far this offseason...
"A lot of things have changed this year with the culture around here. Pretty much everything that's going on around here is new, so even the older guys will be like, 'What's going on right now?'"

On why changes have been made this offseason...
"We're just trying to get more guys to buy in and be more vocal, to be a leader and not just talk about it and not do anything on the field. Just like a lot of stuff we were going through last year was a lack of leadership and stuff. They're just trying to build that up now so around season time we'll be set."

On what specifically is different...
"Guys just doing what they have to do now. In past years, guys would just do it just to get by or whatever, but now, I think they really want to work out and stuff like that and try to get better."

On why there wasn't better leadership a year ago...
"Maybe just because the guys we had, all of them were older guys. Back in my redshirt freshman year, we had a lot of vocal guys like Thomas Brown and Fernando (Velasco) and a lot of those guys, and they were always talking since they were younger because they had always been playing. These guys (last year) weren't playing as much and they got into their senior year and never had to say anything. I guess as the season went on, they just never learned to try to motivate everybody else."