[Upchurch]

Wilton Speight, Chase Winovich, and Matt Godin

Wilton, a lot of people speculate that you were the guy Jim Harbaugh was getting on in the HBO special. Remember that?

[laughs] “I do.”

Just talk about how your relationship with him has grown and how much you’ve learned since then.

“Yeah, obviously it’s come a long way since that HBO special, telling me to, I think it was ‘transfer somewhere else’ or ‘go somewhere else.’ All my buddies joke, like, yeah, they blurred out the number but you’re the only eight-foot [tall] quarterback in the country, so it’s easily identifiable that it’s me. Yeah, we’ve obviously come a long way since then and it’s something to look back and laugh about now.”

Chase, at what point did you know that you were going to play a bigger role on Saturday with Taco being out, and what was kind of your gameplan and maybe take us through the first quarter, getting your first big play in there.

“The first time I realized I was going to have a bigger role it was kind of—the spawn was back in spring when Taco was playing more of an Anchor role and Chris was back inside and I was starting at the End for a while. Then it came to this camp and I realized my role as a backup or whatever, I always had to be ready.

“Then he went down last Saturday and it was just so natural to get up there and take the next step, to step up and perform, that it really didn’t even phase me. Then this week I realized that I was either going to be starting or sharing time with Rashan at End whenever they released the depth chart, and whatever it was it was. I’d go out there and try to do my thing and try to give everything I have on every play, just the same as always.

“Then this Saturday getting out there, it was cool to get out there and just do the same thing that I’ve been trained to do. There is a quote by Coach Brown and he tells us we’re ‘trained assassins’ and that’s true. We’ve trained for this moment and that’s what it was. It was natural. It wasn’t like an ‘oh, this is my first time playing ever’ type deal. I felt like I was ready for it.”

[More after THE JUMP]

Going along those lines, Matt, Saturday for you: five tackles. This is a role you’ve worked four-plus years for as well. Without Bryan and Taco, can you talk about your talent level to be able to rotate in there? Coach Harbaugh said you’re playing close to the level of Ryan Glasgow right now.

“For the last four years or three we’ve always had good depth along any one of those lines. Coach told us all camp, all spring you’ve got to be ready to play just as good; if you’re second string, you play just as good as the guy who’s starting. Mone went down, so that gave me an opportunity to come in and start the game and I wanted to go out there and play the best I could.”

If I could follow up, DJ [Durkin] I guess was a little more vocal with you guys from what we’ve heard. Don seems not as vocal but at the same time he seems like the type of guy who [inaudible]. Can you just tell me how the personalities of defensive coordinators have shaped you as a player?

“They’ve definitely shaped us. I mean, they’re both pretty vocal guys. Durkin probably was a little more vocal, but both very passionate. I mean, Chase can probably help me out on this, too. What do you think?”

Winovich: “He was definitely more vocal, but at the same time Coach Brown’s vocal in a different way, and he’s not as much of a rah-rah guy as you get out there and do what you’ve got to do and take care of your business. At the same time, he’ll get after you just the same. If you’re messing up or doing good, you’ll know it.”

Wilton, following up on that first question, when that happens does that strengthen your resolve or what’s going through your mind at that time? You didn’t think about transferring, right?

“No. At that time, no. He was kind of taking shots at everybody and just trying to get I guess all the softer guys out because he was new and he needed to come in and make a statement. Transferring after he said that didn’t really cross my mind. Obviously I didn’t like hearing it or having it on HBO for the whole country to see, but no, that never really crossed my mind. Just made me work harder.”

Is that the kind of motivation that you respond well to? Are you someone who likes being screamed at or do you like a different approach?

“At that point, yeah, I probably needed it the most. I think any offseason, that’s when I think coaches are more in that mindset of just beating you down, beating you down and toughening you up, but once you get into season—especially as the starter, right now with Coach Fisch it’s more of like a business-type relationship where we bounce things off of each other and he asks what I like and stuff like that. So it’s not so much screaming, it’s more talking through things now.”

Wilton, Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week, whether that means anything to you or not. Talk about how if you harken back to that moment you were talking about how much more in command of really everything you are right now.

“Yeah, it’s a cool honor, but it’s just a reflection of how the whole offense was clicking on Saturday and how the receivers, the tight ends and everyone was catching every pass, the offensive line was blocking well and the play action was working. It’s a cool honor, but it should pretty much go to the whole offense.”

With this offense, leading it does it almost feel like a video game where you’re just pushing all these buttons and everything seems to work?

“I think the coaching staff does a good job of getting us close to that, but at the same time, nothing against Hawaii or Central Florida but we’ve got tougher tests ahead. I don’t want to get that far ahead of ourselves saying that it’s like a video game. We’re going to continue to work hard on our gameplans and make sure we dial up the right plays at the right time.”

For both of the defensive guys, the quarterback got out a few times. How do you resolve that? Is it easily resolvable and is it just a matter of staying in the rush lanes?

Godin: “I think it’s all of us working together on the D-line. A lot of times our rush lanes get a little hectic, different guys doing different moves, one guy goes inside and one guy goes outside. So I think if we just get the communication better in the upcoming weeks we’ll definitely improve.”

Winovich: “I’d agree with that. Sometimes stuff happens and you make full-speed decisions out there and they get out. You’re playing against great athletes. It doesn’t matter who you play, we’re all Division I players here. And you’re making full-speed decisions; sometimes all they need is a couple feet and they’re gone. And Coach Harbaugh talked about their speed, so they had some weapons on their team. We’ve got to go back to the drawing board, basically, and assess where we went wrong—and we will. We will work diligently to make sure the mistakes we made in this game don’t happen against Colorado.”