[Barron]

What’s the talent like at your position?

“Great. I mean, we have great talent. We have a chip on our shoulder when we come to practice every day. We’ve got a lot of opportunity ahead. But yeah, feel really good about it.”

How much has Devin [Bush Jr.] progressed from last year to this year?

“Devin progresses on a daily basis, you know. He’s starting to understand what it takes to be a Big Ten linebacker. He’s having a heck of a spring so far. He had a heck of an end of the season and got better and better. And he’s the kind of guy who comes to work every day, so he gets better every day. You really see it. He’s working on some things. We’re very excited about him.”

Do you feel confident he’s one of your top three guys right now with Mike McCray and Wroblewski?

“No, I can’t say that. I think every linebacker is one of my top guys, you know. I think that they all have to come to work and they have an opportunity. It’s all about opportunities in the spring and if they show up, whether it’s one rep or a hundred reps, they’re got to take advantage of it and work their butts off. I’m not ready to say—at least personally, I’m not ready to say who the top guys are. I think they all have to earn and do their part.”

The ferocity that Devin plays with on special teams; does he play that way at linebacker as well?

“Oh yeah, oh yeah. He’s not allowed not to. He’s really good. He’s the kind of guy who shows up and just…he’s the kind of guy who shows up every single day and every drill, whether it’s special teams or linebacker stuff, he gets it and that’s important.”

[Hit THE JUMP for Partridge’s recruiting philosophy and the strengths of the LBs]

In your short time here you’ve had a lot of different roles and a lot of jobs in this program. What’s that like going from one role to the next?

“I love it. I’m the kind of guy who likes to do a lot of things and takes pride in anything I do, so I enjoy it and I enjoy different roles and learning and doing different things. I kind of accept it and enjoy it.

“Like I tell the players all the time, life is about opportunities. You gain opportunities with everything every day. If you really want something then you can’t let those opportunities pass you by; you’ve got to take advantage of everything, whether it’s reps on the field or it’s tasks that someone tells you to do in the office.

“It’s the same thing. It’s all about your work ethic and taking advantage of opportunities. I think our guys are doing that right now. I think I’ve done that, and you need to keep doing that.”

You’ve gotten a lot of accolades for your recruiting. For you, what’s the key to being a good recruiter?

“The people around me. It’s the people in the building. Recruiting—it takes a village to recruit a top athlete, you know, just like it takes a great program. I’m not ready to take credit for any kid that I’ve recruited personally. It’s everyone. I work with great people; there’s great kids and people on the team; so everyone that the people meet in the school, there’s tremendous people here in the school. It’s just a great place with great people and everyone should get credit.

“Those accolades are good and of course it’s something that you can be proud of, but to me it’s an everyone type of thing. It’s not individual when it comes to recruiting. Anyone who tells you different, I think, is wrong.”

You’ve been involved with the recruiting process both as a high school coach and a college coach. Players build relationships with players throughout that process whether before they committed or after they committed. Why are those player-to-player relationships important?

“In terms of…can you explain that—just in terms of—”

Once a guy commits he makes a connection with a guy in the program. Why is that important?

“Yeah, I mean, it’s just like anything: it’s a team. So any relationship that you can build, it’s rewarding when you can build a relationship with somebody, I feel like. I think when the players can build relationships with each other, it helps with recruiting, number one. It helps your team down the road because they feel bonded from before they were a teammate. I think that helps. I think it just gives a better understanding of how to be a great person to the players.

“Even if the player doesn’t come to Michigan, you still built a relationship with somebody from a different state with a different background. You don’t have to be their enemy. But it is important, of course. I think it’s a good thing. I think we do a good job of it here.”

McCray doesn’t seem like really a vocal guy. Is he more a lead-by-example type of guy?

“Yeah, I mean, he’s pretty vocal when he needs to be. I don’t think it’s out in the open and stuff but he leads. He leads. He gets vocal. He’s been tremendous. He’s a worker and McCray’s the kind of guy where it was taken away from him. He was injured and couldn’t play. That’s the chip that he has on his shoulder on a daily basis.

“He’s not gonna let one rep go by because he knows what it feels like to be on the sideline. That’s exciting to see for the players. That’s his biggest leadership quality, showing up every day and understanding because he’s seen the bad side of being injured and being on the sideline.”

Who’s working at the two return spots, the kickoff and punt return spots?

“Ooh, uh, we’ve got about 15 guys. I’m not ready to answer any specifics about those guys. We’re repping it. Hey, it’s like an opportunity, again, when the punt goes up in practice and you’re the guy who’s supposed to catch it and burst and score, you’ve got to take advantage of that opportunity and we’ve got a lot of guys working at that. I think we’ll be pretty dynamic back there.”

You made it about five minutes without any Jabrill questions, so I’m gonna break it up here.

“Yeah, yeah, I love it, I love him.”

How difficult is it to replace him and can you do it with a single guy or how do you approach that?

“Um…you know, it’s funny. Jabrill—I think every player that you coach, I really believe this, is irreplaceable. Jabrill Peppers is Jabrill Peppers. You’re not gonna have another Jabrill Peppers, so in terms of replacing him, you’re not gonna replace him. But is his position, is his skill, replaceable? Of course. That’s what we’re here for. If a kid comes in and he’s irreplaceable then I don’t know why you’re coaching, you know. So we’re gonna replace him however we feel is necessary to get that position to the skill level that he brought, and it’s exciting. It’s motivating. Jabrill Peppers was a phenomenal athlete and a great kid but we’ve moved on from that. We’re working with the guys that we have to make sure that that position that he played is better than when he played it there, however we do it.”

Has that position morphed to fit the new guys’ strengths?

“Of course. I think it needs to. You’re not gonna fit a square peg in a round hole or anything like that. We’re gonna make sure that we understand who the guys we have in that position are and use their skill set.”

What are the strengths of Metellus and Hudson and any other guys you might have there?

“What are they? Metellus is a very savvy football player. He steps on the field and he understands angles and how to get things done, whereas he doesn’t have to be as taught as some other football players. He gets it. He understands schemes. He understands the big picture and gets himself in the right position, and he’s a fierce competitor.

“Hudson is the fiercest competitor. He does everything right; he prides himself on doing everything right. He’s very physical, he’s low to the ground, he gets under people, he strikes people, he plays really hard, he’s very self-motivated. They all have tremendous strengths.”

Was that ability to pick it up quickly why Josh was doing it last season? That’s what we were told the other day was that they got partway through the season and said ‘We don’t have a backup VIPER.’

“Yeah, you’ve got to find the savviest guy who’s able to do it and plug him in when something like Jabrill’s injury and stuff happens, so yes, that would be the reason, yeah.”

Who are the guys battling with McCray and Devin?

“Ooh, there’s a wide variety of them but obviously Robo, Wroblewski, he’s a tremendous competitor and hard worker and, again, a guy who shows up and takes advantage of every opportunity he gets. He’s a guy that we’re looking at to be a leader for us.

“Then you’ve got Mbem-Bosse, who’s taken a huge step here in the spring. I mean, we love what we’re seeing out of him. He’s moving around and hitting and starting to understand what it takes to play linebacker at this level. You’ve got Devin Gil who’s there, moving around, doing a great job and playing hard; another fierce competitor. [Ben] Mason’s in the mix there. He’s just a big guy who likes contact and we like that; that kind of fits into Don’s defense. You’ve got Jared Wangler who’s there and has been here for a while kind of doing the right thing and working hard, same deal. There’s a bunch. There’s a good variety there.”

With the punt returners, is there some walking before they can run because Jabrill never put the ball on the ground. Everything else he did on top of that, but he was so sure-handed. How much of it right now is you’ve got to find somebody who can catch it first?

“Yeah, that’s a great point. So yeah, it is. It’s something that we have a coach that’s just with them constantly, all the time. They’re specialists. I treat punt returners like other specialists, so they’re like your kicker, punter, long snapper. They have their own individual deal. Drew Terrell, who’s a grad assistant, does a phenomenal job. He’s really focusing on spending all the time with them that he can and treating them like specialists.

When we’re going over special teams we’re doing a lot of stuff. One of my goals for this team is to be a very dynamic return team. I want to lead the country in punt returns. We kind of led the country in blocks last year. Believe me, we’re gonna come after people, but we want to flip the script and so we’re doing a lot of work on the return game this year. Different drills, different techniques; we’re stepping it up big time with that, and hopefully it’ll help the returners get a little more room and things like that.

“Those guys are treated like specialists. We’re walking them slow. We’re crawling them, then we’re walking them, and we’ll run ‘em when the time comes.”

Is it unusual to have a GA focusing on just that or is that something you did last year?

“Well, you know what, I didn’t, but it’s just something that I kind of—when I was at The Citadel I was able to work with the punt returners  and the coach there was kind of an old school older guy. He retired a long time ago but he had somebody focused on that and treated those guys like specialists.

“I didn’t do that last year and then was just kind of thinking about it and stuff. We had a really good one; Andre Roberts was the punt returner there. He’s been in the league for what, ten years now? And I just felt like that time that I spent with and was able to focus on him as an individual player was good to get those guys up to speed. So that’s why I think Drew’s gonna do a good job because they have someone to go to all the time.

“As a coordinator you’re working on the whole unit. Well, you forget about individual positions sometimes. You try to get at them. Well, those guys need someone standing in there and coaching them at all times. We went in that direction. Hopefully it works out.”

Kenny [Allen] did everything. Do you expect those three positions—kickoff specialist and the other two—to be split between three different guys this year?

“Well, yeah, I’m not ready to say that because we’re working everybody at everything. We’re trying to make sure that we’re making well-rounded football players. It’s the same thing; Don treats the defense like this, Drev treats the offense like this, I treat the special teams where we try to teach these guys the whole deal, so the punters understand the protection, the gunners understand what the line is doing, the line understands what the gunners are doing. Just the kickoff team, they understand where it all fits in.

“Well, we’re trying to do that in the spring with the entire specialist group. You know, the kickers understand what the punters have to do where they’ve actually done it; the punters have to kick and on kickoff everyone kicks off. I think it’ll make a more well-rounded player, but we have a lot of guys competing at all those spots.”

Brad Robbins is in your recruiting class this year. Will he be in the mix to win that job?

“Oh yeah, of course. Here it’s you come in and have the opportunity to play here and the best player, the best young men, the best teammates, they’ll play. He’ll have plenty of opportunity to step in and show what he can do when he gets here in the summer.”

What did you really like about him when you guys went down there?

“Yeah, so that was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing. That was crazy. I was kind of all over the place and I was able to get into Columbus in like the afternoon. I think I started in Mississippi, went through Georgia, then went to Columbus [and] ended in Iowa. You know, I got to see him for like a two-hour stint there.

“I just felt like—he was working out so I didn’t really get to talk to him much, but I got to kind of see him, stand there and watch his workout, be in the stands for it, and it was raining. It was cold, and he was just focusing in on his work, doing what he had to do. Extremely athletic. Extremely active leg. I just felt like he was a competitor right off the bat. I don’t know, I just got that sense.

“He was a four-sport athlete and I think that’s kind of what we were looking for in a punter was an athlete who could integrate with the team and just be really good, and I just got that sense right off the bat. He was competing at his workout with his other teammates. I just felt like he was a competitor and liked what I saw.”

Are any of the early enrollee freshmen guys that you’re using in the return game?

“Yeah, of course. We’re using all of them. They’re all going to get their shot.”

Any of them you can say is standing out after four practices?

“Uh, no, not necessarily. They’re all taking advantage of opportunities. Those guys are gonna make mistakes, they’re gonna do good things, and it’s gonna kind of be like that through the spring until they mature and go into camp. I don’t think anyone’s standing out but I don’t think anyone’s not standing out. I think they’re all doing a good job. They’re a very good group.”

What was the experience like with Solomon? Was that all nerves for you at the end and a crazy experience like with Rashan? I mean, at least with Rashan you had a prior relationship but it went down to the end as well.

“Yeah, I mean, I think it’s kinda funny. The way I approach it is just like I got to meet a great family and great people and hopefully they make the right decision but if they don’t I still had a heck of an opportunity to form a great relationship with a young man.

“Me and Aubrey got really tight through it, kind of tighter than you get with other kids sometimes, so I felt really good about it because my relationship was able to get really tight.

“I’ve kind of taken to the whole thing with recruiting and just, when I start meeting and getting into a relationship with players, I try to start mentoring them because I think the recruiting process is kind of broken. All these coaches are selling and trying to sell the kids on the program and be all flashy and they’ve got all these game rooms and they’ve got all these flashy things and great meals and everything’s great. Well, where’s the mentorship of being a coach? Where does that come in? That’s kind of lost, so I’ve kind of flipped the script because that’s what I tried to do as a high school coach is try to mentor them.

“That’s what I try to do in recruiting is, instead of just selling all the time, how about mentoring them and helping them because they’re high school kids going through this monster process and they have issues and they have things that they need, advice that they need to get. Aubrey kind of took to that mold, I think. It wasn’t that nerve-wracking, to be honest. I kind of felt good about it.”

Did you deal with any of the kids wondering about the last wave of rumors of Jim going to the NFL? Then he talked about the jive turkeys and all that.

“Oh yeah, yeah. Of course. It’s something you’ve got to—I mean, you have to make sure that you cut that stuff off and explain that it’s not true and it’s people, coaches that are trying to pull the wool over their eyes. But honestly, that helps us more than it hurts us because they’re talking about him instead of their school. Really? Why don’t they focus on themselves instead of being scared of who we are. And, you know, 17-year-olds, they kind of take to that; ‘You’re right, I don’t know they...’ and then they—it turns into a negative more than it hurts us. It turns into a negative against the other schools, to be honest.”

Which coaches were those that--

“Oh, probably all of them.” [laughs]

Talking about the chip on the shoulder thing, you said that last year going in, too. Is that legit? Do you want to coach with that kind of attitude or do you feel like they’re--

“I mean, I like it. I just feel like…I don’t know. My mentality is I feel like every day I wake up I have something to prove. I love having the guys on the team feel like that because they do, they have something to prove every day. They want to win a national championship; they have to prove that they have to do it. That’s the way I coach [and] the way I live. Just, every day I wake up I feel like I have something to prove. It doesn’t affect my day but it motivates my day, and I think if you can get the players to do that and come in with something to prove every day and really believe it, it’s just…it makes them better and hungrier and just better overall guys at practice and everything like that. Then if you get the team to do that, then all of a sudden you’ve got a whole group of guys that have something to prove and that’s pretty unstoppable.”

Bouncing around, but how many times did you get questions about Jim?

“In terms of…”

That last rumor.

“Oh, I don’t remember.”

But it was enough that—

“Yeah, people asked the questions, of course. It’s…people try to spread that stuff, but it’s something that you’re so used to doing that it happens a lot.”