BONUS: Auburn football's offseason from a player's perspective

It's the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Lockdown Podcast Network welcomes Brian Smith, longtime recruiting expert to our weekly lineup of local college shows. Brian provides breaking news and interviews you can't find anywhere else. Available on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. How is this offseason gone from a player's perspective? I think the insight could be interesting. The temperatures are likely for several hours inland and a few hours closer to the coast. Yes. You are Lockdown Auburn, your daily podcast on the Auburn Tiger. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Yes, welcome on in to Lockdown Auburn, your daily Auburn Tigers Podcast. I'm your Hosec Blacker. Thank you so much for making Lockdown Auburn. You're first listen every single day. Joining me today, everyone's favorite defensive lineman, Auburn defensive lineman Jason Jones, joining us, man. Happy, I guess, happy off season to you. It's this weird period where I don't think y'all are really doing organized summer workouts or anything quite yet. What are you up to these days? So a lot of the guys, especially me, we either go back home or we go to different places. This is a big time for us to just relax unwind before we have a long summer workout and a long season. So I know for me at least, I did a little bit of traveling, but I didn't just sit around eating stuff all day. I was, you still got a training, still got to stay in shape. So that's the most important thing during this time. Yeah, just staying in shape. How many different folks do you kind of work out with? I know you've got a trainer back at home and I think you've worked at trainers other places based on where you've traveled. But what does that typically look like? I mean, I know you specifically and hopefully several players are always kind of working on their craft a little bit. What does that look like? Well, my trainer up in Birmingham, Coachella, we just pretty much do the same stuff. But I mean, the thing is he tries to make everything harder than it should be. So like, you know, have some places we do in like four sets of five, four sets of ten. We do, we do in like four sets of thirty over there. So he's really, he puts us in situations where it's, we're got the fight. You know, it's more of a mental game. You know what I'm in? Sure. Yeah. So how different are workouts with those individual coaches like Coacheaux versus what you do at Auburn? How different is it? Yeah, well, Coacheaux, Coacheaux, um, Alex, excuse me. It's, you're fine. But it's, it's totally different. I mean, every, every trainer had work on different stuff, but obviously the he works on prim was the same stuff as other college coaches do. Got it. Got it. So do you have access to facilities? If you were to go into the facility and work out or, or is this kind of a thing where you're kind of on your own until they open the doors? Pretty much. I know that they have like certain times where you can come in and work out. You're still on campus and stuff like that. You still have access to the facility and everything. So if you want to go in here, workout can, um, I just refer to coke, come home again, unwind and you know, get ready for the season. I saw. Yeah, sure. Sure. Like you said, that's a huge mental part of it. I'm sure. So you've, you've been on both sides of what a lot of the, a lot of new teammates of yours are going through with the whole transfer thing. Of course you transfer to Auburn from Oregon. Do, do you kind of play a role in welcoming folks that come in or you kind of like, ah, well, once, once we're practicing, once we're working out, you know, those relationships will happen in due time. And obviously those ladies will happen in due time because you know, y'all aren't familiar with each other. It's always good to get to know your teammates right then and there. Yeah. Especially on that first day when y'all come back off of, um, some of the work, some workouts, but, um, little break that we do get. Sure. And at least introduce yourself, your name, where you're from, that type of stuff. So, um, it ain't like, oh, you got to earn your respect type of thing around here. We're all, if we're going to be family, we got to act like family. I like that. I like that. Is it, have you ever been in a situation where you're right now, we're looking at 20 members that are coming in? And I think it's 21 kids coming from the high school ranks and some of those went through spring. Sure. But I mean, you're looking at from last year to this year, 40, 40 plus, uh, new teammates from a year ago. I mean, have you ever been part of a turnover of, I mean, it's pretty remarkable. First off, I've never seen that before. So that's, that's news to me. 21 and 20. But no, I'm not. I mean, the team people look totally different, but that's just even more of a reason to try and bomb your teammates. Like, yeah, you got to get to know everyone as quick as possible. Because guess what? The season is going to be here in about two months, two, three, four months. So got to, you know, it's going to come quick. Yeah. We're recording this Thursday morning and Auburn football social media accounts. They put out a quick video with you free saying it's a hundred days. So when this drops, so it'll be less than a hundred days towards the season. Is there any sense of urgency where it's like, okay, we're in double digits now, um, as far as like getting closer to the season? Like, I've got to work because I know all of the other players on the, of all everybody that you're playing on the roster, they're working as hard as they possibly can as well. When does that sense of urgency start to kick in? Um, I mean, I think for me, at least it kicks in right when you go back to school or like right as before you go to bed at school. Like, so like now, like something like now, it's just like, okay, we're getting closer and closer. We're getting to summer camp. Now, like summer camps, you have to go by quick. It's only a few months, only a few weeks. And when summer camp ends, you're right in the fall camp and you got four weeks until you play a game. So that urgency, you always got to one, the first things first is stay in shape. Yeah. You're doing everything that you can't do. And the best of your ability to stay in shape, especially during this time, we're not really around the canvas people. So now that you got that straight, okay, now you need to prepare yourself for summer and now you need to prepare yourself football wise for fall camp because sooner or later, the first games are going to happen. Yeah. Yeah, which is the goal and all of this, right? So when you look at, I mean, how y'all schedule shapes up, you've got two opponents that I think y'all are significantly more talented than you go to Cal, which is kind of a unique experience, maybe a little less for you because you spent time working. Yeah, sure. So, but that's got to be kind of the first one that you guys are looking at. Then the following week, you go to college station, which is obviously something that's going to be kind of a tone setter for the rest of the season, not first SEC game, it always is. But do you guys kind of look at like, okay, we've really got, you know, all of summer, all of fall in these first two weeks of the season? Or is it more of a no, we need to be ready. You know, we need to be ready by the time you mask comes to town. I say we need to be, but either before then because I'm like, I'm looking at every game now like it's like it's a championship game. Like you got to prove something like, I'll say everyone knows that last year wasn't our most ideal year that wasn't. I don't know if I'm fans, I wasn't so fun. I'm just going to be honest. So now I want to give the favorite back to you guys and we want to be one to go 12 and know that and that's just on. If you're goals, you want to go 12 and know. We want to win every single game. So I'm treating every game like it's a championship game. Just go out there, dominate, get out. That's how it's going. How much film work are you doing right now and over the summer? Or does that kind of wait until fall where you have more interaction with coaches? Yeah, everyone's different. But I mean, I've already started like watching UMass now. Okay. Just a little bit here and there when I can. So I've already started watching UMass. So when you watch tape as a defensive lineman, are you looking at just tendencies that the guards and tackles are doing, are you looking at how the quarterback and running back line up to see if there's tendencies as far as it's a run or a pass? What specifically are you kind of looking at? I know you don't want to kind of go into detail with everything. But you know, you hit it. You hit it. You don't know. But we just we look at I look at tendencies because everyone has tendencies and you can't only high tendencies. It's just right. It's a whole cause for all that you're going to see it. We just look at I look at tennis tendencies like what the guards and what tackles do with the quarterbacks and what the tackles doing. So yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. So as far as your goals for summer, well, I know you mentioned staying in shapes important, but you know, as far as you take in that next step as a player, as a defensive lineman, as a leader on this team, what are some of your goals that you're working there right now? I just one one of my goals is just continue to work my butt off. You know, I mean, I know I such like, oh, everyone's going to try and work the butt off, but that's just what the most important thing because a lot of players go go through the motions during the summer year. You just want to get through it and get straight to football. But if you're not physically and mentally in shape from summer, then fall camp's going to be hard. The season's going to be hard. I think the most important thing for me right now is working, you know, not staying satisfied with what I've done from spring or what I've done from this low break. Yeah. During this break, are there certain teammates you're talking to more than others? Are you kind of messaging with the other defensive lineman or what does your communication look like? So I've tried recently, I've stayed in contact with Garrett. I mean, I'm talked a little bit. Good. I talked to, I'm about to ask him, I was just about to mention Marcus Harris. I'm just Rogers and just checking in on them, seeing how they're doing and seeing how they're progressing going and just telling them like we got to keep working. Like we, you know, we set the tone for spring. We got to keep growing. You can't stay satisfied. Yeah. How close are the defensive lineman as far as like preparation and game plan and watch and film and all that? How close are y'all with the Jack linebackers or is that seen as totally a different position? No, I mean, because there's still a defensive line and just because we're in different room doesn't mean that we're just saying that we have the same assignment. Because if all of us, of all the D-line men are on and the Jack is off, then the plays messed up. So everyone's like, especially the Jack and the D-line, we're all together in a sense. We all get top of same stuff. So I mean, we're all in the same boat here. Yeah. And obviously that position's gotten some new faces coming in. Jaden McLeod, the transfer from map state. Steve Singes, who played for Garrett and Fries at Liberty, you know, the last few seasons. He'll come in as well. And so it'll be interesting to see what all they add to that defensive front. Yeah. I watched a lot of film on the Appalachian state kid. And he can play. He can really play. He can get strong hands, great leverage, all that capacity rush. He's like, he can do it all. Yeah. Same standing with the Liberty guy. He's a really good pass rusher. You can get into the back field. Yeah, for sure. Jason, thank you for your time. As always, my friend. And best of luck to you before you kind of come back and hit it hard this summer, man. Thanks. Thank you. And we'll see you guys tomorrow. This has been Lockdawn Auburn. Thanks for making Lockdawn your first listen every day. The NBA draft is June 22nd and Lockdawn NBA Big Board is the only daily NBA draft podcast. Get the latest on all the prospects and your team's needs with Lockdawn NBA Big Board, available on YouTube and wherever you get your podcast. Part of the Lockdawn Podcast Network, your team, every day. The frenzy around college recruiting is at an all-time high. Lockdawn Podcast Network knows you need all the best insights, so we're happy to welcome Brian Smith to the network. With an unparalleled 30 years of experience, Brian delivers boots on the ground perspective that you can't get anywhere else. He's the ultimate recruiting insider and he's here to give you the breaking news and exclusive interviews you need to stay on top. 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