With preseason accolades already rolling in from the likes of Playboy and the Big 12 media, Aqib Talib has established himself already as the face of this year’s Kansas University football team. KUSports.com editor Ryan Greene fired some questions to him on Monday’s first session of Big 12 Media Day in San Antonio, Texas. The talkative junior defensive back was more than entertaining.
Ryan Greene: The big ‘it’ position this year in the Big 12 is the receiver position. Being on the other side of the ball, how do you look at what’s staring ahead of you?
Aqib Talib: I look at it as a game inside the game. If I’m going up agaisnt one of the premier Big 12 receivers, it’s a game inside of the game. As any game you play, I look at it as I’m going to win it. That’s stuff I look forward to.
RG: Is there any receiver in the conference that you’ve looked at the schedule and said ‘I’m looking forward to going against him.’?
AT: I get a chance to go against (Iowa State’s) Todd Blythe this year, (Oklahoma State’s)Adarius Bowman, there’s a couple cats. Let me go down the line, I don’t want to forget nobody. Those two are the top ones. Hopefully we get to make it to the Big 12 Championship or something, and I get a chance to play against (Oklahoma’s) Malcolm Kelly or (Texas’ Limas) Sweed, one of them, they always seem to be there, so hopefully I get a chance to play against one of those dudes. I never turn down a challenge, I’m looking forward to playing against all of ’em.
RG: You didn’t get much of a chance to go against Bowman (who had 300 yards) in that game last year…
AT: Right, he was in the slot, he was inside more.
RG: During that game, were you thinking ‘man, just let me get on him.’?
AT: I guarded him I think three times that game. They threw him the ball two of the times, two posts that game, and I broke two of ’em up. I got a little piece of him, you know what i’m sayin’. He tried to run by me on the posts and it ain’t happening. I got a chance to get him a little bit.
RG: Do you feel that opened the coaching staff’s eyes to using you in a bunch of different ways?
AT: I don’t know, we kind of were working on it for a couple of weeks. I got in against Colorado and I ran a corner and they threw the ball out of bounds. We had kind of been working on it and working on it. It worked out pretty good. Maybe I’ll get a couple more chances to get the ball in my hands. I look forward to it, but my main focus is playing corner.
RG: You talked about how porous the defensive backfield was at times last year. You’re kind of the known quantity. With everything else, give us a preview of the rest of the defensive backfleld. How strong is it going to be besides yourself?
AT: Basically, We’re gonna have Darrell Stuckey coming in at free safety. Stuckey came off the broken foot last year, he broke his ankle and he was kind of hobbling around out there, he wasn’t 100 percent for a game. Darrell Stuckey is by far the most athletic person on our team. You’re going to see a totally different Darrell Stuckey this year, so be looking out for him at free safety. The corner on the opposite side of me, Kendrick Harper, from Butler, from junior college, he probably was the MVP of our spring this year. I mean, we had a couple scrimmages where he had three interceptions and two touchdowns. He looked real good, like he was ready. He’s real physical, and he should play a real big part on teams if they did decide to throw away from me, I don’t think they’d be able to because that’s not the type of player he is. He is the first corner who’s played on the other side of me who has that same mentality as me, like ‘I’m going to win every play,’ since I’ve been here. Strong safety, we’ve got Patrick Resby from junior college, he came in, he looked good this whole spring, he looked real good. Then Tang, Tang Bacheyie came down, he probably hits harder than (former Jayhawk) Jerome Kemp hits. I dunno, it’s going to be a little battle out them for that starting strong safety spot. It should be good though, man. Our secondary is going to look totally different. We’re more close together, we’ve got a new swagger, a whole new confidence level. Everything that happened last year was last year, and this ain’t last year, and we’re ready for this upcoming season.
RG: Last year, one of your big beefs before the season was NCAA 07, you weren’t an impact player. You kind of took that personally. What do you think of this year’s game?
AT: They showed me a little love this year. Offense and defense, they made me a pretty good player this year, so thank you (to them).
RG: Do you feel you’re the right kind of personality to be the first Kansas player in a long time that’s really gotten this kind of preseason notoriety?
AT: I hear good personalities tell me I’m good for the camera or whatever, so I don’t know, man. I just ride with it. I just ride with everything.
RG: There was a lot of talk last year that getting Oklahoma and Texas off the schedule, that was the schedule that the program waited two or three years to have, and it’s kind of looked at as you missed a bowl game with that schedule. Is there pressure to have a good season this year because those two come back on the schedule next year?
AT: We’re not going to look at it as pressure, we’re oging to look at it as the turning point. It’s like all right, here it is – Last year we had the schedule, but we also had a gang of freshmen, a gang of people getting on the field for the first time, so they had to warm up as well. So last year was just a litlte warm-up season, get your feet wet, and this year it’s time to get it crackin’, it’s the real season this year.
Media Day Q&A with…Kansas’ Brandon McAnderson
Media Day Q&A with…Oklahoma’s Malcolm Kelly
Media Day Q&A with…Missouri’s players on Arrowhead and expectations
