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00:00 [INAUDIBLE]
00:05 Jared, with how well you did at the combine,
00:07 what are you planning to do at the pro day?
00:10 Not much.
00:11 I'm doing my new thing.
00:13 [INAUDIBLE]
00:22 So I could have showcased a little more,
00:24 but at the end of the day, I feel content with how I did.
00:27 On that subject, how pleased were you
00:29 with your performance at the combine,
00:31 but all of your teammates' performance at the combine
00:34 as well?
00:34 What do you think that proved about what
00:36 you guys were in 2023?
00:38 Speaking about my teammates, first,
00:41 I wasn't surprised by any of that.
00:42 A lot of people were surprised by Braden Fisk.
00:44 A lot of people were surprised by Jerrion Jones.
00:47 I wasn't surprised by any of that.
00:48 That's who they are.
00:48 That's who they are.
00:50 Trey, he did good.
00:51 He knows-- everybody knows he could have done a little bit
00:55 more, but speed-wise, because Trey's faster than what
00:58 he showcased.
00:58 But that's still a 4.3.
01:00 It's a 4.3.
01:03 He proved he's faster than me, so that's
01:04 something that kind of pissed me off.
01:06 But no, I mean, I was pleased with everybody.
01:09 Everybody did good.
01:10 The drills you saw were capable of it.
01:13 I think the whole college football, the whole NFL
01:15 saw that Florida State can produce athletes.
01:18 And speaking about myself, I could have broken every record.
01:20 I'll still expect more of myself.
01:22 So I was pleased with what I did.
01:24 I always expect, oh, yeah, I could have done this
01:26 a little bit better.
01:26 I always critique myself.
01:28 But I think I did pretty well.
01:30 All right, next, we'll go to Brandon in the front row
01:32 on your left.
01:33 Kind of following up on that, Jared,
01:35 we got to see you guys hanging around practice yesterday,
01:37 and everyone's still around the program.
01:40 And how special was this last year's group?
01:44 And I guess, did you appreciate that in the moment of what
01:47 you guys were as a tight-knit group?
01:50 I think I definitely appreciated it more so from my time
01:52 at other schools or my time in high school
01:54 and being around other teams, moving around a lot as a kid.
01:58 You realize not a lot of teams are close-knit like that.
02:00 I hang out with those guys.
02:01 I still hang out with them.
02:02 Me and Kian trained at the same facility.
02:04 We'd go out and play top golf together.
02:06 First of all, that dude's really good at golf.
02:07 But we'd go out and just hang out and stuff like that.
02:10 That's just who we are as a team.
02:12 Jaron Jones was in Dallas with us.
02:13 We'd go hang out with him.
02:15 It was just like, wherever we are,
02:16 those are still my brothers.
02:17 And that's not something you get with a lot of other teams.
02:19 A lot of teams, once you disband,
02:21 you don't see each other anymore.
02:22 It's over with.
02:23 That's not how we are here.
02:25 I'm calling these guys every day.
02:26 What's up with you?
02:27 What's that one situation?
02:28 Or what's happening here?
02:29 Just catching up with them.
02:30 It's generally like a family.
02:31 So when you see them all out there on the field together,
02:34 we all smile and laugh.
02:34 It's just a great feeling.
02:35 It feels like we're almost back out there again together.
02:38 All right.
02:38 Next, we have Jordan, third row on your left.
02:40 Jared, kind of following up on that,
02:42 can you talk about these last three months, your training,
02:44 and what you're trying to work on as you head into the draft?
02:47 Yeah.
02:47 Through this past year, my first year here,
02:49 I feel like my biggest issue was playing the run.
02:52 This past season, I think I made the biggest leap I could
02:54 have made in playing the run.
02:55 I feel like I became a great run defender.
02:57 You know, better than I've ever been in the past.
02:59 This past season was more just redefining things,
03:02 adding new moves to my arsenal, making my first step
03:04 a little bit quicker, just critiquing everything,
03:07 kind of making it like fine tuning things,
03:09 trying to become a little bit faster here,
03:10 a little bit stronger here, and everything like that.
03:12 There was no one thing where I'm like, oh, yeah,
03:14 this is better.
03:15 You know, I'm out this world.
03:17 You know, my hip fluidity is something
03:19 I've been working on, too.
03:20 But those are my main things.
03:23 We'll go to Chris, top row on your left.
03:25 As a guy that's projected to probably go pretty early,
03:27 how does the top 30 process work for you from your end?
03:30 And have you taken any of those yet?
03:32 And how many do you expect to take overall?
03:33 I haven't taken any yet.
03:34 I expect to take a good amount.
03:36 I want teams to get the full understanding
03:38 of who I am as a person.
03:39 I don't want any questions left up in the air
03:41 of who he is as a person, how does
03:43 he handle certain situations.
03:44 I want people to know who I am as a person.
03:46 Like I said, this is something I've always dreamed for.
03:49 I've always wished to be in the conversation of a player
03:51 potentially going high in the draft in any round.
03:54 But being able to know I'm putting myself in this position
03:57 is very good.
03:59 So I'm just going out there, meeting with a couple of teams.
04:01 I have no set number on how many I plan to meet with.
04:03 And I'm always going to want to make time for my workouts,
04:06 my physical aspect.
04:07 But I'm definitely going to take a good amount of visits.
04:09 All right, next will be Ira, second row on your right.
04:12 Hey, man.
04:12 I think I heard that you were the guy that
04:14 bought a lot of those Jordan Travis t-shirts and stuff
04:17 like that that the team wore late in the season.
04:19 And then just how much he means to you, that relationship,
04:22 and what it's like to now see him walking without a boot?
04:26 I mean, I think Trey said it best.
04:27 It almost brings a tear to your eye when you see it.
04:30 You know how hard J-Trav works.
04:31 You know how much he puts in for this.
04:33 He put his heart and soul into this program.
04:35 Without J-Trav, this whole thing would
04:37 have been a whole different situation.
04:39 We would have been a whole other conversation now.
04:41 But him as a player, him as a person,
04:43 like I was speaking about earlier,
04:44 that's one of my brothers.
04:45 I call him randomly.
04:46 And he always has some dumb stuff to say.
04:48 But I call him randomly.
04:50 We just have great conversations.
04:51 That's genuinely one of my brothers.
04:53 When I saw him walking and everything, he FaceTimed me.
04:55 First off, he shouldn't have been
04:57 walking when he FaceTimed me.
04:58 But he was walking.
04:58 He's like, bro, yeah, I'm coming back.
05:00 I'm like, bro, what's up with you, bro?
05:02 But it just meant it makes you smile.
05:04 It makes you just genuinely happy to be alive.
05:06 That you know people can overcome these things,
05:08 these type of situations.
05:10 You just look at it, and you're like,
05:12 that's a strong guy right there.
05:14 That's him right there.
05:15 He means a lot to me.
05:16 I can sidetrack from your question.
05:17 What was your question again?
05:19 [INAUDIBLE]
05:22 You talked about you've always wanted
05:23 to be one of those guys that's an early round
05:25 pick and a first round pick.
05:26 And I'm sure you always dreamed about hugging the commissioner
05:29 and getting your picture taken.
05:30 But you were basically a zero star recruit
05:32 that went to Albany.
05:34 What does your journey--
05:36 why did you keep believing in yourself?
05:39 Did you ever get close to not believing in yourself
05:41 and not even playing football anymore?
05:44 Can you talk us through that mindset
05:46 you had when you were 18 or 19 years old?
05:48 Yeah, I've had this mindset for a long time.
05:50 I always tell everybody going into high school,
05:52 I'm going to go on the varsity team.
05:54 I'm going to play varsity football.
05:55 They're like, no, you're not.
05:56 You're not even going to make it to varsity.
05:57 I said, all right, I made it to varsity.
05:58 I became a pretty good player.
06:00 I told them I was going to play D1 football.
06:01 They're like, no, you're not.
06:01 I made it to Division 1.
06:03 And I told everyone at Albany, I said,
06:04 I'm going to make it to the NFL one day.
06:05 I'm going to be the best.
06:07 I want to be the best ever.
06:09 And they're like, no, you're not.
06:10 People doubt you every step of the way.
06:12 So when you doubt yourself, that's
06:13 when you're truly lost.
06:15 People can doubt you.
06:15 People are always going to doubt you.
06:16 There's people out there, I could go have a 100 sack game,
06:19 and they're still going to be like, y'all saw that one
06:20 he missed?
06:21 And they're just going to keep doubting you.
06:23 I never got close to not believing in myself
06:26 because of the people around me, too.
06:27 My older brother, he'd always encouraged me.
06:29 My mom and my dad, they were always by my side.
06:31 My little sisters, my older sister, my younger brother,
06:34 they were always by my side.
06:35 They never even got close to allowing me
06:37 to be in that head position where I was like,
06:39 I don't know if I can do this.
06:40 They have inflated my head to give me this confidence
06:43 I have where no one can stop me and I'm going to be unbeatable.
06:45 So I don't think anyone will ever
06:48 be able to take away my confidence
06:50 or anyone will ever be able to make me doubt myself just
06:53 because I believe in myself so much.
06:55 This means the world, like I said,
06:56 he said, hugging the commission, everything like that,
06:58 going to the draft, everything.
06:59 That's been a dream of mine since I was a little kid.
07:01 And every time I do a rep, I have one little picture
07:03 that pops into my head.
07:04 So I can't wait for that.
07:05 But after that, it's just football.
07:08 [INAUDIBLE]
07:11 Jared, I hate to bring up the past,
07:12 but in Indy, you mentioned that you wish you
07:14 had played in the Orange Bowl.
07:15 Can you just talk about your decision
07:16 to opt out and your feelings about it three months later?
07:19 Yeah, my decision to opt out, I feel like we all
07:21 had different decisions.
07:22 So I won't speak for anybody else.
07:24 At the end of the day, you ask for my opinion.
07:26 My reason for opting out was just
07:27 it didn't feel right, the whole situation
07:30 with us going undefeated and everything like that.
07:32 That was one thing.
07:33 But putting myself in a position where
07:35 now I know a couple of my teammates,
07:37 whether I stayed in or not, were going to opt out.
07:39 Now I'm putting myself in a little bit more danger.
07:41 I'm playing something-- maybe I'm
07:42 playing a young tackle or something like that.
07:44 He's trying to showcase something,
07:45 kind of really go too crazy.
07:47 Now I'm in a bad position.
07:49 I'm hurt.
07:49 Now I got to recover.
07:50 Now I got to answer more injury questions to teams.
07:53 It just felt like the smarter idea to opt out.
07:55 Do I wish I played in it?
07:56 100%.
07:57 I wish I was out there on the field with my team.
07:59 It was kind of heartbreaking to be on the sideline
08:03 and watch I put some of those guys in that position
08:06 and wishing if I went out there, I
08:08 could have cut that down by a little bit.
08:09 I could have give the offense a couple more possessions.
08:12 I could have shut down their offense a little bit more.
08:14 But at the end of the day, that's
08:15 a decision I made.
08:16 That's a decision I'm going to have to stand by.
08:18 I talked to Jerry and Jones and Duda about it yesterday.
08:22 But at the end of the day, that's
08:23 a decision I have to stand by.
08:25 [INAUDIBLE]
08:28 How's Pat looking with the extra weight?
08:30 And what have you seen out of these new defensive ends
08:33 that they brought in?
08:35 I don't know.
08:36 I was talking to Derek yesterday about it.
08:40 We don't rebuild at Florida State.
08:41 We reload.
08:42 They reloaded already.
08:44 They brought in some dogs.
08:45 Those guys, I'm watching them.
08:46 And obviously, it's no pass.
08:47 You're not going to get the full feel of it.
08:48 But I'm watching.
08:49 I'm like, I ain't got no way.
08:52 It's in good hands.
08:52 Pat looks-- I think he's just as fast, if not faster.
08:55 He's definitely stronger with the extra weight.
08:57 He's moving real fluid.
08:59 That's just-- I'm not worried about them at all.
09:01 They look like they're built for this.
09:03 [INAUDIBLE]
09:07 Gordon.
09:07 When you produce like you have at the college level,
09:12 and you know what kind of athlete you are,
09:14 there's still so much put into that one day
09:16 at a combine in Indianapolis.
09:18 Were you nervous?
09:19 Did you wake up nervous?
09:20 Were you nervous throughout?
09:21 Or did you have 100% belief?
09:24 Because it's such a big day.
09:27 A lot of it was riding on that one day, that two-hour window.
09:31 Yeah, no.
09:31 I mean, it's the same kind of mindset I go into with games.
09:34 I don't get nervous before games.
09:35 I don't get nervous before any big meetings
09:37 or any big interviews or anything like that.
09:39 Because what's the point of getting nervous?
09:40 Now you're just going to psych yourself out.
09:42 I just smile a little bit.
09:43 I laugh.
09:43 I mean, if you see it, you'll see a bunch of pictures of me
09:45 at the combine just smiling and laughing
09:47 on the field with the guys.
09:48 There's no reason to get nervous.
09:49 We worked our whole life for this.
09:51 Past two months, we were specifically
09:52 training for this one moment.
09:54 So why would I get nervous?
09:55 I put so much preparation into it.
09:56 When you put so much preparation into it, you can't get nervous.
09:59 You just have belief in yourself.
10:01 You said you weren't surprised by anything
10:03 those guys did at the combine.
10:04 But Fisk is a guy that it seemed like a lot of people
10:07 didn't really know about as much as some of the other guys.
10:10 Just how much pride did you take watching him
10:13 do what he did at the senior bowl and then also at the combine?
10:16 I'm telling you, that's just who Fisk is.
10:18 If you watch-- the stats don't show what he's capable of.
10:21 He had good stats, especially for a defensive tackle.
10:24 If stats showed the whole playbook,
10:26 then none of us would be in the conversation we're in.
10:28 If you look at the games he played, game 1 through 12, 13,
10:34 he went insane.
10:35 It was hard for people to block him.
10:37 People had trouble blocking him.
10:38 So it was no shock to me at the senior bowl
10:40 when these guys had trouble blocking him
10:42 and could not do it.
10:43 I'm just looking at him like, yeah, that's who he is.
10:46 I take great pride in it.
10:47 I'm happy because me and him go head to head all the time.
10:49 We're racing.
10:50 We're trying to see who can bench more.
10:51 We're trying to see who can do this more.
10:53 We're competing all the time.
10:54 But watching that, it did not surprise me at all.
10:56 That who Braden Fisk is, that he is an athlete.
10:59 He is a dog.
10:59 He is Braden Fisk.
11:01 Should an NFL team draft Jordan Travis?
11:09 Most definitely.
11:10 He'll be healthy in a couple of months.
11:12 He's already walking, which is, for the injury he had,
11:15 already incredible.
11:17 His IQ is beyond anything I've ever seen.
11:20 I don't think it's any doubt a team should take him.
11:22 How early you take him, how late you take him,
11:24 if you get him late, then you've got to steal.
11:26 Like, that's insane if you get him late.
11:28 I think he's probably healthy, one of the best
11:31 quarterbacks in this draft.
11:33 I don't think anyone has any doubt in that.
11:35 Once he's fully healthy again, I think whoever gets him
11:38 is going to be one of the luckiest teams in the whole league.
11:40 If I recall correctly, when you decided to come here,
11:46 part of your process was finding a place
11:48 where strength and conditioning fit you.
11:50 After spending time here working with Josh Storms, his staff,
11:52 just how impressive is that group,
11:54 and how much did they help you take this leap forward?
11:56 I mean, if you just look at my before and after pictures,
12:00 it's different.
12:01 Yeah, the strength and training program here is insane.
12:04 Like, they're going to get you after it.
12:05 I mean, there's a reason, you know,
12:07 Jermaine comes back here every year to lift again.
12:09 There's a reason I come back here.
12:10 Like, I came back here, you know, early just to come back
12:12 and get some more work in with, you know, Coach Storms.
12:15 Like, they really get you after it.
12:17 They're going to make you stronger.
12:17 They're going to make you faster.
12:18 They're going to make you bigger.
12:19 You just have to mentally be prepared for what it takes
12:22 to, like, get to that level because it's not for everyone.
12:27 Anything else for Jared?
12:29 All right. Thank you.
12:31 Wow, y'all have a good one.
12:33 [no audio]