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| Derrick Washington will answer your questions Friday at noon! |
Football Camp Chat: Derrick Washington
Several times during preseason camp, we'll have a member of the Tiger football team will stop by to answer your questions online. Our first one begins on Friday at noon.
Our first guest of the 2009 season was junior TB Derrick Washington. A Second Team All-Big 12 selection in 2008, the Raymore-Peculiar product was one of four backs in the Big 12 to rush for over 1,000 yards; he also became just the eighth back in school history to break that barrier. His 17 touchdowns was just one shy of the school record. He did all of this on a knee that bothered him the last half of the season.
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Moderator: Fans, we're just a couple of minutes away from starting our chat. Lots of excellent questions in the queue for Derrick! |
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Moderator: Alright, folks, let's get going! |
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| Joey (Gilbert, AZ): What are your thoughts on the overall team speed? We've heard from Coach Pinkel and everyone covering that this is one of the fastest and quickest teams yet. |
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Derrick Washington: This team is pretty fast. We have a hard time getting around the D-Ends in the offensive drills, because they're running so fast. We have a lot of guys in the 4.4 range this year, and even Blaine Gabbert runs a 4.5. So we're a pretty fast team. |
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| Kris (Columbia): From the media...it appears that the O-line may be one of the best in the big 12 and maybe beyond...Does that make you smile going into the season knowing you may have a quality line to help you and the offence as a whole? |
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Derrick Washington: Most definitely, because it all starts up front, especially on the offensive side of the ball. And with those guys opening up the holes for me and the other running backs, we love the O-line. They do their job every day, and contribute to get better.
And having two coaches (Walker and Henson) has been a big part of their improvement. Two coaches can see from both angles, and they can tell what they need to improve on; if one coach can't see it, the other one can, and the guys on the O-line say they like it, too, so that's awesome. |
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| Wayne (Wentzville): With teams keying on you more this year, how important do you think it will be for Gabbert to throw deep pass routes to open up the defense for your running plays? |
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Derrick Washington: That's going to work out excellent. Blaine is always looking to throw the long ball, which the receivers like, so if I have people ganging up on me, that'll open up the pass, just the same way that the deep balls will open up the run. It's like a "pick your poison" kind of thing. |
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| Sam from Fulton: I just started playing 5th grade football. I would like to know what year you got the most touchdowns? |
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Derrick Washington: I'd probably say my senior year of high school. I think I had 43 touchdowns. |
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| Melissa, Columbia: I wonder if the team is affected by the negative predictions for this year? Does it make them mad enough to work harder to prove them all wrong? |
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Derrick Washington: Oh yeah. That's more fuel for our fire, you know? The guy that said we're gonna finish fifth in the Big 12 North, we're taking that to heart. We're just going to go out there and try to prove people wrong. |
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| John Rogers, Kansas City, MO: Comment: Derrick, I know your mom, Sarah is proud of you, and she should be. Keep up the good work. |
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Derrick Washington: My Mom, she's my biggest fan. She lets me know everything: If I'm running wrong, if I miss a read, she's the first one to tell me, so thanks! |
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| KC Tig: How much of what you do is training and how much is improvised by instinct? |
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Derrick Washington: A lot of it's from training, but I think most of it's from improvising, because you never know what's going to happen on the field. You might have to make a cut here, you might need to make a move there, so training gets your knees up, your shoulder pads level low, but when someone's out there, you need to have the vision to make the move. |
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| Kansas City: How do you prepare for a season after a long break? |
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Derrick Washington: First, we started off with winter conditioning and workouts; we get back in the weight room, and go hard. And then Spring ball comes along, but I didn't have that because of that surgery. Now, I've been working hard and getting back into it. You just have to have the right mindset. |
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| NAPA Tiger (San Francisco): Anytime my Tigers get close to the West Coast I'll be in the stands to watch my team play live. I get the feeling that there will be a lot of Tiger fans at the Reno game (me included) and I was wondering if that gets you guys pumped up? What can we do as fans that would make a road game that much better. Teams will be shocked how good we are this year. GO TIGERS |
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Derrick Washington: Oh, yeah. I love fan support, especially on the road games. If we have fans out there, all the way in Nevada, that's just going to motivate us even more. We feed off the fans, so if they're making noise and going crazy, we'd love that. |
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| Bryan - Kansas City: Honestly how does the offense compare to your previous years? Are we going to see a drop in production or will things stay the same? |
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Derrick Washington: I think we might be a little bit better this year. We lost a lot of great athletes, some that we can't even replace, but we're gonna have to fill their shoes. Blaine Gabbert's going to step up and be a great leader in this offense, and we're going to pick up where we left off, and finish stronger. |
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Moderator: I should jump in for a sec and relay a story Coach Pinkel told in Dallas at Big 12 Media Days last month. Paraphrasing, someone asked him how we could expect to compete this season after losing Maclin, Daniel, et al., and Coach's response was that these things happen every year. It's not like they rolled out of bed one morning, slapped their head and realized, "Oh my gosh, they're not playing for us anymore!" It's a process that they've been working on in recruiting for several years. The elite programs lose top-notch talent every year, but they don't get the questions about how they'll replace them. The question is whether Mizzou has reloaded, or rebuilt. |
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| Kevin: Will MU be going under center in goal line situations this year? |
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| St Louis: What can fans look for in a two back combo. |
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Derrick Washington: To be honest, I'm not sure. There's always stuff going into the playbook, so I guess you'll just have to show up on Sept. 5! |
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| Patrick (St. Louis, MO): Derrick:
How bad does it hurt having those long practices every day? After doing it for years, have you figured out how to deal with it? |
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Derrick Washington: There's no way to deal with it. You just have to jump into a cold bath. The practices are so tiring and strenuous. If you have fresh legs, you're not practicing hard at all. If you practice hard, you're gonna be sore and bulked up. |
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| Seth Daniel, Butler: Derrick,
You have quickly become one of my favorite MU players the last few years because of your ability to get into the end zone. What separates you from the other players who come up short in the red zone? |
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Derrick Washington: It's just having that drive to get into the end zone. My Dad's been telling me, and they're words I live by, "Play like every carry's your last carry." You've got to make the most of it, and that's how I do it. |
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Moderator: Fans, thanks for all the questions. There are still several that we won't be able to get to; I'll see if we can maybe post some of the rest on our Twitter account for @DWash24 to answer when he has a spare moment later today. |
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Moderator: Thanks for your support of the Tigers! We'll be back next Friday for another chat, this time from the defensive side of the ball. |
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