After a breakout spring that concluded with a dominating pass rushing performance in the Orange and Blue game, Carlos Dunlap has the Gator Nation thinking back to the days when another freaky athlete named Jevon Kearse was terrorizing quarterbacks. Dunlap spent a few minutes with Gator Country after practice Monday afternoon.
Gator Country: What are the expectations of the defensive line?
Carlos Dunlap: To rebuild and get back to the championship defensive line
GC: What is that going to take?
CD: Us to keep working hard, keep doing everything right, listening to the coaches, staying after and doing drills on our own to get better.
GC: What kind of off-season did the defensive line have in terms of doing that?
CD: We got a whole lot better because we’ve been working the hardest. Everybody says we’re the weakest so we’ve been working to be one of the strongest and back like the national championship team.
GC: Last year you worked a lot with Phil Trautwein individually to improve. Did you do that again this summer?
CD: Yeah, me and Phil worked a lot after the workouts, one on one, doing regular pass rush drills on our own. We had a pretty good spring and finished off through the summer, and we just kept working. We didn’t stop.
GC: Knowing what the offense is capable of, does the defense take it as a challenge to get to the same level as the offense?
CD: That’s our motivation to get better because we already know what the offense will do, so we just the defense to perform like the offense and keep the score down for the other team.
GC: Does it all start in the trenches?
CD: Everything starts in the trenches. If the trenches perform well, the offense will perform well and the defense can put some points on the board also.