LB Tyreek Maddox-Williams says the team is motivated and locked in
At Big Ten Football Media Days last month, Rutgers sent three of its four captains to Chicago including Tyreek Maddox-Williams. The redshirt junior linebacker for the Scarlet Knights enjoyed the trip out there and used the designated time talking to various media members about the offseason grind and the team in a general sense.
“It was really good to just get a chance to talk about our team and pretty much how we are trying to improve from last year,” Maddox-Williams told TKR recently during training camp. “I also like seeing other players we're going to play and stuff like that. It was pretty good. I enjoyed it.”
This season, Rutgers has a new defensive coordinator and linebackers coach in Andy Buh, who replaced Jay Niemann.
“They both were good defensive coordinators. They both taught us a lot,” Maddox-Williams said. “They both pretty much tried or try to get us better. (Buh) just fits in. We love his energy."
When talking with the press, Buh mentioned he wants an aggressive defense and one that causes turnovers. And in order to accomplish that, Maddox-Williams said they don’t too much thinking out on field.
“(Buh) doesn’t want to make anything hard on us,” Maddox-Williams said. “He just tries to keep it simple. He just gets us to play fast pretty much.”
Last week, Buh raved about how hard the players go in practice and that he likes the leadership on his side of the ball, including with Maddox-Williams.
"No. 1, the guys are working extremely hard for us. I can't get over that. They're just working really, really hard,” Buh said. “We're improving every day. We have a lot of leadership on defense with Tyreek and Tyshon (Fogg). Guys are coming along...and getting better."
Being a leader, an older guy, and a captain comes with responsibility. Maddox-Williams started all 12 games at the strongside linebacker spot a year ago and played in 11 games with six starts in 2016, too.
“I got to be all point all the time. Because with being a veteran, I can't mess up and make a lot of the mistakes that other people make,” the 6-foot, 228-pounder said. “Because then they go, how can I learn? Young guys want to learn and see how to do things, so I got to make sure I'm on my P's and Q's so that the younger guys can develop and be on point.”
The Timber Creek High (Erial, N.J.) product said he and his teammates are motivated from the poor showing in 2018.
His expectations and goals for 2019 are simple. He just wants to see the improvement on gameday that he sees on the practice field.
“Anything is better than last year,” Maddox-Williams said. “We have to take it day by day and game by game and build on it. You got to be better than last year, pretty much.
“I think everybody's locked in. I think everybody's locked in in the case that everybody want to get better. It wasn't, you don't need a last season going 1-11 and think like I don't need to get better. It wasn't my fault. But I think everyone understands it was a team effort. Our record last year was based on the team, so the team got improve together. So I think everybody comes out here with the mindset that we all got to get better, so they attack the day.”
Richie Schnyderite contributed to this article.
Follow Chris Nalwasky on Twitter @ChrisWasky.