Spring Q&A with Rutgers Football safety Flip Dixon
Rutgers Football's starting safety Flip Dixon spoke with the media following practice recently about his decision to return to the banks for another year, his offseason work and much more.
Question: You hear coach Lascari say all those positive things about you, how does that feel?
Flip Dixon: It feels good, I got a lot of love for Coach Drew [Lascari], and every day we’re attacking and getting these young guys ready for the next step.
Q: What drove you to take on that role and take those young guys under your wing? What motivated you to want to do that?
FD: My past, when I was a young guy I had guys like Todd Lupin and Jordan Hadlam over at Minnesota taking care of me. It drove me, because learning defense is hard, so I know how that [mentoring] is, it motivated me to help them [younger players].
Q: Coach Lascari said that you kind of took over a coaching role this offseason, do you see coaching in your future post-NFL?
FD: Nah, I’m not ready for that.
Q: How much of that desire to come back and leave something, leave a legacy, played into you wanting to return for one final year?
FD: It means a lot, leaving a legacy is something big. [It’s] What you want to do, leave a legacy at your school then you come back and still get love from the family [school/program].
Q: A lot of continuing experience, yourself included, in this safety room, how excited are you to run it back and how much better do you think this group could be this year?
FD: I’m very excited. We got a lot of people coming back, basically the whole defense, so I’m very excited to see what we can do. I know we can do a lot better next year, for sure.
Q: What do you see from those young guys, Kaj Sanders, Antonio White, just on the field? Obviously, this is their first spring camp, just what were your early impressions of what they can do on the field?
FD: They’re very good, they learned the defense easily, they’re very smart, very athletic, and know how to make plays, so I feel like they’re going to be real good.
Q: Now that you have a ton of Georgia guys on the team, Antonio White’s coming up, how happy are you to get another one?
FD: It’s Georgia boys, we got love for each other being from Georgia, and we play a different style of football, so it’s exciting to have that.
Q: Georgia and New Jersey produce a ton of football talent, which one [state] is better [at producing football players]?
FD: Georgia, come on.
Q: What can you say about Desmond Igbinosun and Shaquan Loyal, two other starting safeties in the mix, what makes them special players?
FD: We are leaders in this defense. I feel like we have to continue to take that next step, leading these young guys for ourselves and just keep getting better every year.
Q: Coach Drew played college football as a QB, do you see that QB in him come out sometimes when he’s coaching?
FD: Yeah, he teaches us a lot about offensive terminology, run schemes and stuff, and it’s very helpful.
Q: The decision to come back, was it an easy one, was it hard, did you have to think hard about it, walk me through the off-season decision-making process?
FD: I spent some time thinking about it. I talked to coaches, my family. We all came together and talked, and I made a decision to come back. It was kind of hard, but not that hard. When you see everybody else coming back, you want to get into it [come back too].
Q: Max Melton’s probably going to be the next Rutgers player drafted. What were your thoughts about playing alongside him and what made him special?
FD: I love playing with Max. He’s a great player, a phenomenon. He’s been here for a while and he helped me get used to it here and it was a great time with him.
Q: Practicing against this Rutgers offense, how do you feel like that helped make you, your unit, the defense, and the team as a whole better?
FD: We compete every day being physical and violent, so yeah, getting each other better.
--------------------------------------------------------------
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel