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48 ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 24, ISSUE 6 f everything fits with everything and the accountability is there. So a guy knows what to expect. A man does his job right, he'll be rewarded; he doesn't and takes his punishment. That's just the way it goes." Gold and Black: Do you feel like your guys look more com- fortable in knowing how the pieces fit together, allowing them to play a little more reac- tionary? Hudson: "Your actions speak so loud I can hardly hear what you're saying. Body language is big. You can tell when a kid is confused; you can tell when they get it. Then, you start seeing them not only having football conversations with you but you're seeing them talking to their buddy or the guy in line behind them and they're saying the correct things. We put an empha- sis on that too, if a young guy wasn't doing something correct, I quit yelling at the young guy. I started getting on Sean, you know, and (Ryan) Russell, and Joe (Gilliam): 'Why are you letting that happen on your senior year?' The accountability then stretched into that phase of what you're asking, absolutely." Gold and Black: You could be improved defensive- ly, but still have a long way to go after that. How big an improvement do you expect? Do you want? Hudson: "You can either say how far off you are or how close you might have been. So let me give you one stat. We had 100 plays of third-and-long (third-and-six or more). We were successful, in watching the film, on a decent amount, about 62 percent of them. The (38) plays we weren't, I took those plays and looked at what happened after that. It was like 1,000 yards of offense and 100 points of scoring. If we cut that one thing in half, we went from the bottom of total defense and scoring defense to like sixth. In only (38) plays that we cut in half. "That's one of the first things I said. 'OK, how far are we? Oh god, we're far away.' Well, let me show you some- thing. If you just cut these, if you make 20-some more plays, guess where you'd be in total defense and scoring defense? And the kids are like, 'Oh my god.' And I said we're there with Nebraska and they went to a pretty good bowl game. "But there's some wood to chop now. We've got to gain some ground." Gold and Black: And it took you a while with Step 1. Hudson: "Oh yeah. The thing is that in football Step 1 isn't that easy. There's a lot of moving parts." Gold and Black: How many Big Ten-ready players do you think that you have? Hudson: "Playing in the Big Ten? Going to a bowl game in the Big Ten? Winning the division, or playing the championship?" Gold and Black: Well, the goal is to win the divi- sion, so let's go with that. Hudson: "I think we've got more good Big Ten players than we think we do. We're still letting them know and learning what it takes in the Big Ten. But I think we've got some guys, I really do. I think there are guys who are Big Ten prototypes, big, tough, physical, smart, fast guys that love being in here, the style of play. I think we've got more of those than we think, it's now putting them in position and getting them to do it." Was that a pretty big learning curve for guys to determine what it takes at this level? Hudson: "It's not as much about what it takes, but about what it doesn't take. What you're willing to sacri- fice; not everybody can be a frat guy or be a social butterfly. Football is brutally time-consuming and painful. It's not normal. So it's giving up those Thursday nights during the regular time when the students are having fun. It's being here every Saturday it seems like year-round. I'm