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IllustrateD volume 25, issue 1 31 f Playing Together Hudson thinks defense has improved BY KYLE CHARTERS KCharters@GoldandBlack.com G reg Hudson's defense might not have an All-Big Ten first-team player; it might not be the biggest in the league; or the fastest. But Hudson, Purdue's second-year defen- sive coordinator, thinks the Boilermakers can be much improved from a year ago. "I think the strength of this defense could be that we're good when we're together and we play together collectively," Hudson said following the first two weeks of Purdue prac- tice. "There's not the first-team All-Big Ten guy who everybody is leaning on to make a play. It's going to take every guy, all 11, playing together. It's forcing team defense, it's forcing togetherness and in order to (be solid), you'd better be tough in this league. "We're hanging our hat on toughness and together- ness and that's all we've got. Playing together should be the No. 1 focus." Following is an interview with Hudson on Aug. 17, the day after Purdue closed its camp with the jersey scrimmage. Gold and Black: How do you think it went during the last couple weeks of camp? Hudson: "I thought the two weeks of camp went well. We really challenged and tested the players with a lot of different situations and a lot of reps. And we repped a lot of players, three deep plus some other guys. You're looking at consistently about 33 to 40 guys and finding out who can play football for us. That's what it's been. It's been equal opportunity and jobs are open; opportu- nity is there and we've had guys take advantage of it." Gold and Black: What stood out the most? Any thing in particular that you feel good about at this point? Hudson: "I thought the retention rate in the spring, of what we wanted to accomplish, carried over. The summer meetings with players allowed us to do things in the first five practices that we hadn't been able to do before, so we were able to get a lot of work and instal- lation done in a hurry and then focus on more funda- mentals and the little nuances and adjustments that you have in every defense. And I thought the kids worked really hard and practiced hard. I wasn't disappointed in the effort, so that was really good." Gold and Black: Do you get a feeling about how improved you are from last season? Can you tell that only based on practice? Hudson: "Well, I can tell that we practice better and I can tell that we don't have as many mistakes in prac- tice and in scrimmages. But it'll be whether that carries over to Saturdays. So far the barometer has shown us that, yeah, the improvement's there. Now is when the real test happens … you go from no pads to some pads to full pads and each time that tells you more and more about the team. And it was better." Gold and Black: It seemed like you had a good offseason in strength and conditioning. If you look at the numbers, they're probably up across the board. That was needed. How much do you think q & a : g r e g h u d s o n Tom Campbell Second-year defensive coordinator Greg Hudson is trying to breed a unit of togetherness in order to achieve the improvement necessary.