Tedric Thompson’s sophomore season was cut to eight games last year after he suffered a scary concussion against UCLA, but in those eight games he gathered three interceptions, and those three turned out to be the only interceptions the entire Colorado defense snagged all season.
Now Thompson is back, plans to pick up right where he left off, and thinks the rest of the defense can join him.
“I think our main thing is just to focus on it, to focus on the turnovers,” he explained of what the team can do to improve the margin. “The other day, Coach Leavitt and the [defensive back] coaches really emphasized creating turnovers, and we got seven interceptions. I think the more we preach about it and the more we practice it, it’s going to roll over into the game, that’s the main focus.”
And he can already see the focus paying off.
“I can definitely see it, especially with more strip attempts, you can see more guys trying to create fumbles and stuff like that,” Thompson explained. “You can see the DBs and the linebackers actually catching more balls, I can definitely see it.”
While he’s back in the secondary making plays now, it wasn’t exactly an easy road back for the junior safety, most fans can probably remember the utter silence that came over Folsom Field in the homestretch of a barn-burner against UCLA, when Thompson laid (practically) motionless on the field.
The hardest part of his recovery was not physical.
“When I first came back in the spring, I had to get back used to the game,” admitted Thompson. “I’ve had concussions before, but that was the biggest concussion I’d had, I had never been unconscious or anything like that, so I had to get over the mental hurdle of feeling comfortable attacking and stuff like that, feeling comfortable putting on the helmet, but I’m fine now… I feel 100 percent.”
Back to 100 percent, and apparently taking his dedication to the game to a whole new level.
“He’s great, he’s really worked hard this summer, and throughout fall camp,” said sixth-year senior, Jered Bell. “I’m really looking forward to seeing him play this season, his confidence is extremely high and I haven’t seen him this focused since he’s been here, so I’m excited to see what he has in store.”
Thompson, who says having Bell is like having another DB coach, explained what inspired this new focus.
“I think it’s more just because I believe in the team, I believe in myself, and I believe that we’re going to have a great season,” he said. “I think that’s why I’m so focused, playing in the Pac-12 for two years and finally feeling really comfortable, I feel like we have a great [defensive back] corps, we have a great defense, and a great team overall, I think that’s why I’m so focused, because I know we can go far this year.”
His confidence in the rest of the secondary goes even further than that
“Every receiving corps we line up against, we have that mentality that they’re not as good as us, they can’t score on us,” he stated.
Out of an extremely confident team, Thompson may be the most confident we’ve heard, and the wait is almost over for us to find out if all of this confidence is justified. One week from today the Buffaloes will be taking the field in Hawaii, we’ll see if this hype train is still rolling one week from tomorrow.
