True Freshman linebacker Troy Dye, who earned Pac 12 Defensive player of the week honors after his performance in the UC Davis game is fired up for the Ducks to play in Pullman this weekend against the Washington State Cougars. He spoke on their loss to Colorado and how they are preparing not only physically but mentally to take on the Cougs.

After you had a chance to take a look over the film, what stood out to you about the Colorado game ?

There’s too many missed tackles. Lack of effort. Same stuff we have been preaching off of the past couple weeks. Really got to get ahold of this whole week because we start in the Pac-12 play and people are really going to start looking at that. More tempo team so we really have got to get a hold of that.

Was the message even, maybe more urgent from Brady Hoke that you guys need to make those corrections after losing two in a row?

He’s been on it the whole time so I mean that just comes to the players themselves. We have to come together as a group, as a unit, as a team and figure out what we really want to do at the end of the season and what the outcome wants to be. So that is really why we got to check ourselves this week and show you guys on Saturday against Washington State.

Brady Hoke has talked a lot about the lack of effort or the mental effort there for you guys, is that something you guys are trying to figure out what he’s looking for on the field and be prepared?

Nah, it’s just something that you got to just do. I mean we’ve heard it, he’s showed us on film. It is something that we have to do and apply. It just comes from within and guys need to start riding each other a little bit harder, it’s that simple.

Does your mindset change at all knowing that you guys are a little bit in the whole?

Oh, definitely not. We are going to come out and fight every week whether we are 4 and 0 or 0 and 4. It doesn’t matter what the record is, you have to give it everything you’ve got.

Have you guys had the chance to look at anything from Washington State earlier?

No not as a team yet, but as the linebackers, we started watching a little bit. I know the whole defensive side will watch a little bit today. We will get more of it tonight when we come back after school because school starts today. So we are looking forward to that and just getting ready for the grind.

Did the Colorado loss feel different than the Nebraska loss?

No, a loss is a loss, no matter who you lose to because it hurts your record, it hurts your team. I mean so it doesn’t matter who you lose to. We could lose to a high school team, but it doesn't matter a loss is a loss.

As a young guy, what did you take from Johnny Ragin, Dwayne Stanford and Pharaoh Brown after the Colorado game?

I mean I take all the speeches the same. I’m gonna listen to them because I want people to listen to me when I make a speech. So I mean I listen to it, I soak it in, I take the important information out of it, feed through all the yelling and all of that. Just get through all of that, just trying to retain what they really trying to say. What they real message is and what they really talking about is the effort and the fight and the hunger and we need people that want it more.

What was that?

It was just that. We need to want it more. A bunch of guys on the team just don’t want it. It is just that simple, I mean we just got to dig deep and find out what we really want and what the real outcome of the season we want to be.

So with that Troy, how was practice today with the effort and the energy?

It was definitely better than it was last week. I mean we came out faster than last Monday so that’s better, so I mean we are looking forward to tomorrow to come out faster than we did last Tuesday and the Tuesday before that so we are still going to try to improve week by week.

Did the lose this week, did that worry you at all about the future of the program?

No, definitely not. We have a bunch of Freshman and a bunch of Sophomores and a bunch of Juniors that are the future of this program. I am not just the one player. I mean just the whole collective unit can’t win a game, the whole collective unit loses a game. It takes 11 players to win and 11 players to lose so that’s what we are looking forward to doing is coming together as an 11 person unit and working to get better.

Colorado had a couple pretty crazy touchdown catches in that game, what did you see on those catches, maybe specifically the one on the last play that went to review and they eventually called it a touchdown?

I mean we just have to finish on top of the route that is all it is. Kudos to those guys making great catches. Because I mean the one that you just talked about was a phenomenal catch we just got to finish on top of the route and just hustle to the ball a little bit faster.

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