In the Trenches 594 – John Henry Daley Transcript
8/12/2026 9:53:00 AM | MGoBlue Podcasts
Jon Jansen • 00:00
The twenty twenty six version of the Michigan football team is one week into training camp. Full pads have happened. We've got a lot to talk about and yes, we're going to be talking about practice because we're still a few weeks away from the start of the regular season. That's going to happen September fifth against the Broncos of Western Michigan. But today on the broadcast we're going to have a seven from seventy seven. We're also going to have John Henry Daley, the transfer from Utah via BYU via a Mormon mission. The path to Michigan has been long, but we're happy he's here and he joins me today on in the Trenches.
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Jeff Laurence • 00:37
Welcome to the official podcast of Michigan Football in the Trenches with John Jansen, presented by Meyer, presenting sponsor of the twenty twenty six Michigan football season and proud supporter of hundreds of local sports teams across the Midwest. Nobody covers Michigan football better than the two time captain, national champion and Michigan athletics Hall of Honor inductee.
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John Henry Daley • 00:59
I'm trying to come into this new season and do a lot better than what I did. And so I want to come in and I want to be dynamic, I want to be aggressive, I want to be a problem. I think that's the goal for the season.
Jeff Laurence • 01:13
This is in the Trenches presented by Meijer. Once again, here's Jon Jansen.
Jon Jansen • 01:18
Welcome back, friends. We are back. Practice is underway and we are, as you're watching this live, twenty six days away from kickoff of of the Western Michigan Broncos coming to the to the Big House and twenty five days, if you're listening to this on the, on the audio version. So excited to be back rocking and rolling. Brian and I are going to continue to go through the seven from seventy seven. We've got a video portion, all the same stuff. But you as you are tuning in now found out that it's at a brand new time noon for the football season versus eleven fifteen which we've been doing prior. So glad you could join us. We want to let you know what's also going on with the rest of M GO Blue podcast. Brian does Defend the Block and he is joined by none other than the national championship winning coach Dusty May. Conqu'ring Heroes will return in September.
Jon Jansen • 02:16
September third to be exact. But Mr. Boesch, how you doing?
Brian Boesch • 02:20
I'm great, yeah. And we're gonna do some new video things that Dusty May interview which was in Ann Arbor last week when he and I recorded it. He'll tell you why in the show but we just posted that on the Michigan Athletics YouTube feed. So if you like to see your podcast like you are seeing them now, even with John.
Jon Jansen • 02:40
Yeah, I'm trying to adjust the camera. It's been a little while.
Brian Boesch • 02:42
Yeah, we're, we're getting back into it and because we're getting back into it, John, I want to be pretty broad on today's seven from seventy and you know, we're going to basically just go through some training camp takeaways, some offseason takeaways, and I think the topic that probably the most fans want to know and might be the pivot point of the season is the development of quarterback Bryce Underwood. How have you seen him look lead practice perform in the last few months?
Jon Jansen • 03:14
So throughout the entire offseason, we all know that he was voted as one of the offseason captains and he has filled that role in a, in a tremendous way. And some of it's been vocal, but a lot of it has just simply been as you would expect from a young player with a lot of expectations. It's just shut up and work. And he has led by example every single day, on time, doing all the things that the coaches ask, leading by example. And he is one of the best athletes on the team. Nobody is, has ever doubted that. But when you are gifted with so many things physically and then you turn around and you do all the things that the coaches ask of you, whether it's, hey, getting with the quarterback coach, getting with the offensive coordinator, getting with the receivers, defensive backs, having seven on seven, he has done everything in those aspects to fulfill that leadership role.
Jon Jansen • 04:07
Now, in terms of development, we won't know what the payoff is until we get a chance to see him against Oklahoma. Hey, no disrespect to Western Michigan, but I'm not going to judge the growth of him. We'll see, you know, some of the, the shiny, nice shiny objects against Western Michigan, but we'll judge the growth because we could, we could take from what we saw last year in week two to what we're going to see this year in week two. And I think everybody's going to be pleasantly surprised and maybe not surprised, but I think they're going to really enjoy everything that all the hard work that Bryce has put into this offseason, his throws throughout the, the start of training camp have been accurate. And when I say these, I'm not saying that everything has been perfect. So for all you football fans, you know that not everything is going to be perfect.
Jon Jansen • 04:56
There's going to be some incompletions, there's going to be some misreads, but he has been accurate, he has done a really good job of sorting through receivers, sorting through blitzes, communicating with the offensive line, and we'll talk about all these position groups as we go through today's episode. But I think he's really taken that leadership role and the development that he's been working on in the offseason. He's taken it to practice and it's really exciting to watch how much he really has grown, not just in the skill development, but how he handles the huddle, how he talks to players during, during practice, during drills. All of those things are where they need to be. In his second year, how much impact
Brian Boesch • 05:39
has the, from all accounts, increased structure, individual coaching, etc impacted him?
Jon Jansen • 05:47
Oh, I think it's been, it's been huge. And it's, it's goes from just the education of the game. And we could talk about, you know, all the things, his footwork, his throwing mechanics, his eyes, where all those are going, but I think it's just in terms of how he's operating in this offense at this point. And I mentioned it early in the offseason, it was, hey, you know, leading up until spring ball, it was all about mechanics and some of it was learning the offense at that time because it was a new offense coming in. But that's what spring ball was really important for. And then as soon as spring ball ended, it was a continuation of the offense, but then it was picking up the mechanical side of things. Footwork, you know, just hand work. When, when you're, when, when you're, when you've got read options and those things. Well, how, what are you doing with the football to deceive the defense and make sure that those running backs know.
Jon Jansen • 06:39
This is when I'm actually handing you the ball. This is when I'm, I'm faking you the ball and I'm keeping it myself. So a lot of those things are, we're done throughout the course of the offseason. Now it's all about reading defenses. And that's where you've got to take a big step from year one to year two. And I don't care who, who the coaches were last year, you know, if he had a quarterback coach or not. Those are all things that are hard for a freshman to pick up. It's, it's way different, especially in the Big Ten, than it is at any high school level. But now all of a sudden, hey, you've had that year of taking a look at that film and learning from knowing what the calls were, learning from where your eyes were, what you're seeing, and how would you do things differently if you were in that same position? That sometimes is the one thing that you're going to learn from the most.
Jon Jansen • 07:27
And, and now it's about coaches scripting practice and going through practice, exposing him to more things that this offense, some of the challenges that this offense will have, some of the things that they're going to put him in position where it's, hey, Bryce, go make a play. Sometimes it's with his arms, sometimes it's with his feet. But I like the progression of what he's done and probably more so the development mentally of grasping the offense, but more importantly grasping and processing what the defense is trying to do.
Brian Boesch • 08:00
We're not in midseason form quite yet and in the trenches, presented by Meijer, because we talk quarterback before offensive line. As reminders, audio-only listeners get John Henry Daley. We have that interview for you. Video only, folks. Stay tuned. We'll take your thoughts, questions, A lot of great comments in there, welcoming us back. We appreciate all of you. We'll, we'll shout you out in a little bit. There's also really interesting correlation between Bryce Underwood and the offensive line that Kyle Whittingham talked about on Monday. So I want to get there later. But John, your offensive line breakdown, do you have any guys who are penciled maybe sharpied into their spots or is it still too early for that as we sit here on what, three and a half weeks of a stretch until the kickoff?
Jon Jansen • 08:43
Well, in terms of sharpied into their spot, I would say Jake Guarnera, as thick of a sharpie as you can put him in at center, that's probably it. Sprague, I would anticipate he's pretty much sharpied into right tackle and then there's battles going on everywhere and I know everybody wants to know about Andrew Babalola and he is progressing really like what he brings to the table. Blake Frazier has done a tremendous job. One of the, you know, detriments that he had last year being a young player was just not a lot of ass. Right. He just needed to put the feedback on and be able to drop anchor so that he could take on some of those bull rushes. He's done that all right. And Brian, I know you missed me. I know you missed how I talk about the game of football. And so I'm getting juiced up a little bit and there's a great battle going on at the left guard position.
Jon Jansen • 09:35
Nathan Efobi has done a nice job of being a little bit more athletic, bending his knees instead of being A hip bender, being more consistent at that. Evan Link has really taken to that, to that guard spot. And then on the right side, Brady Norton. I kind of wish that, you know, if it were legal, we could shoot him up with, you know, some, some steroids or some, some hgh, something like that, something old school to get a little bit of more, just a, a little bigger. But he has done a tremendous job of his technique and doing the things that, that his body allows him to do and not putting him in a bad position for the things that maybe he's a little bit. I'm really excited about this offensive line, if you didn't notice. And I'm excited more so that there are competitions and that what that means to me is we're going to have a really good hard fought battle and whoever wins those is going to actually win them.
Jon Jansen • 10:35
It's not going to be. You're not going to be placed there by default, but it's also preparing that next group of guys. You're never going to go through an entire season without somebody up front missing a snap, missing a series, missing a half or a game or multiple games. So we're going to have pretty good depth up front as well. So I'm really excited about that based on that answer.
Brian Boesch • 10:54
Episode five hundred ninety five, next week's in the Trenches has moved from probable to questionable.
Jon Jansen • 11:04
Like that. I'm just saying there are some guys that need the feed bag more than others.
Brian Boesch • 11:09
Fair enough. We are not those people. Let me ask you this. With so much competition, who is the most versatile offensive lineman if that individual maybe does not win the position, that maybe would be the most logical spot. Who could most easily move somewhere else on the line should there be an opening injury, Something along those lines. That make sense?
Jon Jansen • 11:34
Yeah. Wow. That's a terrific question. And I don't necessarily know that it would be a guy that, that would lose a position battle, but it might be, when we talk about this, it's what are the best five that are available on any given Saturday? And if, let's just say maybe something happened to a phobia and, you know, you need somebody to step in at guard. I really think Blake Frazier could be that guy that would move down to guard.
Jon Jansen • 12:02
He's.
Jon Jansen • 12:02
He's a really good athlete with good footwork and a good sense of all the responsibilities of everybody on the offensive front. So I could see him playing any one of four positions. Not at center, but I could see him playing any one of four positions. And so if somebody went down, maybe they move him Maybe they put Babs in there. You know, maybe if we saw Brady Norton play tackle last year, if something happens to Sprague, maybe you. You bump Brady out there and then move somebody else in. You know, Avery Gach has had a really good fall camp as well. So there's a number of guys that I think you could be interchangeable parts, which is what I really like about this. And, and watching Jim Harding coach this offensive line, he's putting guys in a lot of different positions because you never know what happens. And here's the other thing we know from his time at Utah.
Jon Jansen • 12:55
He is developing guys to win games, but also to play at the next level. And I have preached this time and time again, you should never, at the college level, pigeonhole yourself into one position. Oh, I'm just a left tackle or I'm just a right tackle. You've got to be able to play all five positions. If you want to play a long time in the NFL, you play all five positions. And that's what Jim Harding is doing. He's developing these guys as offensive linemen. He knows where he wants to put these guys. He knows where he needs to get certain individuals to have the best offensive line possible at Michigan this year. But he's also got that future in mind for all of these guys because, hey, that's the next step. It's win for Michigan now, but then you want to be able to move on and play at the. At the next level. And you may be a tackle now, you may be a guard at the next level, you may be a guard, you may be a center.
Jon Jansen • 13:43
Like there. You've got to have those interchangeable parts.
Brian Boesch • 13:46
All right, number three on our seven from seventy seven. Beyond Bryce and the offensive line, what else has stood out offensively as of late?
Jon Jansen • 13:54
Well, I'm really excited about the talent increase at the wide receiver position, and I'm going to throw tight ends in there as well. Even though the tight ends, most of those guys are a known commodity. Zack Marshall, Hogan, Hansen, both of them healthy, both of them ready to rock and roll. We saw Deakon Tonielli at times throughout the course last year make some big catches. Jalen Hoffman, I really. That's a deep position that can be used in a lot of different ways. And it's also. It's just. It's. It's a position that's going to be utilized much more in the passing game. But then when you look at that wide receiver position from Jamie Ffrench, JJ Buchanan, Andrew Marsh is a known commodity, but it's looking really Good. Going into his sophomore season, I keep talking about Jamar Browder and I'm excited about the length that he brings to that group, the catch radius that he has.
Jon Jansen • 14:45
He's taken some really good steps. So let's see. Moa transfer was actually at Utah, but not at Utah, transferred into Michigan. And so whether it's Channing Goodwin, Kendrick Bell, the competition there, just like I talked about the competition at the offensive line positions, that competition for reps on the field is thick at that wide receiver position and the talent level. And so you start thinking about. I know coach had some, some glowing remarks about JJ Buchanan. He obviously knows him coming over from, from Utah. But watching him, I get really excited about what he, what we're going to be able to see him do in the Big House early on. Same thing with Jamie French, Andrew Marsh having more weapons is going to make him even more exciting and more dominant at the college level.
Brian Boesch • 15:36
All right, number four on our seven from seventy seven. Let's flip over to the defensive side. We start up front. Is that defensive front maintaining its reputation? We talked about several times early this offseason that very well should and could be the strength of this defense.
Jon Jansen • 15:54
Absolutely. And you want to talk about some, some serious size up front when you get Trey Pierce and Oeta. And I know that we talked to, you know, J. Hill, the defensive coordinator. He was really excited about having those two guys in there, Cam Brandt, John Henry Daley, those guys I would expect most games and health, you know, provided that that's going to be your starting front and you've got athleticism, you've got the ability to stop the run, get after the quarterback, push the pocket and, you know, and, and crush the pocket from the outside. So I'm excited about that. But it's also the depth. Dom Nichols has, has really taken some steps in the right direction. Edokpayi and I know I'm butchering the name. We're going to have our, our pronunciation here and make sure that we're ready for the broadcast in another week or so. But Lugard is a guy that has, has really taken steps and he is a long body out on the edge.
Jon Jansen • 16:50
So really excited not only to see them play and develop, but also to see some of the creative ways that Jay Hill is interchanging some of these parts and using them in unique, in unique positions.
Brian Boesch • 17:06
All right, number five on our seven from seventy seven. Linebacker-wise, that is a room that obviously has some youth, some inexperience. How would you assess what you've seen from the Linebackers here this off season,
Jon Jansen • 17:18
talent, but it's got to be zeroed in. And this is where, when we talk about that, you know, complicated defense that J. Hill is, is, is installing it, it really starts to show itself. When you're talking about that. The linebackers, because they're that connection between the front and the back end. Nate Stalling, I think has, has really done a nice job coming in, impressing the coaches. I like his, you know, his downhill demeanor, I like his athleticism. Owusu-Boateng, Troy Bowles, all of these guys, Chase Taylor, they are, they got some good experience last year and now it's a matter of taking that experience and using it at, you know, and, and progressing with it. But it's also taking it into a different defense and they're going to be used in some different ways, they're going to be asked to do some different things. And right now they're adjusting to it.
Jon Jansen • 18:11
There's plenty of time. There's no game tomorrow. It's not for twenty six days. This is a team, a group of linebackers that is extremely talented. There is some experience and I like the fact that Troy Bowles is in the mix there as well. A very smart, heady player. We all know Todd, his dad, head coach down in Tampa, he's grown up around the game and when you talk to him and, and you, you introduce new concepts, he picks it up so quickly and then he's able to help those guys out there. I don't know who the starters are going to be. They're still sorting that out. But I do, I do believe that it's a very talented room.
Brian Boesch • 18:47
Keep it broad for number six on the defensive side. Other players, storylines, surprises you've noticed defensively,
Jon Jansen • 18:57
I don't necessarily know that I would say there's any surprises. I think there's some things that have really come through that I was anticipating and that is like a guy like Smith, Snowden, Rod Moore. Maybe it's just the fact that Rod Moore, seeing him out there and being healthy and getting back to what we saw two years ago, maybe that's the surprise. It's just that he's healthy, he's been out there at practice, he keeps doing it, but it's, it's. I think it's the progression of the corners. Zeke Berry, Jyaire Hill, I talked about them early in the offseason. Is this a very important offseason? Jyaire Hill has the talent to be a first-round corner. No one projects him to be a first round corner right now. Other than the fact that I've seen him at practice. I've been able to watch his progression. I like it. I like his aggressive nature and the confidence.
Jon Jansen • 19:45
That's really where it is in the secondary, especially at the corner position. Whether it's Zeke Berry, it's Jyaire Hill, Jo'Ziah Edmond, like all of these guys are gaining more and more confidence by the day and they're being pushed so much harder because of that receiver group that I just talked about. You got to find ways to defend so many different styles of receiver from Marsh to Buchanan to Ffrench. Stop it, Brian. Stop barking at me. It's, it's, it's. There's just so much that goes on there that I'm really excited about what this secondary brings.
Brian Boesch • 20:22
Hey, it's the first in the trenches in a while, so we're, we're excited. Over here at the Bush household, number seven, Kyle Whittingham. He has been around now for a little bit more than eight months. He has tried a little more than seven months, I should say. And obviously you can tell he has a pretty, no nonsense, pretty matter of fact approach. He took some flack for going to Big ten media day and saying he did not hate Ohio State and then got asked about it again on Monday. What a time to be alive. Where do you see his persona, his style, those fingerprints showing up here? As you've watched him now go through an offseason, build a roster and, you know, this day and age, do it with some retention, some freshman recruiting, some portal recruiting, and now through a few little stretches here of training camp?
Jon Jansen • 21:15
Here's what I really like about it. And this is, it's permeated throughout the course of or throughout the entire building, through practice, through meetings, no shenanigans. It doesn't mean you can't have fun. Like, I, I tell jokes all the time about things that we would do at Michigan when coaches weren't around and the guys are still having fun. But when it's time to get ready for business, and that's practice, it's meetings, it's, it's in the weight room, there are no shenanigans. And when I'm talking about guys that, you know, maybe there was a little bit of a me factor in them that is being, you know, replaced with the team factor. And I'm really excited about these guys getting back to, you know, and, and I'll go back to that twenty three team. There's no one that, that played the game more for his teammates than Blake Corum or Mikey Sandra still And all of those guys.
Jon Jansen • 22:09
And I'm starting to see more of that in this bunch of kids because that's what's being preached to them every single day, every single meeting. It's not about, hey, push it and shoving after plays. That's going to happen. It's hot, it's sweaty, you got a headache. You're going to have some disagreements out at practice. But when it comes down to it, hey, you're. We're all on the same team. We're all trying to achieve the same goal. That's win a Big Ten title. That's, you know, beat Ohio State, you know, stomp down Michigan State, and it's about winning a national title. And the focus has returned solely to that being the number one goal.
Brian Boesch • 22:50
All right, that's our seven from seventy seven. X Lewis saying, I'm so ready for football to come back. I need more like seventy seven from seventy seven Next episode. I think we can pull that one. That might be a breakdown of every offensive lineman in the program over the last five years. However, I do think that would get John through seventy seven from seventy seven.
Jon Jansen • 23:11
Yes, I, I could. Yes, I have a way of, of making that possible. We'll see, we'll discuss and then let go in the next couple weeks.
Brian Boesch • 23:19
I have to interrupt a lot more, but yeah, keep those comments coming in. And a reminder, we'll talk a little bit about John Henry Daley, the, the player here once we flip. But tee up the audio interview for both sides. What you come away with from an impression standpoint of John Henry Daley.
Jon Jansen • 23:38
All business, all business. I mean, this is a guy now, he's a little bit older. He went on that. And I, and I start with talking about his journey, how he got to Michigan. And if I think the first question I asked him was, are you, do you ever wake up and surprised that you're actually in Ann Arbor? Because it was a Mormon mission. It was a year at byu. It was a year at Utah. He had the injury last year and it's been a long journey. He's twenty three. He's a guy that is much more mature than a lot of guys that have two years of eligibility remaining. And he is very determined that he wants to not just be that All American player, the eleven and a half sack guy that he was last year, but he wants to show it on a Big Ten stage. He wants to show it in front of one hundred ten thousand screaming Wolverine fans. And he wants to lead this team. I love the fact that he talks about.
Jon Jansen • 24:26
It's not about things that I've done. It's not about things that I say. He wants to bring all those young guys and everybody on this team along and it's about doing, doing things as I do them. Like, I'm going to lead by example. There's times where you're going to hear him talk and he's very good at doing that as well. But it's all about establish establishing himself and being the leader that he's always been as a football player, the experience that he's gained through, through good times and bad. But it's about being that leader and I'm really excited for people to learn more about him as, as I did in the interview.
Brian Boesch • 25:01
So audio wise, we'll flip it over to Jon and John Henry Daley.
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Jon Jansen • 25:12
Now joined by John Henry Daley and I'm excited because the first time we've had
Jon Jansen • 25:16
a chance to sit down on the podcast.
Jon Jansen • 25:18
Welcome to the podcast and you've had
Jon Jansen • 25:19
a hell of a journey.
Jon Jansen • 25:20
Do you ever wake up and think,
Jon Jansen • 25:22
how did I get to where I am right now?
Jon Jansen • 25:25
How did I get to end up in Ann Arbor?
John Henry Daley • 25:27
Definitely, yeah, I've definitely asked myself that a couple times.
Jon Jansen • 25:29
So I do want to go through
Jon Jansen • 25:31
some of the timeline for, for a lot of our fans who know you came from Utah, but before that you spent two years on a mission, one year at byu and then last year, Utah, and your season didn't end the way I know anybody wanted to. What was tougher being two years away from football on your mission or coming back from the injury that you had at the end of last year?
John Henry Daley • 25:53
Oh, I'd say definitely coming back from the injury, spending two years preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. To know people in Brazil was probably the greatest experience of my life so far. So no regrets or no. Oh man, I wish I could have came back sooner with that. I, I loved it. Wouldn't change it for anything. I'd say definitely the injury in that aspect's been, you know, harder on me mentally.
Jon Jansen • 26:11
So I, I, I, I hope I didn't mislead the question. It wasn't a matter of do you regret it? But two years away from football, it had. What were the challenges that you had getting back into the game, man, coming
John Henry Daley • 26:22
back from the missions? I haven't worked out in two years, you know, two full years. People think, hey, you know, you know, you're two years older, you got all these advantages. But in fact, I'm out in Brazil in the middle of, you know, Timbuktu doing absolutely nothing, football wise, nothing Athletic, except for street soccer here and there. But yeah, coming back is kind of, hey, you know, you're healthy, you're excited to be back, but at the same time, I haven't really stretched in two years. You know, I hit push ups once every, you know, two or three months. And so trying to get my body back in physical shape to not only be able to cardiovascularly be able to run for the extended periods of times, but also all that explosiveness as well.
Jon Jansen • 26:55
Now, I know you had a lot
Jon Jansen • 26:57
of family in Utah, but especially at byu.
John Henry Daley • 26:59
That's right.
Jon Jansen • 27:00
How tough was it to move on from byu? And then I'll follow that up with how tough was it to move from the state of Utah all the way here to Ann Arbor?
John Henry Daley • 27:10
Yeah, it was a tough move. I mean, a lot of my uncles, like you said, are massive BYU fans. And so especially when I switched up to the ute's, you know, my brother in law, Parker, he was, you know, elated, very excited for me. He's the only ute's fan in the entire family. We give him a lot of crap for it. And then, you know, once I decided to go to Utah, then, yeah, it was, it was, it was tough for some of the extended family, but. But it is what it is.
Jon Jansen • 27:37
This is a completely different era of college football. I'm trying to get used to it as an old guy of player movement and nil, all that stuff. What type of advice, because you've had, like we said, a hell of a journey. Would you give juniors and seniors in high school as to how to pick the school that they're going to and what that first school means to them?
John Henry Daley • 27:58
Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of factors determining, you know, where you want to go to school now. You know, I think, you know, back in the day it was coaches scheme and then academics. Now you got to throw in nil a little bit. And, you know, there's a lot of focus on that, you know, because you're basically working a job, but you can't come in and throw away all the other things that they're working before. Academics is a huge thing. And also I think the biggest thing that I tell a junior senior high school is find a coach who actually believes in you, who wants to see you succeed. There's a lot of people who can go out there and play really great ball, but they go to places where they don't have a great relationship with the coach. The coach doesn't really like them, they don't really like the coach, and they never get the opportunity to showcase their abilities.
John Henry Daley • 28:32
And so I would say the biggest thing is finding coaches who believe in you and hold you to a higher standard than any other coach would in the country. That way, you're able to be. Become better, but also have the opportunity to showcase what you're able to do.
Jon Jansen • 28:45
Obviously, you found that with Coach Whittingham, his staff, what did it mean for you to be able to follow him here to Ann Arbor?
John Henry Daley • 28:51
Man meant a lot. I mean, Coach Witt's kind of everything you look for in a head coach. And honestly, it's, you know, his hard work ethic and how he kind of puts down the team. Say, hey, you're going to come. You're going to work hard. It's going to be gritty. You know, today's practice was really hard. I don't think anybody would say anything to the contrary, right? You're out there, you're sweating. Everybody's like, oh, my goodness, this is a tough one. And it was. But I think at the end of the day, you look back and say, man, I'm glad I put in that work. Now when it's fourth quarter and the other dude across from me sucking air, I'm saying, it's go time, right? It's time to make a play.
Jon Jansen • 29:25
How good did it feel to put the pads back on?
John Henry Daley • 29:28
Oh, it felt like something different. I'm not going to lie.
Jon Jansen • 29:32
I was like, finally, what was. What was the rehab? What was just. And not necessarily the physical side of it, but what was the mental side of it like for you? Knowing that it was a major injury, one that a lot of guys have come back from. But, yeah, it's.
Jon Jansen • 29:47
It's a tough road.
Jon Jansen • 29:48
How. How did you handle it mentally and emotionally?
John Henry Daley • 29:52
I'd say, honestly, I kind of leaned on my. My spiritual side. I am still right where you just got to realize that God's got a plan for you. And sometimes, you know, your plans and what you got planned for your life isn't necessarily what, know, our Father in heaven wants for your life, and he's going to lead you and guide you in different directions. And being able to accept that and say, hey, you know, I know that there's something bigger at work here, and I can make the most of this. And God wants to teach me a lesson. He wants me to grow from this experience. And I think that for me, mentally has really changed a lot of perspectives. Instead of saying, why me? Woe is me, kind of, it's being able to say, hey, you know what? I'M grateful that the Lord gave me an incredible last season. I was able to play football at the highest level. Thank you so much for giving me that.
John Henry Daley • 30:34
And thank you for giving me this new challenge of coming back from injury, showing people, hey, you can't come back from this really quickly. Some people say, no, it's impossible, but all things are possible with God and going forward with that. And just, hey, now I'm in Ann Arbor, so I'm not complaining.
Jon Jansen • 30:49
I know that coaches talked a little bit about managing your reps, managing the pitch count for a guy that is ultra competitive. How difficult is it to be on a quote-unquote pitch count?
John Henry Daley • 31:00
Man, chomping at the bit.
Jon Jansen • 31:02
I know.
John Henry Daley • 31:03
I mean, it's time I go from taking, you know, sixty snaps a game to. To that. But it's. It's smart, right?
Jon Jansen • 31:09
It's.
John Henry Daley • 31:10
There's a time in the season and there's a time when you need to go full steam ahead and go, you know, pedal to the metal. And there's times where it's like, hey, let's be dynamic about this. Let's be smart. And there's no point in trying to conquer Rome in a day.
Jon Jansen • 31:23
What's the communication like between you and the coaching staff, you and the training staff of how you're managing this day to day?
John Henry Daley • 31:31
It's been great, honestly, flawless between the whole thing. I mean, they had a meeting the other day, so everybody's on the same page. We're all moving forward together and, yeah, getting more reps like you were saying, every single day. We're ramping it up and we'll be taking off soon.
Jon Jansen • 31:44
Whenever I talk to the coaches that have been around you, they all talk about your leadership. How do you come into a new environment?
Jon Jansen • 31:53
While there's a lot of new players,
Jon Jansen • 31:54
there are some guys that have been here and be a leader.
John Henry Daley • 31:59
Yeah, I mean, I think you, when people come to for you for advice, you can come in and give them advice when they come and do that. I think also culture setting kind of saying, hey, like, these are the expectations. We expect to do that, but nobody really likes, you know, somebody preaching from. From the bleachers, if you know what I mean? Kind of like the Monday morning morning quarterback. Hey, do all this. But, you know, here I am on the sideline. So that's been kind of an interesting hurdle where I'm a big, hey, you lead by example and you bring people along with you. So it's not, hey, do this, do this. It's like, no, I'm doing It, come do it with me. And so definitely coming back and getting back in the full swing of things with the leadership thing, it's like, hey, let's bring energy. We're fired up. We're playing football, we're making plays.
John Henry Daley • 32:34
This is the best time to be excited and bring energy and do all this stuff. And, you know, as I'm getting more fired up then I'm getting other guys more fired up and, and that's just kind of. It just builds.
Jon Jansen • 32:44
What do you think that first time running out of the tunnel in the big house with one hundred ten plus thousand, what do you think that's going to feel like?
John Henry Daley • 32:52
Man, it's going to be incredible trying to comprehend one hundred ten thousand people in a single stadium. It's kind of tough for me to imagine. Sometimes I'm just like, that's just so many people, but man, very excited about it.
Jon Jansen • 33:05
What do you want to try and accomplish this year? You were all American last year. Eleven and a half sacks. And what is. What are some of the goals that you have for yourself? And before we start talking about the D line and the team.
John Henry Daley • 33:16
Yeah, I mean, I have some personal goals that I keep to myself just because those are very personal to me. But I'd say, you know, overall I expect to be a better player than I was last year. Some people are saying, hey, it's a horrible injury. Get back to where you were. I don't want to be the same guy last year. I learned so much from last season and first, like real time playing big time college football and I learned a lot of things from him. I'm trying to come into this new season and do a lot better than what I did. And so I want to come in and I want to be dynamic, I want to be aggressive, I want to be a problem. I think that's the goal for the season.
Jon Jansen • 33:51
So I got to ask a question too, because up until about, I don't know, maybe it was twenty one, you know, at the next level you hear guys labeled as edge and some guys as defensive ends. How do you see yourself? Do you see yourself as an edge defender or a defensive end?
John Henry Daley • 34:05
Man, I guess I'd have to ask you a little bit more on the differences between.
Jon Jansen • 34:10
Here's where I see some of the difference is when I think of an edge defender, I think of a guy that is pass rush first and they can defend the run. A defensive end. And maybe this is me being the old guy is a guy that does both equally well. And you can't separate you can't look at a guy and say, well, he's a, he's a pass rush guy and defends the run, or he's a run defender, but can also get after the passer. So are you a defensive end or
Jon Jansen • 34:40
an edge defender by those definitions?
John Henry Daley • 34:42
Okay, going off those, I mean, I grew up and I'd always look at, you know, JJ Watt was number one, where I'm like, man, this guy is just unbelievable. He's able to play the run fantastic. He's able to rush the passer. Get back to back twenty sack seasons, right? Unbelievable. And then you had Von Miller, who, who people you know, I think were wrong, and they labeled him as a pass rusher.
Jon Jansen • 35:03
Right.
John Henry Daley • 35:03
And they turn on his film.
Jon Jansen • 35:04
They never tried to block him.
John Henry Daley • 35:05
Yeah, exactly. You turn on his film, he's like, oh, my goodness, he's an incredible run defender as well. I want to be somebody where you're kind of scratching your head on third down. You're like, all right, like we're going to have to block this guy. But also through the control downs, hey, you can't be just one facet of the game. There's so many different facets. And with the running pass, you don't want to be a liability on first and second down, where, hey, coach, I got to go out because I can't defend. Defend the run. It's like, no, buckle up that chin strap, let's go. Right. It's going to get, it's going to get a little bit gritty in the trenches and it's go time.
Jon Jansen • 35:34
When you look at this defensive front,
Jon Jansen • 35:36
the guys that are in the room
Jon Jansen • 35:37
with you, defensive tackles, other defensive ends, edge defenders, what, what type of, what type of line do you see?
John Henry Daley • 35:47
It's a great question. I see a bunch of dogs, honestly. I see a bunch of guys who have high expectations, expectations of themselves and also of their teammates. And I see big time play disruptors all across the board.
Jon Jansen • 36:01
How about the defense as a whole? Because when I talked to Jay when he first took the DC job, he talked about how complicated this defense was. How are the guys picking up? When you, when you look at ape, the entire playbook is in now. It's a matter of sorting through everything. Where's the defense at? And picking up all of it up.
John Henry Daley • 36:20
I think they're getting a lot more comfortable with it. Obviously you got all these big installs and sometimes you second guess your assignment and this or that. But I think a lot, majority of the guys, if not all the guys, have put in extra Work to learn the playbook. And when you go out there for practice, you see dudes who are just going off instincts or making breaks on the ball, who are, you know, shedding blocks in the correct gaps. Everybody's kind of working off each other. And so I think it is a very complicated system, and I think the guys have kind of taken ownership of that and said, hey, look, go play some great football.
Jon Jansen • 36:47
How much of it is an advantage having some of those guys that are
Jon Jansen • 36:50
new to the program but not new
Jon Jansen • 36:52
to the defense, really, at every level, that can help sort through some of that for the rest of the team.
John Henry Daley • 36:58
I think it helps a lot, right, Having people who are saying, hey, you know, this is what we did. This is what we didn't do, X, Y or Z. This is what we're looking for, you know, in this formation, stuff like that. I think just kind of bringing in a little bit of personal experience and how they've adapted to this scheme. I think. I think it's helped a lot.
Jon Jansen • 37:14
What needs to happen between now we're, you know, just a couple of weeks into training camp versus when, hey, you guys play against Western September fifth. What needs to happen for this defense to be ready for. For that first game?
John Henry Daley • 37:26
Yeah, I think we got, what, twenty more practices? Nineteen. It's kind of just, you know, ramping everything up where you don't need to do everything all at once. And everybody's getting in really great shape. You know, we're in good shape. And now you're getting better and better football shape. It's kind of hard to, you know, mimic. You know how it is trying to mimic football shape where you're defensive end. You're like, man, I could go.
Jon Jansen • 37:44
That's why daddy's practice was so hard.
John Henry Daley • 37:46
Yeah, I can run gassers for days of, man. I go do three pass rush reps and I'm sucking air. So I think just ramping everything up. I think we're getting everybody's technique down really good. So I say just keep on focusing on the small, simple things. Continue to compete at the highest level. And then, you know, we're all a team at the end of the day, but we need to bring the best out of each and every single one of us. And so being able to find what motivates other people and motivate them so that you're getting them at their best and you're at your best, I think that's what's the golden recipe.
Jon Jansen • 38:16
There's an initial enthusiasm and excitement when camp opens up. Right. It's been. You've been lifting, you've been running, you've been doing all these things. Now all of a sudden, hey, it's football season and there's a level of excitement. Then there's a little bit of a drop off. You know, you put the helmet on, you're actually popping pads a little bit. There's a.
Jon Jansen • 38:33
A little bit of a headache.
Jon Jansen • 38:35
Days like today, how do you fight through that lull? And how do you bring others with you?
John Henry Daley • 38:42
Man, I think when you're going through that lull is, hey, I'm not going through it alone. I got all these other dudes in my room, my brothers, who I spent all this time with, who we've been training together, doing all this, and I don't want to be the guy who lets them down. We have this expectation to play. I have an expectation on myself to be this player to play at this certain level. And am I going to let myself down? Am I going to let my teammates down? Am I going to let my coaches down? Is there faith and belief in me going to be misplaced? Right. Do you want to be that guy? And I think kind of going through that is, hey, today's been a terrible day. You know, my head's ringing a little bit or my body's super sore. We have to go squat again this afternoon and not have to come in tomorrow and put the pads on and do it again and again and again. It doesn't matter, right?
John Henry Daley • 39:22
You can either. Either way you're going to do it. So you can do it with a good attitude, a bad attitude. Either way, the work has to be be done. So might as well do the work and be happy and excited about it.
Jon Jansen • 39:29
So. Last one I'll end with. And it's, It's. It's irrelevant to a lot of people, but I was number seventy seven when I played here, and it meant something to me, and it still does. And I always watch who's the next seventy seven, all that stuff. Number ninety. How did you settle on that number? And is. Is there anything that that number means to you that maybe people wouldn't know or understand?
John Henry Daley • 39:50
Man, I wish I had a really cool story about it, to be honest. I mean, I was number nine in high school, and then I got to go college and.
Jon Jansen • 39:55
Single digit.
John Henry Daley • 39:56
Yeah, single digit. And all these DB's are taking off a single digit. So of course, I'm a defensive end. I don't stand. I don't stand a chance getting a single digit. And then I was like, okay, well, who do I look up to, you know, in the league right now, who's doing things that I would like, I aspire to do. And I'm watching TJ Watt rip off the edge and getting all these sack fumbles, right? I think he had like twenty two and a half sacks, and every single time he sacks QB, he's punching out the football. It's just a fumble, a fumble, a fumble. Complete game changer. And I said, okay, if I can't be number nine, I'll just add a zero on it. Ninety. Not bad.
Jon Jansen • 40:26
How much do you study those guys? Obviously, that's, that's the goal of. A lot of people want to get to the NFL and they want to do it at the, the. At what you see as the highest level that's being performed right now. How much film do you watch on those guys and try and add aspects of their game to yours?
John Henry Daley • 40:41
I say a lot. I mean, growing up, I'd watch YouTube videos before the games, right? Get me hyped up of Vaughn Miller doing these crazy moves. I'm like, okay, I need to try that out, right? And then as you get into college and start going through the thing, well, hey, let me look at their college tape, right? They all got drafted in the first round. What did they do? Aidan Hutchinson, man, let's go see his three sacks against Ohio State. What was he doing? And you kind of start going through these things, and there's certain things that they can do that you just, you know, that you can't. And there's also things where you're like, hey, I really like his hand placement. I like the way he attacks, you know, half the body instead of the entire man. Or, or the way he rips through this or that. And just like you said, you start to incorporate a little bit of it in your game, and that doesn't mean you're as good as them, right, doing the same move, but it means that you're able to kind of diversify what you're able to accomplish.
Jon Jansen • 41:24
Well, John Henry, I appreciate your time and I look forward to seeing on field.
John Henry Daley • 41:27
Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
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Jon Jansen • 41:35
Well, we thank you for listening to in the Trenches. We thank you, John Henry Daley, for his time. A lot of excitement about this team, and we're going to get a chance to talk about every single position group, all the coaches, everything that has changed from last year, throughout the course of this offseason, all the way up to game time. So stick with us here on in the Trenches.
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Jeff Laurence • 41:56
Thanks for listening to this edition of in the Trenches with John Jansen Presented by Meyer, presenting sponsor of the twenty twenty six Michigan Michigan football season and proud supporter of hundreds of local sports teams across the Midwest. In the Trenches is part of our Michigan Athletics Podcast Network, M GO Blue Podcasts. The preceding is a Learfield presentation of the Michigan Sports Network.
