Noah Igbinoghene – April 23, 2020
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Thursday, April 23, 2020
CB Noah Igbinoghene
(I wanted to ask you – you seem like a Head Coach Brian Flores type of guy. How much interaction did you have with the Dolphins going throughout this entire draft process?) – “I met with them at my Pro Day. We all had a big meeting with them – me and a couple of my teammates. That’s really all the type of communication I really had with them, so I’m not saying it was a surprise but I wasn’t looking at them.”
(How do you feel about joining a team that has CB Xavien Howard and CB Byron Jones – two stars at corner?) – “That’s something, it’s truly a blessing. It’s crazy because are two corners I’ve looked at for a very long time. I know they don’t know that, but those are probably the top two cornerbacks in this whole entire league. Just to come in and learn from them, that’s just a blessing in disguise. I’m just honored to be picked by the Miami Dolphins. I’m just ready to go out there and compete and do what I have to do.”
(Have the Dolphins said where they’d like you to be in terms of the slot maybe?) – “No, they haven’t said anything. They haven’t said anything about that to me at all. It was just a congratulations call is really all it was, not really about positions or anything like that; but I’m willing to play anything they need me to play, anything they want me to play. That’s the type of player I’ve always been. That’s up to my coaches.”
(What excites you most about playing with the rest of the players in the Dolphins secondary?) – “Just like the first question. Just coming into a room that’s very experienced and has a lot of competitiveness in the room – just the atmosphere in the room that the coaches created. I’m honored to grow into that and come in as a player, so it’s just an honor. That’s genuinely how I feel.”
(I know you’re Nigerian and were raised in a Nigerian household. How was that growing up, especially with your parents who were top-tier athletes?) – “I’ll say it was rough at times, just because of my Nigerian background. I know a lot of people don’t understand that, but it’s a different way of living I would say. I really didn’t get to do a lot of things I’d say a normal teenager would like to do, as far as going out with my friends and stuff like that; but that’s just something I had to sacrifice if I wanted to be here talking to you today. Their plan worked. They were very protective parents, but their plan worked at the end of the day. I am the man I am because of them. It was a blessing just to grow up in this household. This happened, so it worked out, I guess.”
(Last year in Head Coach Brian Flores’ first year with the Dolphins he seemed to move cornerbacks around to play multiple positions on the field. Just kind of curious at Auburn, did you do much of that or were you kind of locked in at one position?) – “I was just locked in at corner, to be honest with you.”
(I know you were a receiver earlier in your career. Where do you think you are in your cornerback comfort and how much do you think you still have to learn?) – “I’m very comfortable, and that’s why I’m here and that’s why Miami drafted me. I’m not being cocky or anything like that. I’m very humble and very confident in my abilities, and that’s part of the reason why I came out. I’ve been working this whole entire offseason up until this point. Now I’m going to continue to work until this COVID-19 situation kind of dies down a little bit. I’m not going to be the player – I’m going to be a whole different kind of player than you saw in Auburn versus Minnesota, which was our last game. I’m just ready to show you all the improvement I made over these last couple of months, my coaches as well. I guess you all will see.”
(I was wondering if you remember anything that Head Coach Brian Flores or the defensive coordinator, Josh Boyer, said when you visited with either one of those guys, that maybe resonated with you? – “It was just a normal interview. There wasn’t really nothing they said that I hadn’t heard from anywhere else. It wasn’t really nothing out of the ordinary or anything different.”
(I wanted to ask you about the time you were a two-sport athlete at Auburn. You were both a track star and a football star down there at Auburn. There was an article about you on The Athletic that mentioned that you had an opportunity to skip practice on the football team but you chose not to do that because you wanted to be on the football field. Can you talk to us about how much you love the game?) – “That just shows how I feel about this game. I started playing football when I was in the seventh grade. Track was something that’s been in my life for a very long time, as you might imagine. Both of my parent went to the Olympics, so that’s something I had to grow into. Football, when I caught on to it, is something that really caught my heart. I really feel that it’s something that I was meant to do, I was born to do it. That’s why all of this stuff started happening. Football got me here as well, so it was a blessing. As far as me coming back to football during that track season, football was something I was always excited to get back to, just like now. I can’t wait to get back on the field. Track is something that I love as well, but football is something I feel like is a different kind of love. It’s a deeper love and it’s really taught me about life as well. That is probably why I would go back to football season during track, and I would go right back to track after that, right after football. I made a commitment to my team.”
(I know you said it’s kind of difficult growing up in a Nigerian household. How has your relationship with your parent evolved as you grew older and how has their background in pro sports helped you through this?) – “My relationship with my parents is great. Of course it grew, me understanding how they were raised, because I believe that you will teach your kids how you were raised as your parents taught you. There were a lot of things they didn’t know, and a lot of things their parents taught them from Nigeria, so they brought that Nigerian way. I couldn’t blame them for nothing, even if I was at a young age. Looking back at it, it got me here. Now I’m able to separate myself from the pack. It’s a big thanks to them. They are the reason why I’m here. I love them both.”
(You really get into guys’ faces and seem to take it as a challenge to really play a physical brand of football on the outside. What about that type of style of play, what makes you want to play that type of physical style of play on the outside?) – “It was something that when I moved positions, it was something that our defense at Auburn, that’s what we pride ourselves on. I remember (Defensive Coordinator) Kevin Steele telling me when I met with him that that’s the type of corner he likes. Me, I never played corner before, so of course I didn’t know that was the type of player I was going to be. I don’t know why, but for some reason when I moved, I remembered being a receiver and I knew how mad I was when a physical corner got in my face and was in my face and was physical with me. So, I kind of transitioned that, because I knew a lot of wide receivers don’t like that and can’t handle that. That’s exactly why I do that. It’s just a chess game, that’s all this game is.”
