Nik Needham – December 30, 2021
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Thursday, December 30, 2021
CB Nik Needham
(Did you hear from anyone you haven’t heard from in years after the pick-six on Monday Night Football?) – “Yeah, a couple people like that. Good and bad people, so it’s all good. (laughter)”
(Not giving any names, but can you elaborate? Were they former UTEP teammates? Coaches? What types of good and bad people?) – “Nah, just people I’ve met throughout the years, even dating back to like early high school and stuff. It was cool though. It was all love. It’s not like bad people. It’s just people I’ve never really talked to. It was like you weren’t talking to me back then, so it’s whatever. (laughter)”
(Do you regret throwing the ball as opposed to keeping it for your home?) – “No, I actually have the ball. That’s what a lot of people do not know. They think the ball is gone but I have it. Mack (Hollins) actually caught it when it came down, so that was cool. Then he gave it to me. In the moment though, yeah at that point I didn’t really care. But then after, I was like ‘Damn, I hope somebody got that.’ (laughter)”
(Will it be displayed in your home? Have you figured out where you’re going to put it?) – “Not yet but I definitely have to save that one, for sure. I gave my first pick to my mom and my second one to my dad, so I’ll keep this one, for sure.”
(That was my main thought as you entered the end zone. I was like what were you doing throwing the ball away?) – “(laughter) I had a bunch of people hitting me like, ‘Man, good play but what are you doing? What are you thinking? You’ve got to keep that.’ I was like, ‘I’ve got it, man. Relax. Don’t worry about it.’”
(How are you sure it’s that exact ball that WR Mack Hollins caught?) – “Because you can see it in the live roll. It disappears for a couple of seconds and then it comes back down and he just catches it with like one hand.”
(I wanted to ask you about all the things this team has asked you to do this season. I know it’s been a journey for you the last three years to master your job, earn your job, keep your job. What’s it like to be finally trusted?) – “It feels great. But like I’ve said, I’m not trying to worry too much or focus too much on stuff like that because the only thing I can control is my attitude and effort and play on the field so at the end of the day, I can make plays. (If I) do that, then they’ll have more trust in me. For me personally, I just want to make more plays or do more, do anything I can do to help the team win more. I’ve just got to focus on this next week coming up.”
(How would you describe the level of confidence that this team is playing with right now?) – “I think they’re playing with a pretty good level of confidence, winning some good games in a row and just keep trying to stack the wins week by week and just keep listening to what ‘Coach Flo’ (Brian Flores) has been saying all year like we’ve been trying to do. Just focus on the little things and pay attention to the little details because in the end, it plays a big part in the long run. If we can just all focus on just executing the little details, we can try to keep this rolling.”
(There’s been so many guys making contributions on defense, especially during this winning streak. Today we got the news about LB Jerome Baker getting the player of the month award. What’s your reaction to that, especially given how it seems like everybody is contributing?) – “Well, my first year, I could see that Jerome Baker was a baller. They were showing me some clips of him making plays. I think he’s just excelling at what he does. I think as a team though, I think we’re all just accepting our role and everybody accepts their role and is doing that and playing their part in the defense and not trying to do too much or do everybody else’s job or try to make every play. I think everybody has just found their little niche and their little role and is doing well and succeeding at that. We’ve just got to keep doing that.”
(Not that you play for this, but I’m sure it’s nice to get national recognition for the defense.) – “Yeah, it feels good. We knew what kind of defense we were in the beginning of the year and things just weren’t working out well at the beginning of the season. But now we’re all clicking on the same page and we’re showing the world what we can do. We just want to keep going out and executing well, and taking it onto the next week.”
(I apologize if this got asked. I jumped on late. What happened to the football on the pick-six? I saw you threw it up into the air. Did you get it back?) – “Yeah, I threw it up and then Mack (Hollins) caught it. It bounced down and I ended up getting it. Somebody thought I threw it in the stands but yeah, they ended up telling me the equipment manager had it.”
(I saw that and I was wondering if you’d regret doing that but I’m glad you got it back.) – “Yeah, I was telling everybody – everybody was hitting me up like ‘What are you doing?’”
(So heading up to the Titans on Sunday, what kind of challenges do they present for you guys in that defensive secondary?) – “They’ve got some big-bodied receivers. A.J. Brown, Julio (Jones). They’ve got a good, strong run game. A veteran quarterback who has seen every defense, so he knows what he’s getting. We’ve all got to be on the same page and make sure that we’re giving them some different looks and try to switch it up and just make sure we keep executing and try to get some turnovers. Turnovers are big in games like these.”
