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Wisconsin OLB Coach Bobby April III on Saints Draft Pick Zack Baun

May 03, 2020
You listen to me God, she just loud and clear, nice private yes st. Paul, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, yeah, you've got a good group of guys here. I see the marijuana ladies, yeah, amazing. I see them, so I'm the

coach

. April is a New Orleans native and her father was one of the great special teams

coach

es in the NFL and coached with the Saints and her father from Chalmette went to Nicholls State, so there are all kinds of connections here and Zach was coached by the coach April here with Johnson and maybe you can start by telling us a little bit of history about your relationship and what you think the Saints are understanding that yeah for sure so Zach is a very fluid athlete and I know he didn't play much without the ball, but that's not something I would hold against him at all, since we did a lot of things during the spring. that put him in positions he will be in now.
wisconsin olb coach bobby april iii on saints draft pick zack baun
I thought I did a really good job in the Senior Bowl playing that linebacker position. He learns quickly, right, he loves the game, so he's going to put a lot of time into it and you know. he's really a homebody type of kid and you know, I speak highly of him to the best of my ability, he's just a good person, every team he could have been

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ed to he ends up, you know, in your old, you know, your old backyard, what does it do? That means for you knowing where he's going and knowing the type of organization he's going to, yeah, you know, when I saw the Saints they traded and I was just hoping to say, man, what's this going to be? perfect location, you know, the way the program is set up, the way you know, just the staff is built, I have a lot of respect for coach Peyton Jeff Ireland, making them like all these guys that have come through and you never hear. a bad word that comes out of there, you know, these guys respect who they recruit, they keep them around and I was very excited for Emil with Dennis Allen;
wisconsin olb coach bobby april iii on saints draft pick zack baun

More Interesting Facts About,

wisconsin olb coach bobby april iii on saints draft pick zack baun...

You know what an incredible opportunity in a defense that is growing a lot for them. and obviously for me I get to cheer on the Saints in more ways than one, which is awesome, right? And I can give you some advice like don't be surprised when someone asks you what high school you went to, you know stuff like that. I couldn't do it if you went to Eka Dallas. You know, I want to know the ins and outs, but I can tell you about Bayou St. John, you don't know the Irish Channel. I can do things like that now, which is great.
wisconsin olb coach bobby april iii on saints draft pick zack baun
Brown Deer. I missed you on that one. Jim, same question, but if you had me send a big increase in production from junior year to senior year, and he said he kind of took care of himself after you guys lost a lot with that 18 defense, would you? What did you see and what did you do to get stronger and the type of player you were your senior year? Yeah, you know, I think he was hungrier than he was, you know, two things happen to Zach, there's a coaching change, right, and that can go to..., whatever it is, there's a + and. .. that may be in those and his junior year was the first year he was actually able to play. true, I really thought that coming into that season he was just trying to get on the field well and he had gotten hurt and never had an offseason after his junior season.
wisconsin olb coach bobby april iii on saints draft pick zack baun
I think he saw that he had the ability to do more than what he was doing, we met with him a lot more individually, and I could tell that there was something different about this summer job, like he maximized everything he did, it was more correct, everything he did was more, his meetings were more his weights. There was more and when we got to the right season, I had no doubt that he was going to have a big year like that. He just did it all camp. I knew it would happen to him and I'm seeing guys that I've put myself in his shoes, they've done the same thing and it was exciting to see it really play out the way it did for him.
I'm sure she was able to tap into his versatility a little. What is it about him, you know, that makes him capable? playing off the ball like you said in the game in space, but wait, you've been a very good athlete and anyone who can run under a four point one probe shuttle, I mean, that's some skill on the sideline and that That's what he's right, he has the ability to change direction from one side to the other. I'm sure you guys have already reported on him playing basketball in high school, you could see him dunking and everything, and that's at a young age that he's doing that and just the movement that he naturally has, will put him in position the evening.
I'm excited to see what Coach Allen actually does with him because there's a lot of tools that they can play with and his defensive coordinator mentioned that you guys had him do a little bit more communicating calls and that kind of stuff this year do you think? that he will be able to learn that quickly at the next level? you know, the green dots say I hope he can write I hope we can, he's more of an inside guy like he's more inside himself in a game, but that doesn't mean I coached Mario right when he was on the Jets.
I didn't think that tomorrow he would be a green guy, now go see him, now he is both. guys, you can hit it for sure and as you know, he's probably the most local guy on the team and he was like that with the Jets, but he wasn't a green dot signal caller, but he found the ability to say if I do this, I have the ability to move on, he wouldn't see Zack, not me, and I will too. You know I see the same type of person when everything is said and done in that area that you connect him with.
I let Mario learn under his protection and before he gets to the training camp, yeah, I mean, I'll definitely make sure that they know each other and that they have the same number. I was like, yeah, Zack, you gotta change your number, dude, yeah, since you know New Orleans, where are you going to tell him to go? What are you going to do? What's the first thing you're going to tell them about New Orleans that you should know besides high school? which is very true you know for myself I love inner city men that was when I had a year off when I said the Buffalo Bills had a year off and my wife was from New Orleans too so We rent a house. in the center of the city and we lived right off Bank Street, you know, two blocks from Jesuit, that's like my kingdom, riding my bike in that area through City Park, you know, I tell him to look and that area , and you know it's difficult. to find a place that is bad to eat, so I'm not going to name any names because you know how that can happen, especially in hot areas, I can argue that another thing we talked about, Jim, is that I was talking about how could I rely on guys like PJ Watford Tips or whatever, and you guys have put a lot of professional players in the league defensively speaking in the last few years.
I have greater resources than someone like Zack or even guys on a team, well I think it's huge. You know, in the last five years we've had six outside linebackers

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ed, you know, and that's not even counting the guys that went on and signed up. You know, he was free, he wasn't a free agent, he signed as an undrafted free agent, so those guys are coming. through the offices during the offseason, I'm not surprised to see a bunch of those guys at pro days, right, that's what we've always been. As for Wisconsin, there's a lot of tradition and these guys keep in touch and they're sure a great resource for balancing information, but they're really a resource for the entire team and that's how you know the programs have been built over the years. of the years, if when you first met Zack and who you were there. when he was recruited we, not me, I got there I was two years with Zack, both leaders, he started well, yeah, obviously a lot of Wisconsin guys come from small schools, you guys were in the state, yeah, I know he was like a gray shirt and all, what kind of mentality does that type of race generate in a guy?
And you come from a small school and play for the big state school in Wisconsin. Yeah, I'd compare it to LSU up north if you wanted to put it. It's kind of true, I mean, we're on top of our conference planning in their you know, championship every year for the most part, right, we're highly competitive and having a kid from, let's say, it just gives you a comparison of guys. Let's say there are six kids in the state that have Division One offers, well, if Wisconsin offers them, they probably won't drop out, it's their dream school to go to, you know, it's not a small school at all. .
As you know, we have 40,000 students that are here, the city of Madison has 250,000 people, it's not a small setup, about 86,000 seats sold out every game in our stadium, so you have to look at it like a high school kid. and I mean Camp Randall is an amazing stadium and I'm like, hey, I'm going to go play in front of my family, the town I grew up in is an hour and a half away, that's an amazing opportunity, so I think once he received that offer. It didn't matter who else offered well, it was Wisconsin because that's how it is here.
Great, does anyone have anything else for Bobby other than Mid City? It's great. He has lived at sea for two years. Yes, yes, he is fine. I remember, but for a while, yeah, everyone was fine, man, that's hard, I was there, my parents lived in Slidell, so I was there about three weeks ago, right where they closed it, right when I was staying home and I stayed there two more weeks just to hang out with mom and dad and make sure they were okay praying for you guys and everyone.

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