Golden: "The Way We Play Defense, It's an Aggressive Defense'

Al Golden joined the Marc Hochman Show and Zach Krantz to recap the team's spring thus far in advance of this Saturday's Spring Game at Lockhart Stadium.

Here are the highlights:

Hoch: Do you feel at all like the upcoming season is a do-or-die season for you personally?

Golden: "No, I think from our standpoint it's just about getting better and doing the things that this team needs to do. Every team is different. Our team right now, we're focused on several aspects. We're not really worried about anything on the outside. No one on the outside can help us and no one on the outside can dictate how we prepare every day or how we perform so it's just a waste of time thinking about it."

Hoch: What would you say to Canes fans that are listening now that are super disappointed in last season, certainly disappointed in how it ended?

Golden: "Well, I think our guys have been working really hard. I think clearly we have a veteran quarterback coming back now who is not just learning how to play the quarterback position or getting acclimated to college football. Now he's a leader... I think we have like something of 25 of our top 30 on defense coming back so there's a good group of defense coming back."

Krantz: What can get Stacy Coley out of his slump from last season?

Golden: "...I think his process has been really good right now. We just have to keep him focused and getting better everyday, not taking any steps backward and doing that for a long period of time to be able to sustain it. Being number one is a lot harder than being number two or number three. I think maybe he learned that lesson... I've been very pleased with his work ethic. He's worked as hard as anybody on the field."

Krantz: Was there any thought process of maybe changing the defense a little bit from a 3-4 to the 4-3?

"We're a hybrid, first of all. There's a lot of 4-3 teams, guys, that as you watch them on film they're playing a lot of odd defense or they're playing odd defense 40 or 50 percent of the time. So we just come at it from the other way but we're playing buddy defenses, we're playing over defenses, under defenses. So we're a hybrid and we just believe that the 3-4 is the most flexible personnel. We do feel like we're personnelled really well for it right now. We're long, we're a little bit deeper than we have been up front. So from that standpoint we're excited. Again, we made progress, now we have to take the next step in everything that we do...

"From my standpoint, the way we play defense, it's an aggressive defense. We want to move guys around. We want to stunt guys. We want to bring a fifth man in pressure if not a sixth. I think clearly with the maturity with guys like Burns and Elder and Tracy Howard at corner, we're able to do more things with them in terms of press and playing a little bit more man. I think that's great. I don't think there's a coordinator out there on the planet that wouldn't want to play man to man on every down but the only way you can do that is if the rush is with you and I think we have a lot of pass rushers back. This might be the most pass rushers we've had since Olivier Vernon left."

Check out the Miami Hurricanes' spring game this Saturday at noon at Lockhart Stadium.