Rutgers Defensive Line coach Dennis Dottin-Carter talks Spring Practice: Press Conference

Rutgers Football began spring ball this week and on Saturday afternoon, and Defensive Line coach Dennis Dottin-Carter spoke to the media for his spring football press conference on staff.

He spoke for roughly 10 minutes and addressed a range of questions, including his experience in the Big Ten, familiarity on staff and much more.

Rutgers fans MUST take advantage of this deal, Get 50% off The Knight Report now

Full Dennis Dottin-Carter Presser Transcript

What are your early impressions of your unit and how close are you right now, obviously only a week into the spring, of knowing the hierarchy of what you’re working with?

Dennis Dottin-Carter: “Early impressions are, one, that these guys just worked their butts off. They’re hungry. They want to win. They want to do what it takes to win. They’re not worried about anything on the outside. They’re worried about coming to work every single day, doing it for each other, and doing it the best they can possibly do.

The attitude’s been great. They’re coming in with a workman’s attitude, a get-to attitude. They do everything like it matters the most. We’re talking about having a sworn mentality, a finished mentality, no matter what it is. If I’m going to write a paper, I’m going to write it like I’m getting to the quarterback. I’m going to finish that off.

If I’m raising my hand in class to answer a question, I’m going to do that like it matters the most. We’re talking about living our lives, doing it the same way, which is the right way, every single time, no matter what we’re doing. Those guys, they’ve done it exactly the way we’ve asked them the entire time.”

Coach, what was it about Rutgers that made this job so appealing to you?

Dennis Dottin-Carter: “I think the people, the opportunity. Rutgers is an unbelievable university. I give my left arm to work here. This is a Big Ten school, a high academic place. I don’t think anybody would not want to work at this university. Then when you couple that with Coach Schiano and his history and the success that he’s had here and you see what’s on the roster, coupled with the coaching staff that he’s hired, this is as appealing a job as any in the country. When an opportunity was presented to me, I leapt at it, didn’t look back.”

Coach, when you coach young kids and prospects and the guys you have now, what do you look for in them and what is it about this job that you feel you can make them better?

Dennis Dottin-Carter: “With any person, any young kid, young guy who’s going into a grown man, we want people who love football, guys who love this game. It’s hard to play. It’s hard to play in high school. These guys, when they’re freshmen, they think it’s hard. Then all of a sudden they become seniors and it feels easy again because they’ve understood how to play the game at that level.

Then they come to this level and it feels hard again because they don’t know what it’s like to be at this level. To do it at this level, to do it at any college, doesn’t matter where you’re at, doesn’t matter anywhere, whatever city in the USA, you have to love the game. To be able to do it at the Big Ten level, you’ve got to love it that much more because it’s that much more important.

You’re the next thing under the NFL. To prepare the way we need to prepare, to play the teams that we’re going to play, UMass is the next up on the schedule, that’s who’s next for us. To prepare to beat them, we’ve got to do it better than anybody in the country.

That just means doing it our best, pushing ourselves the way that we can be pushed. Not looking my right, not looking to my left, but knowing what my work capacity is and then doing it to that level at all times. Doing it consistently, day in and day out.

Doing it on day one is okay, that’s cool. Practice one, the juices are flowing, everybody’s excited because we get to put the helmets and the pads back on again. How’s it going to feel on day seven? How’s it going to feel on day 14? We can work with the same passion and the same energy, the same get-to mentality, with the same mindset that everything matters.

Putting on my shoes the right way, lacing them up, zip-zip, making sure that we are strapped up and ready to go before we hit the field. We do that all the time consistently, we’ll know we’re on the right track.”

Coach, it’s been quite some time since Rutgers had an edge rusher with five-plus sacks. How does Dennis Dottin-Carter change that?

Dennis Dottin-Carter: “I’m just going to change it by looking to get the best out of those guys, their best. Five-and-a-half sacks, I tell my guys that numbers don’t matter. When you look at the grand scheme of things, it’s not about the results, it’s about the process.

You look at a guy by the name of Travon Walker, he wasn’t a big high-sack guy when it came down to it in his senior year, but he ended up going pretty high in the draft. It’s not about the results, whether in practice, whether on game day, it’s about the process. If we take the right process, which is coming to work with the right attitude, working our work like it’s the most important thing that’s in front of us, then the results will come. We’ll get there. Sacks come in bunches. That’s the old saying, sacks come in bunches.

If I don’t get a sack on the first play, if I don’t get a sack on the first day, all is not lost. It’s about showing up again the next day and the consistency of the process. Once we’re consistent with the process, the results will come. We’ll look up and we’ll be right where we want to be.”

Coming here when this opportunity came about, what did you know about Coach Johansen? How did you research him? What did you learn? Was there anything that made him appealing to come work with?

Dennis Dottin-Carter: “From a research standpoint, I just went online and looked for what I could look for. Googled his name. I googled him. I immediately saw the success that he was able to have as a head coach, as a coordinator. Being in Minnesota and just being a football coach, you hear about things. I came up in the 1AA ranks myself. I played at the University of Maine and coached at Maine and coached at Delaware. I always have my eye on every level of football.

Knowing the success that they had in the Midwest, South Dakota, South Dakota State, the Missouri Valley, it’s a high-level conference. I was familiar with the success that he had been having. I just didn’t exactly know who he was. But when I googled him again, it was really easy to see that he knows ball. He’s shown the results. It just happened that there are guys on his staff that I worked with.

Immediately, they told me when he was coming to Rutgers, they were like, hey, he’s going to Rutgers, and boom. We made the connection. They said great things about him from a personal standpoint. But again, you take everything with a grain of salt. When I got the opportunity to actually speak with him, I knew he was exactly my cup of tea. I knew he was going to be the kind of guy I would like to work for.

You always want to work with good people. And I think the connection has been great from day one. Our entire defensive staff has been unbelievable. The reality of the situation is I didn’t work for him at South Dakota State. I don’t have a prior relationship with him. But our defensive staff is just like we’ve all been working together for some time right now.

But it’s been really, really awesome. The streamlining that’s taken place with our defensive staff and trickling it down to the players, I think it’s not a process that’s anywhere near finished, but it’s not a process that we’re trying to rush in any sense of the imagination. We are just going to take it one day at a time, let the process take care of the results that day, and look up the next day.”

Speaking of connections, you have quite a few of them on the staff between Eddie Allen, Dave Brock, Luke Carrezola. How much does that kind of factor in you taking this job?

Dennis Dottin-Carter: “Again, knowing those guys, knowing that they’re good people, knowing that they’re good people who love ball and great football coaches, again, that just added on to being here at Rutgers, being here working for Coach Schiano, working and getting to see how Coach Johansen has gotten the results that he’s gotten throughout the year. All that did was add on to it.”

You’ve spent the last three seasons in the Big Ten. What have you seen from this group do you think that they can make that jump up and start to compete at the level that we’ve been accustomed to seeing here at Rutgers?

Dennis Dottin-Carter: “I wouldn’t call it a jump. I would call it the next step, the next step in the right direction. Again, why wouldn’t I call it a jump? Because we’re in the Big Ten. We’re not trying to go from a different conference to be in the Big Ten. We are part of the Big Ten. I go back to what I said initially. It’s about doing our job every single day like it’s the most important thing that we’re doing.

These guys, when we get into the meeting room, they’re locked in. Every single word, everything I’m talking about, they understand that that’s the next most important thing. They listen intently, and then they go out there and attempt to apply it like it’s the next most important thing. It’s very easy to look and say third down is so important. Sacks are so important. Fumbles, takeaways, all those things are so important.

Why? Because they’re recorded as stats. Note-taking is not a recorded stat by the NCAA. But guess what? That’s extremely important. Those guys take notes like it’s their Super Bowl. Some guys are working on understanding how to do that. Again, it’s a process. It’s not about the results. So as long as they continue to focus on the process, go about their business, understand that they get to do it, to be excited about it, the energy is getting better every single day, we’re moving in the right direction.”

I just wanted your early impressions on a few guys, Doug Blue-Eli, Malachi Davis, and J’Dan Burnett.

Dennis Dottin-Carter: “Unbelievable people. Love them. They love football. All they want to do is they want to be good. They want to work.

They take the coaching. They look you in your eye when you’re instructing them. If something happens, you’ve got to make a correction. It’s the same thing. It’s look you in the eye. They take the coaching. And then the great thing is they go apply it. They go apply it. And I’ll just speak specifically on Doug because he’s obviously a guy that we’re going to want him all to get back and all to be great contributors for us.

But I’m going to go ahead and give Doug a great shout-out. He’s just gotten great reports from everybody in the building who’s been around him right now. And, again, all he’s doing is continuing to work. He wants to get better every single day, and he’s showing that. Thanks, Coach. Thanks, everybody.”