STATESBORO - The 2024 preseason football camp is underway and GSEagles.com is catching up with each of the 10 position coaches early in August to get their take on their position room. Up next is defensive coordinator/safeties/nickels coach Brandon Bailey.

Q: Who were some guys that stood out on the field for you and have also turned around and attacked the off-season?
BB: I think we had a really good spring. We have some guys that we got back from injury. Marc Stampley II didn't participate in the spring, but he's having a good off-season and summer. We gave Ayden Jackson a chance to grow early in spring before he missed some of the end of spring. A few guys I saw take a step forward were Prince Green, Tyrell Davis and Justin Meyers; they had a great closeout this spring. Cam Williams is playing well, and so is transfer Deontre Morris. So I think we've got an opportunity to have some depth back there at safety and nickel, and we've got a couple of guys who can play several positions. You look at TJ Smith, and he is a very productive player for us. We asked him to play some safety and some nickel in the spring, and he did that seamlessly, which he had to do last season. If you remember correctly, we didn't have Stampley in week two against UAB. TJ Smith played the whole game at nickel, so he's a dual-trained guy. We've got some depth and experience back there and feel good about where many of those guys are.

Q: You and Coach Eubanks switch positions in the off-season. How did your spring go with your new position group?
BB: It went well. I'm a lot more comfortable on the third level, and the linebacker is very technical in our defense. There are a lot of fundamentals and techniques that I probably neglected a little bit and didn't do a great job with as the coordinator, spending some of my time with the whole defense and not getting into the nuts and bolts of that technique. I've already seen that group be so much more technically sound than we were when I was with them. I'm more comfortable on the back end with how the defense functions with coaching those positions and getting those guys where we want them to be.

Q: You mentioned a lot of the returners. Who are some of the young guys that Eagle Nation isn't as familiar with that you're really excited about?
BB: That's a great question, and there are a lot of guys for people to be excited about. We've recruited at a high level here since Coach Helton has been here, and you'll start to see those guys on the field more and more. A guy you'll see a little more of this year that you caught glimpses of last year is Ayden Jackson, an uber-talented kid from the area. You'll see Tracy Hill Jr., who was a walk-on and is now a scholarship player. He's going to play a significant role for us at corner. Some newcomers from the transfer portal are Chance Gamble, who will play corner for us, and Deontre Morris, who will play safety. In terms of some young guys, we've got some young defensive linemen who I think can be special. Troy Pikes is an inside guy who I think can be really, really good. I think Kebba Secka is an edge guy who can be really good. I think Jamari Whitehead's a linebacker who can be a really good player. And then we've got some young corners. 

If you look at some of these young guys on defense, I walk out there and look at Nassir Smith from Grayson. That's a grown man in a 17-year-old, 18-year-old body, whatever he is. Eli Anders, same way. These dudes look like grown men, Korey Jordan, Philip Gladney, Devin Collier, or Jaquari Brown, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few. I felt like we hit a home run on defense in this class. So I'm really excited about those kids and their opportunity to develop into potentially great Eagles, but only time will tell. We've certainly got a group of them that I feel has a chance to play, and I probably left a couple out, but I mean, it was a really special class, in my opinion.

Q: You guys return, as a defense, eight starters. How excited are you in year two under your defense?
BB: So the two words I would use would be "excited" and "challenged" because the fact of the matter is when you really dig into the nuts and bolts of it, and if you really want to play the numbers game, there are some areas we've got to grow defensively and a lot of people see that and rightfully so. We've got to give up less explosive plays. We've got to be even better on third down. We've got to create a few more takeaways. We've got to continue at the clip we were playing through week eight before we took that fall. But to your point, though, with the returners, I'm incredibly excited about those guys and their familiarity with the defense. Then, with the additions we have made with the portal with guys like Chance, Deontre, and Ethan Pouncey, I want to challenge those guys, too, because we're going to need them to play early on. We've got to grow, and we've got to get better to allow ourselves to win more ball games and create more considerable separation in some of those close games.

Q: Let's talk technology a little bit. You've got the coach-to-player helmet communication piece, and then you also got the tablets on the sideline where you can watch the previous drive, which are both new to the college game this year. As a defensive coordinator, what are your plans for utilizing them?
BB: I'm probably as indifferent to it as anybody would be. I think it is a heavy advantage for the offense to do the coach-to-player with the helmet technology because the one guy that never comes out of the football game is probably your quarterback. On defense, you don't always have that guy. You can create it to where there's that guy, but the big advantage becomes the quarterback drives the whole game, so the coach being able to talk to him will give them a good bit of an advantage, in my opinion. But that's okay. I plan to use one of the linebackers, and it'll really be based on who we plan on being a part of the depth chart across all the different personnel groups we use to ensure we have the guy on the field. It won't change a lot for us functionally in terms of how we communicate to players. I still feel like there will be a need to signal because one guy will have the earpiece. He can't communicate with 10 people. That's unrealistic, and maybe it'll help with some last-minute things, some potential formational checks, or whatever. The key will be seeing how people on offense utilize it after the 15 seconds. So what are they telling the quarterback to then do after 15 seconds? We've got to have a great plan for operating between the 15- and eight-second mark, and if they change something, how do we change something? So it will be nice to be at least able to be in a kid's ear a little bit, but I think there will be a fine line there. I firmly believe some people will try to utilize that and kind of handicap some folks. You can get in your own way a little bit if you're trying to communicate something and suddenly, the thing goes off, and you've got a kid mid-communication, and you're telling 'em something, so you got to be careful there. 

Then, as far as the tablets go, they are a great resource. It's undoubtedly an excellent resource for the people who will take the time to learn how to use them. You all have it right there right after you come off the field. It is certainly a good resource, and I think it's probably time for it. We will utilize those to their maximum capability to give us the best chance to adjust and get off the field the next time we get out there. 

Q: Will either of those new technologies change your location, or are you staying in the press box? 
BB: I'm about 95% sure I will stay in the box. I'm toying with the idea of doing one preseason scrimmage on the sideline because I think there would be an advantage to me being down there for that window. We have some time to figure out what works best, but I'm about 95% sure about staying up there. 

Q: What are the top priorities or the things you're harping on to prepare for that opener against Boise at the end of August?
BB: So early, and obviously, this is no disrespect to any opponent, but early, it's going to be more about us than it is anybody else. And that means we've established our culture here, we've established the things that are important to us here, but we've got to go. People can say, "We go a hundred percent all the time," and we do; our kids practice hard. They go through the off-season hard. Our kids love football. But you can feel the urgency and the proximity of the regular season coming when fall camp hits. We have to sink our teeth into our play style, how we play football, and our scheme. So there's going to be a huge emphasis there. We will put in our schemes, and that'll challenge our kids because we're not a one-defense team. We don't play two or three calls over and over again. We play a lot of schemes, so we'll challenge our guys that way, but as we grow through the mistakes and the corrections we have to make, as we add volume schematically, we're going to be able to overcome those things. We have to learn as a unit how we will do things, and we have to do things full tilt. We're going to play hard, fast, and physically within the rules of the game and let that cover up for some of the mental errors we make as we add volume.