Spoooooon - the crowd watching the action at Faurot Field would chant when linebacker Sean Weatherspoon made a spectacular play. And over his four years as a Missouri Tiger, he kept the crowd was busy.
Weatherspoon had over 100 tackles in each of his final three seasons for Mizzou, including career-highs - 149 total tackles, five sacks, three interceptions and two touchdowns in 2008. The ’09 season wasn’t as good for Spoon or the Tigers and ended with a bowl loss to Navy. Weatherspoon isn’t dwelling on the past though, rather looking forward to his future and showing why he will be an asset to an NFL organization while at the Senior Bowl.
My colleague Jason Roberts of PRISM Press Group caught up with Weatherspoon after Senior Bowl practice earlier this week and he dished about his week – and his vocal play, his fellow Big 12ers - even mentioned a Cornhusker! - and his Twitter habit – perhaps I can get him to do a Twitterview next?:
How are you feeling as the week is progressing?
On this third day everything just went a lot smoother for the defense. We’ve been putting in new stuff and just trying to learn the system and going out there and just kind of cutting loose. And today? Hell of a better day than yesterday. We’ve been getting out there, just running around and guys are making plays. You can tell that the anxiety has kind of settled down and guys are just out there ready and reacting instead of just thinking so much. So it’s been fun.
Why so much intensity today compared to earlier in the week?
I just felt a lot more comfortable out there. With learning the new stuff, you’re kind of out there and you’re thinking too much, like I said. Once you get into that routine of playing football you kind of settle down and I think our linebacker coach – Coach Burke – he did a great job of just getting us settled down. As a linebacking corps and a defense we just had a better day. Everybody was out here playing together, being interactive with guys, getting guys lined up and you saw a lot more plays being made.
You are very vocal on the field. Is that something you use to get the linebacking corps more pumped up?
Not just the linebacking corps, it just to get the whole defense fired up and I feel like if you’re that guy in the middle of defense you’ve got to bring a lot of intensity as far as your play and your passion for the game. So you’ve got to talk guys up, you’ve got to make sure everybody’s getting lined up. I mean, you’ve got guys doing that then other guys are going to gravitate to that and they’re going to feel a little bit more comfortable with you because they’ve been playing with other guys, you know, and once you get going together then things just work out better.
How would you describe the 2009 season for Mizzou?
It was decent. I would say decent; that’s one word to sum it up. Not a great year for myself, not a great year for the team, but we went out there and we overcame a lot of stuff and we had a fun time out there, man. Senior year – you get all those senior memories – I remember Senior Day and you know all that stuff you just can’t forget and I definitely had a great time.
You seem to be pretty savvy with social networking, namely tweeting as @SeanWSpoon12. What role does it play for you?
As far as keeping in touch with family and friends, I kind of do that more on my cell phone and when I go home I usually get on web cam with my mom or something like that when I can’t get home. But social media – I feel like just whenever I’m out here doing some football type stuff I can always just reach back out there to the fans and kind of let them know what’s going on, how things are going and stuff like that. It’s not that big of a deal. I haven’t been getting a lot of time to do that stuff out here this week, but I definitely like to do that from time to time.
What does it mean for you to be representing Missouri and the Big 12?
It means a lot. I saw a safety from Nebraska – my boy Larry Asante made a play and I’m like that’s right, show them how the Big 12 do it. It means a lot to represent your conference and go out here and represent your team. You want to come out here and kind of put on, you don’t want to come out and just be a so so type of guy. It’s been going well so far and hopefully we can keep that going.
What is in store for you after the Senior Bowl?
After the game? Let’s see. I’ll probably stay out here that night and fly out that Sunday morning, back to Irvine, California and get back to working out for the combine.
