Everything From Virginia Tech CB Thomas Williams At Tuesday's Press Conference

Virginia Tech cornerback Thomas Williams spoke to the media at the Hokies' weekly press conference Tuesday; here is the entirety of what he had to say:

On the mood of the locker room:

"I'd say the mood of the locker room is pretty much back to square one. Back to film. Back to see where can we get better at about the mistakes, how can we fix them? And start of the day, bring the energy at practice. First week of practice after film, you got to set the tone for the next week of the game. So, that's pretty much where the locker room [was]."

On finding the balance of effort without getting penalized:

"I mean, a lot of the effort comes from the way the coaches set the tone. I mean, guys trying to make plays, trying to change the momentum of the game. And just a little too much happened. Sometimes, guys just got to understand it's a time and place and that comes with watching film and understanding."

Q: As a player, is there a way as you're processing something that's going live speed in a game of recognizing situational and saying, "Okay, I need to let up here before I hit someone." Or things like that that you can process... to make sure you're not getting into that gray area of where... a penalty is called.

"Sometimes, you kind of in the moment and the moment kind of get away from you. But then that goes back to what I'm saying is [that] it's a different part of the game. You got to elevate. And that happened to me before [the] ODU game. I got hands to the face on a third down where IBM [Isaiah Brown-Murray] had got a PBU and situations like that can't happen [Editor's note: It occurred on a fourth-and-8. Old Dominion scored three plays later to make the score 28-0.] And for me to elevate my game, I had to understand that cannot happen in situations like that."

On transitioning from being more of a RB in high school to CB in college and the process:

"So, the bowl game [against Minnesota last year] was actually my first real game as a full corner. Freshman year coming in here, I dealt with injury. So, I didn't really get the reps I wanted at corner. After the injury, I started coming back. Last year, I was able to get some reps and Coach [Derek] Jones [has] been doing pretty good about helping me grow at the position. Last year sat behind Dorian [Strong]. I learned a lot from him. Mansoor [Delane], I learned a lot from him. And I guess this year, I talked to Cheetah [Jones]. He told me my first game is going to be worse than the last game I played. And that just comes from me understanding the game of corner. And as I go back to look at it, [the] South Carolina game, my grades was worse than last week. And as the week goes, like I keep getting better and better and better. And that comes from being able to elevate and understanding the corner. And understanding route concepts and understanding receiver releases and understanding the defense in general. And that's been a good experience for me."

On biggest takeaways from watching Strong and Delane:

"Dorian, I like his mentality. Coach Cheetah reminded us that he didn't give up many touchdowns or explosive plays when he was here and a lot of that was in man coverage. And in order to play man, you had to have a different mentality. And Coach Jones say that all the time and that's what I kind of learned from Dorian and during my official visit here, he was my host. So, he kind of set the tone for me of how I want to be a corner. And Mansoor, he's just a ball hawk. And that's kind of the mentality you got to have at corner too. You got to want to make plays. You can't be a prey. Like you got to make plays. It's no in between and corner, you got to have that mentality to do it."

Q: Georgia Tech, more of a run-heavy team. What have you seen from them on film and how are you guys preparing to stop that?

"We seen receiver standpoint, they light a lot of screens. They like to get the ball in space because they got fast guys. They got quarterback [Haynes King] that can run. So, screens will make the secondary tackle in space. And that's kind of what teams been attacking us the past couple weeks at. And that's kind of what we're expecting them to come in and do. And also run the ball. Like how you said, they good run-heavy team. They got a good running back. Quarterback's good, like I said. But we'll see."

Over the last three weeks, your rush defense has improved by leaps and bounds. How crucial will run defense be against not only Hannes Kings, but Jamal Haynes and the rest of that group?

On the improvement of the run defense over the last three weeks:

"Like I said earlier, we just come in and attack the week the same we did every week. And every week, the run been on our mind for every team. South Carolina [Editor's note: Williams said North Carolina, but was presumably referring to South Carolina here since Virginia Tech does not play UNC this year.], we had to stop the run. That was our biggest thing. They had a good explosive running back. That's what we wanted to do. Wade Forest had a great running back and we wanted to stop the run. And they had a quarterback that could run too. And that's kind of been our memo is [that] we got to be aggressive. Look, it's no in between, like we got to be aggressive to the run and we got to stop the run and we got to stop the explosive plays in the secondary."

On learning from Delane about not being afraid to make a play and whether it's different between RB and CB:

"I'd say for me at running back, I just knew when I was getting the ball and I knew I was going to make a play with it. At corner, you kind of don't know when the ball's going to come your way. Usually, the ball comes your way when you're not doing your job. And most of the time, if you're doing your job, the ball hardly comes your way. And when they do, it'll be missed opportunities. Like the quarterback might have missed something and it just happened to come your way. But that's why I would say [that] corner, you kind of got to be on your toes all the time to be able to make a play."