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LoboZone: In His Words, Clint McPeek

By Iliana Limón
Friday, September 21, 2007

The Tribune handed the mike to Clint McPeek and here's what he had to say:

I think the season is going well for us right now. We're starting to play better as a team, but we still have a lot of room for improvement. We're getting there. I feel like I've gotten off to a good start, too, but I still need to get a lot better. I need to make more plays out there.

It's great to get more playing time on the defense. I worked hard on special teams, but it feels good to play more during the game. I just love to play. So as long as I play and help the team, I'm happy.

My best play so far as a Lobo was probably against New Mexico State. I got a big hit and Frankie Solomon intercepted the ball. It was a close game, and that play was really important. I was pretty pumped up afterward.

It feels good to get one of those perfect hits. It doesn't hurt, which is pretty nice. When you're on offense, the hits really hurt. And it's a good feeling whenever you're able to make a play because it helps the team and really motivates the other guys on defense. Everyone gets pumped up.

There's no secret to getting the perfect hit. You just have to read the offense and get a good break on the ball. You just have to get there.

I don't really think of anything when I'm about to get a big hit on a guy. You can see it's about to happen, but I'm just focused on getting the hit. You don't really think about it until afterward. Then you go crazy.

The only thing I really have to do before every game is listen to Al Pacino's speech "Inch by Inch" from "Any Given Sunday." I have it on my iPod, and that's all I need to get me ready to go. Since I have more time, I'll also listen to some other stuff. I usually listen to a lot of country, but I don't like that music on game days. I'll listen to more rock and rap before a game to get me a little more fired up.

I like older country instead of today's country. Johnny Cash is good. George Straight, Garth Brooks and Alan Jackson are all some of my favorites.

My teammates don't give me a hard time for listening to country since a lot of the guys also listen to it. Some of the (defensive backs) do give me crap about it, but a lot of the guys I went school with also listen to country so it's not that big of a deal.

My dad made me play football when I was 8 years old. For some reason, I just did not want to play. I don't know why, but I remember playing soccer and hating the idea of playing football. But my dad insisted that I play as young as I could to give me a chance to develop into a good player if I liked the sport.

Once I started playing, I loved it. I never stopped after he got me started. I've played every position. I was a running back, linebacker, receiver, safety, quarterback. I've done it all. I like defensive positions the best. I like safety a lot. It's nice hitting people instead of being hit.

It's awesome being a Lobo. It's great being able to play where you grew up and have a lot of fans out there who actually know you. All the guys you went to high school with can come out and support you. They want to watch you play and see you win. If I went to an out-of-state school, it wouldn't be the same.

It's real cool having a whole bunch of La Cueva guys on the same team. I've played on the same team as those guys for most of my life, and I've known them forever. It's really nice having friends on the team and guys who have a lot in common with you to talk to all the time.

Everyone always gives us a hard time if our high school doesn't win. For awhile, we were winning a lot of games and that made us a big target. Once they started losing, everyone gave us a hard time.

If I couldn't play football, I think I would be running track. I had a good experience running track in high school, but in college I wanted to focus on football.

In my spare time, I love to sleep. Ideally, every night I would love to get nine or 10 hours of sleep. It would be nice to get that much sleep and not have to take a nap during the day.

I've gotten used to our morning practices, but the reason I don't get as much sleep as I would like is because football season is just a real busy time. It took a few days to get adjusted to waking up so early, but now I can't ever sleep in past 8 o'clock. That's not really a bad thing on our days off. We get up so early that when you look at the clock, sleeping until 8 actually feels really nice.