Jared Verse, Florida State Seminoles Defensive End

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One-year upgrade requires financing, qualifying, device and upgrading in good condition after six months with half paid off. We continue this Zach Gelb show coast to coast on CBS Sports Radio. We'll go out to the guest line right now and welcome in one of the better defensive players in the country. Part of the undefeated fourth-ranked Florida State Seminoles.

Big matchup this weekend up against Clemson. And that is Jared Verse here with us on the Zach Gelb show. Jared, appreciate the time as always. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. Thank you for having me.

Well, thank you so much for coming on. We'll talk about your great story in just a second. But first, I got to talk about the toughness of your quarterback, Jordan Travis. We all know he's one of the better quarterbacks in the country. But last weekend, getting hurt, coming back to the game and playing the way that he did to secure a victory. Just what really impressed you about Jordan?

That's that dog mentality. That's something he's always had. You know, he's always been overlooked and everything like that. So when he has the opportunity, even when he's hurt, when he's down, he's still going to come and give everything he has for the team, for us, for the offense to get everybody going. That's something that when me, even a defensive player, where his impact is something like, it doesn't directly affect me. I'm not the one catching his touchdowns. I'm not the one throwing the ball or grabbing his hand off.

But you still see that. You're like, I got to work better for that guy because he's going to give everything he has. How do you kind of describe his leadership skills, right? You're the leader on the defensive side of the ball. He's the leader on the offensive side of the ball.

What do you kind of take from him to make you a better leader on the football team? Definitely his poise. He never gets too high. He never gets too low. You know, after a touchdown, you don't see him going crazy. Like, all hyped up or anything like that. He's just like, we'll call him and say, all right, we got to do something next.

That's something I try to take away. Like, we have a bad snap as a defensive unit. If the offense has a big play against us, I'm like, all right, that just happened. Let's move on from it. We're not going to think about it right now.

We'll think about that later. Right now, we got to handle this next play. What do you take from the BC game? I think a lot of people, including myself, thought that was going to be a lopsided game where you guys were going to blow them out. You end up winning by two points, which is important. But what's the overall message you guys latch onto from that game? Don't ever overlook your opponent.

Every player we go, every team we go up against is somebody that's great. They're going to play harder against us. They're going to try to knock us off.

You know, we have something great going and everyone wants to destroy that. Everyone wants to do that because they want to do what's best for their season, too. And beating us is something that's great for everybody's season.

Nobody gets a win on the record. That's just how it is. So that's why we just focus on being us, being better, going in there with the right mindset. We don't have the right mindset. And we were lucky to get out there with a win. That's why I always live by a little quote, you know, be good enough on your worst day you can beat your opponent on their best. And we were lucky to have that on Saturday, but we can't let that happen again.

Is that what you have felt like happened? Maybe too many guys were looking ahead to next week with the big hype about the Clemson game where you guys just did overlook BC? I think we definitely did overlook BC. They're a great team. You know, they have a fast quarterback, fast athletic. You know, their offensive line is what they're pretty steady team. They're a strong team.

They're good all across the board. But I think we kind of just tried to look past them. And then once they hit us in the mouth, we're like, all right, we can't do that.

Like this team, they're in front of us right now. We are locked in. And for a good amount of time, we locked in. We had to build our lead. I think we got comfortable again, mid-game.

And then that's where they started to come back, might have to come back and go like that. We were like, all right, locked in. Put our foot in the ground. I think that was a good lesson that every team needs to learn. Like no matter across the board, any team needs to learn that lesson.

Jared Vers here with us. So you take a look at Clemson. We all know they've been the standard in the ACC. They've won the conference seven out of the last eight years. This Florida State program has not had a victory up against Clemson since 2014.

For you, with how highly touted your team is this year, do you feel as if this is a moment to show that, hey, Florida State now runs the ACC and that you guys are the top dog in this conference this Saturday? I wouldn't say anything like that. You know, that's something that I definitely will let the fans say.

I'll let, you know, people outside this building say that. But the people in this building, the people in this locker room will focus on one game at a time. We're not worried about being the top. We're worried about being our best. If we're our best, everything else will come along with it.

But on Saturday, we just got to show up our best in another new kickoff game, in an earlier game and stuff like that. They're a great team. You know, we're watching them.

We're dissecting them and everything like that, like they're doing us. And they're a good team, so we can't get too high, get too low against them. We got to go up and just give them our best. What stands out to you about them first? Is it the quarterback in club, Nick, or is it the great running back in Shipley when you're getting ready to defend and prepare for them?

We go hand-in-hand. You know, we play a lot of great quarterbacks. Last week we played a great running back, or a great quarterback, you know, running around, everything like that. The week before, or the first week we played, Jaden Daniels, a great quarterback that can run, really use his feet. And this week we played a great running back quarterback duo. That's something that we don't see too crazy often.

You know, when you see great running backs, we don't see like great running backs, which is what Shipley is. So that's something we definitely have to focus on. That's definitely a threat that they can definitely use against us because it goes both ways.

You got to be prepared for whatever they do. You guys made such a big statement in week one. I picked you guys before the year to win the ACC. I think you guys are a heck of a football team. When you make a huge statement like that, blowing out LSU, I think it's kind of tough to keep it week by week.

As a leader of this team, how do you make sure that everyone else is just focused in on the opponent week in and week out so this team could go where you guys expect to go at the end of the year? A lot of us are transfers from other schools, you know, schools that some of us went to schools that were like really highly touted. Some of us were like Trey went to Oregon.

But otherwise it was like I was at FCS school, you know, Braden Fisk, he wasn't at a super highly touted school. A lot of us know like what those mindsets of those schools are. Schools that aren't in the same position as us, whether we knock them down, that brings us up, that puts us up in people's head, everything like that. So we know these other schools want to put us down. I think it's just like kind of a mindset thing. You got to know what they're thinking.

They're thinking they're going to come in here with their best, whether we go there, whether they come here, they're going to come at us with their best. We have to be prepared for that. We owe them, you know, we owe ourselves, we owe our fan base, we owe Florida State our best every day.

Last week that wasn't that, but it's going to be that this week. Talking to Jared Verse right now, I love a good story. Your story is one of the best stories in college football at Albany, eventually transfer over to Florida State.

We saw what you were capable of a year ago, and now, you know, I don't know how much attention you pay to these mock drafts when you're in the thick of a season, but everyone has you going in the top 10, top five. Just how do you kind of explain your rise to where you are, and what do you want people to know about your story? It was just hard work. You know, it was a lot of days where you don't see the work. Like, hard work is the thing that accumulates. It's not something one day, it's just all there.

It's not something like the first day you get there, the second day, the third day. It's a grueling process. And the whole time it was hard. Like, you know, you're doing all this hard work and you're not seeing results. You know, 200-something pounds, you know, a little skinny guy trying my hardest to bench, everything like that, trying my hardest, hitting the field, anything like that, but I just kept working.

It was just a grueling process. I definitely thank my whole family for all my siblings. You know, my older brother, Aaron, I mention him a lot. My younger sister, Nia, was always like, she constantly mentioned, hey, go hit that field.

Like, you got to do this, you got to do that, if you want your goals to be achieved. My little sister, Maya, she plays at Georgia now. She always just, like, taught me. That's how we, like, compete with each other.

She'd be like, oh, yeah, I'm one of the best in the country. What about you? I'm like, all right, I'm going to get there. Like, I was always there. I'm going to get there. Like, I can't argue with you. You right. Now you there.

I'm not. So I just kept trying my hardest, and it was just, it was a long, grueling process. When did you start to realize, I know you're never satisfied, but when did you start to realize, okay, I'm a lot better than what people thought, and I'm really starting to put it together? I still think I got a lot more I got to put together.

You know, I'll say once I came to Florida State, it was probably after the LSU game was when people started giving me my flowers, but I still didn't give them myself. So, you know, even watching that first LSU game, I'm like, I could have done this differently. I could have done that differently. Got another sack here. Got another sack there. TFL here. Block this.

Whatever. So I'm just, I'm still looking at myself going like, I'm still an unfinished product. You know, this year has given me a lot of different challenges than I had last year. So I'm still, you know, I'm looking at it like, all right, this is what's going to happen.

Let me figure out how to read out of this and stuff like that. But I'll definitely, probably after that LSU game is when I started realizing people were giving me my attention, giving me my respect. So with how much more you think you still have to build on, Jared verse, when you get to that top level, that apex, what type of football player do you think you could be and how would you describe yourself when you envision that on a football field? I'm not going to lie. That's like a scary thought. I don't think anybody else. I think when I hit my full potential, you know, everything gets laid out.

Everything gets perfectly. I'm able to read the game on a whole other level. I think it's unstoppable.

Like there's great offensive tackles out there, you know, across the board. I don't think any of them will be able to stop me. I don't think any of them will be able to stand in my way. I think it'll just be like, it's like a terrifying thought. Just like imagine like the perfection of the game I could have if I get to that level. Every day I'm trying, I'm trying to chisel away.

I didn't get that way. I'll tell you this summer, I talked to your head football coach, Mike Norvell, and he gave you a lot of praise because we all know the way that we talk about you now. And he said he thought you were still one of the more improved players this summer. So what did you work on this summer to really your coach say, hey, out of all the guys on the team that you're one of the most improved players? It was definitely technique.

That was a big thing I focused on because that was something I definitely lacked. And, you know, Coach Odell always says all the time, you can be as great a player as you want, as great as a physical specimen, everything like that. At the next level, you don't have technique, they're going to maul you.

Like that's just how it is. Everybody at that level is very strong. Everyone's very fast across the board. So you got to be like technically sound on top of, you know, strong and fast. So that's another reason I came back, too. I wanted to become better at my technique. I tried to focus on that in the first couple of games, everything like that.

Mix in a little bit of my finesse, too. But that's something I definitely focused on. When you were jumping in the transfer portal, I remember Mike Norvell was telling me he was watching film.

I think it was Syracuse, Albany, maybe. And that's when they first came upon you. And then you go in the transfer portal, it's like, oh, defensive player from Albany.

He goes, was that that kid that we were watching? So clearly you were on their radar. But what made you say, okay, I want to go to Florida State. That was going to be the right fit to continue your college career.

You know, I have like a lot of answers for that. Like, I definitely – one way I say it was I narrowed down everything. I put every school on the board and I kind of narrowed it down, chiseled it away until Florida State was the only one left.

I kept always like looking at that board and everything like that. Another one that was, like I said, my mom loved it here. When we came on our visit, everybody was hyped up for me to come here, everything like that.

But my biggest reason was probably it just felt like home. You know, when I came here, like it was raining. It was like cloudy.

It was disgusting. Like Florida, like cloudy weather and everything like that. I'm like – I'm wearing like my Albany coat, you know, a bunch of heavy stuff and I'm hot because like it's Florida. But it just felt like home. Like even through all of that, it just felt like I belong here. For you, moving forward, clearly there's been a lot of praise directed your way and you've been thrown right into the spotlight. From someone that was coming from Albany where no one really knew who you were to where you are now, how have you handled living life with a lot of people now paying attention to Jared Verse? You know, it's definitely different than at Albany where you can just go to the store and not – nobody knows you.

You can just go to the store, walk in, walk out. Now it's like you go to the store, people are looking at you, people ask for pictures, everything like that. And I definitely love it. I feel like I love interacting with fans. I love talking to people. Whenever a fan comes up to me and asks for a picture, I never say no. I just always try to do it, you know, unless it's like urgent, I have to leave. But for the most part, I try to see everybody. Because who knows if I'm going to see them again, who knows if they'll see me again.

But I just like – I love it. It's exciting. It's a whole different atmosphere. It's something you imagine, but you never like think about how that's going to affect you. My whole mindset when I was at Albany was, all right, I'm going to get to this level and I'm going to prove I can play there. I never thought about once I played there, the fans' reaction. That's just something cool.

It's unexpected, but I have it. Like, very welcome. In 10 to 15 years, how do you hope we're talking about Jared Verse, the football player and also the person? I hope everybody talks about how hard I work. You know, we always hear about the mamba mentality. I think that's like the apex of a hard worker that anyone can think of. And even like now, when I think of like mamba mentality taken away from like this – excluding Kobe because that's obviously like the hardest worker. The person I first think of is probably either me or Braden Fisk. Like two guys that are just working hard all the time. So I definitely want to be like in that conversation of like that guy had that mamba mentality.

He worked super hard. You know, I don't need all that. Like I love stats and it's cool. I love making plays. I'm always trying to do that. I think that's one thing that people love about me.

I make plays. But I definitely want my biggest thing to be that guy worked hard. Like that guy, he earned it all.

Nothing was given to him. I was never the most talented. I was always the hardest worker.

And the last thing I'll ask you. Do you think that kind of philosophy has really defined what you've been able to accomplish? Like when I was at Temple, I remember when Hasan Reddick was a walk-on. And Hasan Reddick ends up going to be a top 15 pick in the draft.

The last three years has had double-digit sack seasons in the NFL. And to see that work and what he had to overcome and everyone doubted him, I think really built a chip on that shoulder. Is that what kind of drives you knowing how much work you had to put into it is why you're going to be able to go where you think you're going to be able to go?

Well, most definitely. You know, when you put all the work on, it's harder to quit. It's hard. Like a lot of people are just talented. It's easy for them to quit. If you're running too many gases, they'll be quick to put their hands on their hips and walk away.

If you're doing too many stadiums, they're quick to just sit at the bottom and wait for everybody to finish. But when you put in that much work, it don't matter how far we go. Like my legs can be shaking and everything like that. My arms can be exhausted from doing bench.

I could be sweating, like bent over, about to kill over. And I'm going to still keep going just because I put too much work in to give up now. I can't imagine myself giving up. I have to fail. I can't give up. Well, I love your story.

It's been really a joy to watch. Good luck this upcoming weekend against Clemson and good health the rest of the season, Jared Verse. Thanks for doing this.

Thank you, thank you. Have a good one. Walk the dogs. School drop off. Meetings from 10 to 3. Take kids to soccer.

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