Lewis Bond gives great insight on team mindset heading into 2025
Wrapping up a long day of interviews in Charlotte, NC for the ACC Network and ACC Kickoff week, Lewis Bond, Daveon Crouch and KP Price all had a TV appearance just before 3:00 p.m.
It was probably the best stuff of the day given the insight provided on the team’s collective mindset heading into a very important year, a fork-in-the-road type season if you will.
Here’s everything Bond had to say. I’ll be transcribing and posting Crouch and Price’s interview shortly…
Bond on the QB competition
“It’s just been work through the spring. We’ve been working, practice after practice, summer the same thing. Both the quarterbacks really, I’m just trying to get in-tune with them, catching the ball whenever I can. Saturdays, Sundays, after practice, whenever we could. I’m just trying to make sure I have a relationship with both of them because it’s going to be a battle. Whoever they decide, I gotta be ready to play with.”
Bond on if O’Brien’s NFL experience legitimately matters to players
“I’d say the biggest two things is the confidence he instils in not only me, but the team especially. He’s been at that level. He knows what talent looks like to be at that level. He kind of motivates us…he says ‘you can play in the NFL if you handle your business.’ So, that just pushes me to get there. The other thing is just the ball knowledge. He knows football, so he’s teaching me coverages. He’s teaching me what the quarterback’s thinking. He’s telling me, ‘if you’re not the one read here, you’ve got time to tempo your route. You can dance a little more if you’re the third read because you got time and then if you’re the first read, you got to run a full speed route.’ It’s just small things like that that really help me understand like, how to run a route. How to change my tempo. How to be open when the QB needs you to be open, not open too fast if you’re the third read. If you’re the first read you’ve got to get open faster. Things like that.”
Bond on the WR room as a whole
“We put in a lot of work, a lot of hours, a lot of after hours. I was just telling somebody else on set, we’ve been working every day since January, seven days a week really. The work’s gonna show. That’s what we have faith in, that the work’s going to show. We put the time in. We know what we’ve got in the room. I think it’s a deep, talented room. So, we hope, we know that the work’s gonna show.”
Bond on what’s different about the team’s personality at this time compared to last year
“I think we’re hungry. Like, we were in a lot of games last year that we felt like we made the mistakes, we lost that game. So, we’re hungry. We know we can compete with anybody in the conference, anybody in the nation. So, we’re hungry to show that to the nation and then, we’re close. We hang out with each other. We’re with each other so much, seven days a week really, since January. So, we’re so close, we know each other. We know how to support each other and we know how to pick each other up. I would say we’re close and we’re hungry. We’re ready to prove a point.”
Bond on who has stepped up as leaders so far
“On offense, it’s me, Jude (Bowry), both the quarterbacks (Grayson James and Dylan Lonergan), Logan (Taylor)…defensively, KP (Price), Bam (Crouch), Carter (Davis), Amari (Jackson)…we got a lot of voices. We got a lot of older guys that have played football. I think that’s going to show this year.”
Bond on hosting his first youth camp
“It was the 4th of July, around then. It was a good thing. A lot of people…Chicago’s football is just now growing. So, to come back and be able to show them it’s possible to be in this position was a big thing for me. A lot of kids want to play college football in Chicago. It was big. They were hungry. They looked excited. They looked ready to play. So, it was fun. It was a little different to be on a different side. Like, I know at that age I was bad. So, it was different seeing the kids compete. They were coming after me trying to race me one-on-ones. It was fun though…they won, I let them win.”
Bond on representing Chicago at a high level
“I feel like I wasn’t the first guy to come out of Chicago that was talented enough to play at this level, but I feel like I’ve made it this far and I’ve had the opportunities that I’ve had. It’s on me to continue that. Nowadays, there’s more people coming out of Chicago. Chicago’s getting recruited better, but when I was a senior, I wasn’t heavily recruited. I’m just showing the younger guys that it’s possible, even if you weren’t recruited high. You go to a place that’s got a good system, a good community, you’re could find yourself in a great opportunity like I have this year.”
