Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis Colts Prospect Interview: Lummie Young, Safety, Tulane

Starting point is 00:00:00 What is up Colts fans and welcome to this special edition of the Locked On Colts podcast. I'm your host Zach Hicks and today I'm kind of breaking the mold a little bit. We're not going to our traditional show structure. So all of you guys who love that stuff, you can check out all of our former videos. But guys, the Colts are officially in 2023 NFL draft mode. So you know what that means. A lot of prospect interviews coming your guys way. If you guys have followed my work for the last couple of years with horseshoehuddle.com and even back to my days with Stampede Blue, I typically interview around 50 to 60, maybe even

Starting point is 00:00:32 70 prospects per draft season. In the past, I've done a lot of written work with these interviews, but this year I wanted to be special and I wanted to give it to you guys here on the podcast. So some of these interviews we will be featuring here on the podcast and today is going to be special, and I wanted to give it to you guys here on the podcast. So some of these interviews we will be featuring here on the podcast, and today is going to be exactly that. So our first prospect interview of the season is with Tulane safety Lummy Young. Now, I picked Lummy for my first interview this year because he was part of something special this past season with Tulane. They went from a two-win team in 2021 to a 12-win team this past season with Tulane. They went from a two-win team in 2021 to a 12-win team this past season,

Starting point is 00:01:07 capping it off with a big victory against USC in the bowl game, where they were down 15 points with four minutes left. Just an outstanding game from that team. And Lummi was a big part of that. So yeah, Lummi Young is going to be our first interview of the draft season. I'm excited to share this with you guys. He's a really great guy and really great person to talk to. And we also kind of dive into some nerd stuff with football too,

Starting point is 00:01:30 talking about that big Fangio style of defense and why it's so popular in the NFL now. So without further ado, guys, I want you to enjoy this first draft interview of the season with Tulane Safety, Lummi Young. Let's get to it. You are locked On Colts. Your daily Indianapolis Colts podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Your team every day. All right, guys, so I am joined by our first draft prospect of the season,

Starting point is 00:02:16 Lummy Young from Tulane University, formerly from Duke University. And before we kind of get into all this football stuff here, I love to look at prospects and kind of what they do off the field, what they kind of are doing in school and stuff like that. And I saw that you majored in cultural anthropology. Is that what it was? Now, I'm not as smart as you are here, Lummi. What is cultural anthropology? Well, anthropology is the study of people um so cultural anthropology is uh studying people through their cultures and just seeing how their history um of whatever that place is like how how their ancestors used to do things and kind of just trying to figure out why

Starting point is 00:03:01 they do things like the way they do through their culture. Cool, man. Cool, man. So, like, post-football, is that something, like, what are you kind of planning on doing with all that kind of stuff? That's a great question. With cultural anthropology specifically, I'm not really sure if I'll apply it in the way that, in the sense that I learned it, but I feel like it can help me in other endeavors that I try to embark on. I feel like I want to do sports marketing.

Starting point is 00:03:39 Trying to tie that to sports marketing is kind of difficult, but I'll figure it out. Yeah, for sure. I mean, hey, most of these college degrees and stuff, it's mostly just to broaden your horizons and stuff like that. And that's definitely a great one for all that. But getting into some football talk now, you know, you went to Duke University for your first four years in college and you were part of like a really, really good program there. I mean, they had consistency just in terms of the coaching staff. You were lucky to

Starting point is 00:04:11 have basically the same coaching staff all four years, a lot of good players around you. So what was your experience like at Duke before you ultimately transferred this past season? My experience at Duke was great. I was under Coach Cutcliffe, who was the head coach, very well-respected freaking legend in the coaching world. So just being able to play for him, he had so much knowledge and tools to be successful that he gave to us and just being able to hear him speak on that knowledge of football and just how to be a great person outside of football. That itself was a great experience along with playing with some good players. Daniel Jones was there my first two years. So playing with him was great and seeing what he's doing now in the NFL is truly, truly amazing to me. Yeah, we had a lot of good players,

Starting point is 00:05:16 a lot of good players that are now in the NFL. So just, just being on that team, learning from those guys, playing with those guys, it means a lot to me and it was truly, truly an amazing experience. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it's funny. I remember Duke football. I watched a lot of you guys defense a couple of years ago because I, I did a similar interview like this with, with Michael Carter. Oh, dog. Yeah. Absolute dog. And he's killing it in the NFL. Like he's killing it, man. Crazy. Yeah. I, I was shocked where he went in the draft. I think he went like day three or

Starting point is 00:05:52 something or like day three. Yeah. And I was like, man, there's no way, but I, I love watching your guys' defense that year, especially the way that you guys were, I think he was, you guys were in a lot of nickel that year and stuff like that. And I lot of a lot of him playing slot corner outside corner safety and you guys were all kind of asked to do a lot of stuff like that was was duke's defense specifically like hey you're you're yes you're a safety but you have to play kind of everywhere well for the most part yeah yeah, but Mike is different. So it's kind of hard for him not to be on the field. If we had a guy go down, say we had a corner go down,

Starting point is 00:06:34 he would move out there to corner. If we had everybody, he would play in the slot. If me or the other high safety was hurt, he would move to that position. So it was kind of that was just more so mike he's he's he's kind of that guy that just knows everything knows what everybody has to do and can get guys in that in that position he's this type of leader that just if you need to do something he's gonna do it um so i feel like that's where a lot of that came from. But we did have – it was the standard to know what the other position did just in case, you know, we had to step over or fill in another position

Starting point is 00:07:13 that we can make sure that we were able to do that. Yeah, yeah. So Duke University, you're there for four years. You have a really successful career. You guys can even go check out his highlights on YouTube there. ACC does a great job of putting out the highlights after each season and stuff like that. So you're leaving Duke and of all the schools you could have gone to, you went to this two-win program in Tulane, this terrible, terrible team. Like, I mean, they were awful. You go to Tulane for your final year

Starting point is 00:07:43 and I know you won, right? So you're like, why Tulane, man? What was about that program? It was like, oh, yeah, this two win team. This is where I want to win with my last year. Well, that decision came. First of all, Coach Hampton reached out to D.C. And he was at Duke in 2020. He was a corners coach in 2020. So we kind of had a little bit of a connection. And he was at Duke in 2020. He was a corners coach in 2020. So we kind of had a little bit of a connection. So it was a lot of talking to him. And when I got on campus and I was talking to some of the players and kind of like just like picking their brain about what they think was going on,

Starting point is 00:08:19 why they weren't having the success they thought they should have. Especially for the 2-10 year, they were telling me how they had the hurricane. They weren't at home for like the first five weeks of the season or something like that. And there's a whole bunch of other stuff, injuries and stuff like that. So I was like, I'm not really looking at a 2-10 team. I'm looking at a team that's had to overcome a lot of hardships and struggles.

Starting point is 00:08:48 And hearing them talk about all that stuff and just hearing how passionate they were about the game and how passionate they were about Tulane, I was just thinking, man, ain't no way they can do that again. There's no way they can go 2-10 again. They just had a lot of problems last year, a lot of injury problems and a lot of stuff they couldn't control.

Starting point is 00:09:11 So it was really just believing in how they were talking about the program and how they were talking about the coaches and stuff like that that really made me look deeper past the record the record right and be like oh man these these guys sound like they can win they sound like they want to win um so I just took a leap of faith and luckily turned out how it turned out oh my gosh yeah if you guys are not familiar with college football I know you guys are are checking this from uh from a NFL Colts fandom here but Tulane football had one of the biggest turnarounds that we've seen in college football in a super long time. Two and ten the year before, like you said, a lot of issues with the hurricane and with injuries and stuff like that.

Starting point is 00:09:55 They come out this year and what, two losses, I think. Just outstanding season. We really should have lost. Yeah, right, right. Just rolling through everybody all season, though. One of the most high-octane, fun offenses, a strong defense as well. And then they go to the bowl game against USC and pull off one of the just most insane comebacks.

Starting point is 00:10:17 I mean, down 15 points with four minutes left against a top-tier – I mean, a top-tier offense, a top-tier team that was looking to potentially be in the playoff the week before. You guys came back from down 15 points with four minutes left to win that game. I mean, I don't even, how do you even summarize this season here for Tulane? I mean, for me, I just think special when I see it. Definitely special. And I'm still waiting for my nails to grow back from that last couple minutes of that game. But I feel like the way I can best describe this season is, I can use a couple words, relentless.

Starting point is 00:10:56 Overall, it's a blessing. A lot of people didn't think we would be in this position, but like I said, we just had faith in each other, man. We just took it one game at a time. That was the whole motto every game, every week, just go one and know. And if you can win one week at a time, you can just build on that. And, man, this year was just so special. Yeah. It was just so, so special, man. We had a lot of seniors, a lot of great leadership on the team,

Starting point is 00:11:32 and we didn't have any guys that were selfish, man. We had everyone wanted to play for the guy next to him. Everyone wanted to play well for the fans, for the school, for the city of New Orleans. And I think that was a big thing. Guys just being unselfish and just wanting to compete. So, yeah, it was just great. It was just overall amazing. Yeah, and before we talk a little bit about just some of the NFL stuff and getting into the NFL and kind of your path and all that stuff,

Starting point is 00:12:06 I just again, you're going to forever be a part of one of the coolest turnarounds that we've ever seen in college football. So that's just an awesome thing right there. Yeah, very awesome. It's crazy. It's still I still hasn't settled into me to my mind all the way yet. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So looking at the NFL, before we even get to your game and talk about kind of ways you can get there uh i want to talk some football nerd stuff with you because i just you know everyone who plays college football at a high level and stuff like that like you have just i know there's a little bit of football nerd in there a little bit so um when you look at the nfl this year we've seen a lot of the the cover for like quarters you know vic fangio type defenses that everyone's kind of going to it where those two

Starting point is 00:12:47 high safeties are sitting back there. They're making offenses have to be conservative and slow and, and all that. Like what's your overall thoughts on just what we've seen from NFL defenses this season? Well, I think this season you kind of see defense trying to stop what offenses have become in recent years, which is big plays, chunk yard. So I think the big four thing is just trying to not as much being soft, because a lot of people see the soft coverage.

Starting point is 00:13:18 But you try to limit explosives and having those deep defenders, those two high safeties, allow them to play downhill, just allows you to have made the offense just take what they can get in the sense of dink and dunk, short yards, throws, just rally up and make the tackle. So I feel like it's more so, like I said, trying to limit explosives. But, I mean, it doesn't really work that good. tackle so i feel like it's more so like i said trying to limit explosives but i mean it doesn't really work well in some cases but yeah yeah for sure and kind of relating it to you you know your safety the safety play i think

Starting point is 00:13:59 safety play across the nfl lately is is just becoming so much more important with the way this stuff is. You can't have a liability at safety nowadays because if you do, Tyreek Hill is going to be 30 yards behind you. 30 yards behind everybody by himself. Yeah. So for you as a safety and you're seeing this, you know, I guess is it kind of – is this kind of helping you through this process, just kind of refining your game and stuff like that?

Starting point is 00:14:23 Like what's kind of your thoughts as a safety seeing this new age of defense? It definitely does. When I'm watching those guys, I kind of try to take a little bit of what they're doing, depending on who they're playing against. So it's like I'm watching guys playing against Tyreek Hill. I see how he gets out of his stance faster, out of his breaks faster than he normally would, more so anticipating what the receiver's going to do. So I take some of that and just kind of try to apply what I see to my game and try to take what I think could help me when I see those guys do it. So I just try to be a sponge, soak up things,

Starting point is 00:15:04 and just try to reapply in my own way no definitely and and i got one more kind of topic here with your game here and we're gonna have your dog on in a second i guess too he's going crazy yeah but another big thing especially with safeties too because i've seen this so many years i've talked to safeties for years and just talked draft prospects in general and one thing that's so important for safeties to make it in this league and just anyone in general is special teams play it is being that special teams demon and being a guy who is you know from day one wants to be on special teams yeah um is that kind of something that you're looking at is like

Starting point is 00:15:44 hey maybe from day one i'm not going to be a starter but like i need to be on special teams yeah um is that kind of something that you're looking at is like hey maybe from day one i'm not gonna be a starter but like i need to be a dominant special teams player from day one oh yeah most definitely and that's that's part of the reason um why i was on so many special teams this year i was on three or four uh core special teams phases and just going into the year um i kind of knew well well, you always hear that's how you made the buzz. Even my redshirt freshman year, I kept on hearing if you want to make the buzz, you got to play special teams. And kind of just hearing that from early on, you just kind of learn to like special teams. If that's one of the only ways you can touch the field um i saw it as opportunity to to be a difference maker because special teams that's that's where that's where

Starting point is 00:16:31 you can change the game like being in a split second um so for me it also early on my uh my safety coach he was like he told us if if you if you don't start on the special team you're not playing safety right kind of that oh this is this is a phase of the game that's very important a phase of the game where you can make a difference um just just go just go be a dog is because it's most of the times it's really one-on-one matchups. And it's just you beating another man. So if you can do that, you can make a play. That will help your team win.

Starting point is 00:17:12 So I feel like it's very important. I love special teams. Like I said, I feel like that's one of the only areas you can change the game in a split second. Those big plays are huge plays in the game and often plays that people see in the game as game-changing plays. So I take pride in special teams, take a lot of pride in it. I love special teams.

Starting point is 00:17:35 I hop up to play any special teams, especially if that's the way you can make the bust in. I'm all here for it.

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Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis Colts Prospect Interview: Lummie Young, Safety, Tulane

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