Val Erickson on Expanded Role: "It's A Good Feeling"
NC State guard Val Erickson is excited about his increased role moving forward.
NOTE: Click the video above to watch the interview.
On playing more snaps…
Yeah, I got a couple snaps in LA Tech, but yeah, it's a good feeling. It's just mainly getting used to like different positions when someone goes down at me going in there and throwing in a position I'm not used to, but definitely playing a lot of snaps. I think definitely gonna help further and further and they're just trying to give me as many plays as possible just to build that confidence and stuff so I'm not running any media, I'm going to help.
You guys said you know Coach Madness pretty well from high school?
Yes sir, yeah.
So how much of the role did he play in you being here?
Heavy role, actually, funny, it just worked out that way when I was in the portal, NC State was one of the first schools to contact me and I called him right after to let him know, but yeah, it's funny how it worked out that way, but yeah, he was my high school coach senior year. Yeah,
I guess what did you kind of learn from him?
He taught me a lot, especially when he came in, he was like our assistant O-line coach senior year and yeah, he definitely developed my game, taught me a lot, funny guy, good guy. He's living in Spain now, I still talk to him every now and then, we keep in touch, but yeah, no, definitely close to him now, for sure.
You know any of the Northern Illinois players?
I know of O'Malley on the D-line, he's from Bremen, not too far from me, I know Jordan Lynch, number 5, I'm sure you know his older brother, older brother too, head coach at the rival high school, receiver that went to my school Isaiah Bragg, there's a couple dudes out there, but mainly O'Malley and Lynch.
What are your thoughts on them as a team, what they're presenting, I know you're probably scouting them now.
Yeah, I know, even me being from that area, always known as a hard-nosed program, run the ball, play good defense, so I think we just got to have our heads on straight and we go [do] what we need to do, execute what we need to execute, and I think we'll be fine.
What have you learned over your college career, now being in two schools, and kind of just growing throughout the experience?
Yeah, I learned a lot, so going from my freshman year, which is 2022, and then I sat out all of last year, so I didn't play no football, I left Missouri before fall camp last year, so getting all that year off, all that time off, was really to sit back and reflect and just thankful now to be back in the program because I didn't know if I was going to play football again. So, just being back in this position, it's always ups and downs and you just got to learn from them I guess, just get along with it.