Austin Price: Hello everybody. Welcome in for another episode of Vol Club Confidential episode four of season two. Tonight we'll have Macallan Castles on the show, the Tennessee Tide in who transferred from uc Davis. This off season is loving his time on Rocky Top and we'll dive into all of that ahead, but let's bring in James Clawson, James New this year is, we talked about this last week, a new tailgate spot as part of the Vol Network, something you all are a proud sponsor with this year. Yeah, James Clawson: Partner. Yeah, A couple months ago we're now a proud partner of the Vol Network, so that's a great step for us just in terms of some brand recognition and then being inside the stadium on some signage and then our new tailgate location, which will be right outside of McClung Tower on the side of the library, so much bigger footprint allows us to expand. There should be. Awesome. Austin Price: When you look at, you talk about being able to have that signage inside the Neland Stadium, being able to be on the jumbotron, being able to do all those things. How big is that? James Clawson: I think it's just like how do we get the volunteer club to be a name that people recognize and do they immediately associate with N I L and the fact that the things that we're doing with players, so I think it's as much as anything with what we're doing with W A T, the Vault Network, some other things that we're doing, it's just getting that name for people to be able to recognize when they say Vault Club. Hey, that's n i l at Tennessee. Austin Price: Of course coming up this weekend is the Florida game, which also means that you got the big deal over here at Neland Stadium on the party deck for Vault Club members to build a watch the Tennessee Florida game at Neland Stadium on the Jumbotron, which is such a unique event if you're not able to make it to the swamp, James Clawson: So it should be an awesome time under the lights, got Gus's fried Chicken doing the food and so it should be a really cool experience. Hopefully, maybe not the first, not the last time we do something like this, and so got to give our hats off to Tennessee for letting us do this and take that chance. Austin Price: Yeah, Tennessee bending over backwards, making things accessible and the exterior home solutions not at Neland, which is again catered by Gus's Fried Chicken. Big deal. James Clawson: Huge deal. Yep. Tennessee's been great. I think they understand the importance of N I L and we're as best we can, having to be third party removed from the university. We work together in lockstep on a lot of things. Austin Price: All right, now let's bring in the guest for tonight that being tied in Macallan Castles. Macallan, you've been on campus for about half the year now. Let's take it back to when you were trying to decide on where to come to when you decided to leave uc, Davis, why Tennessee? McCallan Castles: Well, I had a couple other offers from the SEC, but I wanted to go somewhere where I was going to win and the high powered offense. I kind of gotten stuck in a block and roll at Davis and I wanted to show off that I had some of that athleticism in the past game, so it's like if you want to go somewhere where you're going to catch the ball and also get a show that you're going to block like Tennessee is a no brainer because it's such an explosive offense and the way they used Princeton last year is kind of like a good inspiration to why I wanted to come here. Austin Price: You had a lot of people behind the scenes though saying if you'd went out last year you would've gotten drafted anyway, so why not go that route versus staying in college? Why I want to go one more year and do it in the S e c? McCallan Castles: Yeah, I mean it kind of came down to I got injured in our last game and didn't really want to half do all the training and stuff for the draft and so my dad was like, maybe you should stay another year and go to a bigger school and just show people that you can play against the higher level and it's kind of like I want to go somewhere, I'm going to win and play the best level, but it's also a money decision where it's like if I play good at the top level, then you're only improving how people view you at the next level. Austin Price: Since you've gotten here, everybody talks about your ability to catch the ball and to spread out, but getting down there and putting your hand in the dirt and being that guy that can help the offensive line a little bit, do you feel like that's come natural to you or do you feel like that's something that Coach Abe being an old offensive lineman himself has been able to help you with? McCallan Castles: I think they had me do it at Davis without the coaching, so I had the want to do it. I've always been willing to get in there and block, but I didn't really have a whole lot of technique and so since I've had AVEs, I feel like my footwork and my hands have gotten so much easier. So it's kind of like now that I have the technique, it's gotten drastically easier to make those blocks and plus I've put on 20 pounds since I got here and gotten a whole lot stronger. So it's just all combinations of that has made it a easier task for me to do. Austin Price: So when your family sees you and you've put on 20 pounds, did they notice the 20 pounds? Did they go different? McCallan Castles: Oh yeah. My older brother, he saw me and he was like, I got to start working out again. He is been out of football for a little bit, so he was like, oh man, I'm getting tiny. And then my dad loves it. My mom goes, oh my goodness, you're going to have to get a whole new closet, which I basically have had to do. I've given all my brother my old stuff now. Austin Price: What has specifically the strength staff done to put that 20 pounds on you? Is there something that specifically they've been working on to get you to do that? Is that also adding into going a lot to the nutrition table and they got those peanut butter milkshakes and all that stuff in there? The McCallan Castles: High calorie shakes are definitely a big help after every workout and the nutrition. I mean the Smokies dining hall is some of the best food I've had ever, so it's super easy to eat and put on weight, but then with Coach Smit and all them, they do all that extra stuff after the lift where it's like they put me in body mass to get just bigger up top and wider and I think that's why I put on the weight so good without kind of losing any athleticism Austin Price: In the spring. Obviously you're adapting to your new team, you're adapting to your new teammates. As we've gotten into the season, you had a really nice catch in Nashville the first game of the year. I guess how comfortable are you right now? McCallan Castles: Oh, I'm super comfortable. I mean think right now I think it's a good thing to play Virginia and stuff and just kind of work my way into the SS e c teams. I think it's more of I'm just want to feel out how the opponents are going to play now, but in the offense as a general, I think I've gotten way more comfortable and that's a testament to David Weeks, our assistant titans coach, he put in so much time with me in the spring and the summer where I was getting in the formations and working the tempo just to know my alignment assignment. So it's kind of coming a lot more natural now that I've been in it longer. Austin Price: Your nickname's Callie, and that kind of works twofold because your name's Macallan and then you're also from California. So is that something you've always been called or did you get that here? McCallan Castles: No, my mom's called me that since I was three. So I was born in South Lake Tahoe when we moved to Colorado and people always had trouble saying my full name, so my mom kind of started calling me Callie and I've kind of picked it up in grade school and it's just kind of been like that since because it's just easier in a sports setting instead of having St. McCallan. You can just go Callie real quick Austin Price: Now. One of your old coaches at uc Davis was Paul Shelton who is the head coach at Southville High School here in Knoxville. He was wet beard and as the OC went to uc. Davis coached college ball for a couple of years and then came back as the head coach at Sal Doyle When Tennessee was becoming a realistic option for you, did you pick up the phone and call him and go tell me about it? McCallan Castles: So he's told me about Knoxville before. We've always talked about the games and stuff when I was at Davis and he was there too. So originally when I was talking to him when I was in the transfer portal, he had been talking to our other old tight ends coach from Davis who's at University of Washington and saying, Hey, they might be interested in you. And I got offered by Tennessee and I didn't tell him because I didn't want him to feel like the pressure to try to get me to go here and then when I only told him after I committed and he was super excited, but everybody thinks that he had some kind of hand in it, but he told me about it. So I've known about Knoxville, but he was totally in the dark when I committed. So Austin Price: What do you like about that tight ends room? I mean there's some older guys, Abe's really not that much older than you guys. I'm pretty sure Jacob is about the same age and then you've got a couple of young guys in there too. What is it you like about that particular room? McCallan Castles: I think it's just we all mesh together well. I mean we're all really good friends. We all do stuff outside of football together where we're playing board games or going to the movies, so we already have that friendship and so that trust where it's that everybody's going to do their job and if somebody's coaching up on something, then you probably should fix it. That's where I think the young guys of get into it where it's Manuel and Ethan are like, if you say something to them, they're super responsive to it because they know that me and Jacob have been in football for however many years now, so they know that we have a little bit of wisdom and they're just super eager to learn. Austin Price: You were so excited that day when you committed. I remember I got on the Zoom with you and you were pumped, man. When you get the opportunity to go from a uc Davis and then you started your career at the P five level and then had to go to uc Davis, but when you're able to get back to the power five level and do it in the SS e c, what was that excitement like? Level down deep? You're coming to a place you really don't know yet. You committed sight unseen, you had not been here when you picked here now, hey listen, that worked out well for Cedric Tillman. He signed with this school and never had seen the place, so obviously he had a lot of success, but take me through the excitement level there. McCallan Castles: I mean I was just grateful when I entered the transfer portal. I was like, oh, maybe I'll get some PAC 12 offers again. And then when I got offered by Tennessee, I kind of was like, oh, this is real deal. These guys think I can play football. And so I was just super excited and Coach Halsey calls me and he goes, he's like, oh, I'm coming out. We're going to talk about the offense and stuff. And when he got there I'd already talked to my parents and stuff and I'd been like, I think I'm just going to go to Tennessee. We watched all the film and I was like, I think this is just the right move for me, the offense that I want to be in. And so he came out there and I was like, I'm going to just cut to the chase. You don't have to recruit me. I'm already going to sign. I just didn't, didn't want to do all the visits and stuff. I had already kind of gone through that process a couple times, so I just wanted to go somewhere where I wanted to play in the offense and it seemed like this was the best opportunity for Austin Price: Me at that point is that when you just get on the computer or phone and start Googling, tell me what's it in Knoxville, what's in Tennessee? McCallan Castles: I kind of just looked up the campus and I was like, well that's really cool. It's huge compared to uc Davis where you can bike everywhere. And then we started watching football highlights and you look at the entrance into Neland and stuff running through the tee and you go, who wouldn't want to do that? That's one of the craziest things in college football. Austin Price: You get to the first game and you look around and there's 65,000 Tennessee fans and a 68,000 feet seat stadium. What's going through your mind? Did you kind of just look around and go, this is different? McCallan Castles: I mean most people I've ever played in front of, so I was trying not to throw up most of the day. I was a little nervous, I'm not going to lie, but after the first drive I kind of was like, oh, kind of breathed into it, but it's still crazy and especially we were talking about the heat earlier and how hot it was and just the fact that everybody still stayed through the game just to see it to the end just shows how much the fans love it here and it's completely different experience to the West coast kind of football fans. Austin Price: Yeah, we've had a few of those California guys out here on VCO Confidential, bro, McCoy and a few others. What do you miss most about California? McCallan Castles: California probably sushi just because it's a little bit fresher than here since it's inland. Sure, I get it. But I mean I love it here. Everything's a lot more affordable, Austin Price: Kind of like Colorado McCallan Castles: And it's super green and I just think it's great and everybody out here is significantly nicer for some reason I think. Austin Price: So when you got here, what were some of the things you loved most about Knoxville that you learned early on? McCallan Castles: Well, I've never been to Publix before I got here and the pub sub is probably one of the greatest sandwiches I've ever had. I love it. I think I ate there five days in a row one week when I first got here. It's just so good. The chicken tender sandwich, that's my favorite Austin Price: Thing. And it doesn't get old, huh? McCallan Castles: No, not at all. Even my girlfriend loves it. My mom and dad have tried it too, so they're like, we see why you gained all that weight so fast. Austin Price: What have they grown to about Knoxville? McCallan Castles: I think my parents just love it because they actually moved out here, so they're renting down south Knoxville, just south the river and I mean they're literally every neighbor that they have comes up and has greeted them and then they talk about football and they all love it and it's, I think it's like the community around it is insane. The fan base here is unmatched. Austin Price: You're the baby in the family? McCallan Castles: I am the baby. One older brother. Austin Price: Where's he at now? McCallan Castles: He is in Utah. He works, I think t s a agent now. He just got a new job, so he played a little bit of N A I football and decided it wasn't for him, so now he's just doing his thing out there. Austin Price: Yeah, much tougher than Macallan a t s A agent. Don't encounter him at the Utah airport. Your parents to come in town and you see that from time to time where parents, especially if they're far away and they can get here and feasibly do it for such a short run when you're here for just a matter of months. So you just kind of soaking all this up, every little bit of it. Oh, McCallan Castles: I love it. I don't think I've stopped smiling since I've been here. I think it's awesome. It's the pinnacle of college football for me. I've been to two different schools and this is the best experience. This is the most welcome I felt at any school right away. I mean literally I was there for the Orange Bowl prep week. I wasn't even practicing. I was hurt, but I still was hanging out with the guys and it was just so much fun. I loved it. Austin Price: What's that culture? Everybody talks about it. They talk about culture at every school. It does feel like it's a little more real here. Not to say it's not real at other places. It is, but I mean it just feels like there's a tight knit bond. I mean for you to say you were here for a week and you felt connected to a group that had played 11 or 12 games together at that point. Kind of take me through why you think that culture is the way it McCallan Castles: Is. I think the way it is is because the coach Hive obviously instills it and he embodies it with how he's always really always says, he says hello to my mom, my girlfriend, my dad. Every time he sees them, remembers their names and I think it's just everybody wants to be friends with each other. And then it's like when you're on the field full on competition, offense versus defense, all training camp, but then once you get in the locker room, everybody's just friends with each other and I think it shows the whole coaching staff, everybody caress about everybody and you want to see full success for the entire program. Nobody ever is like, it's all about me. It's all about the team and everybody just wants to win. Austin Price: All right, so you've got Keenan, we've had him on a ball club confidential. He is married so he's hanging out with his wife and his free time. Not that he doesn't hang out with teammates, but because he does, but still hanging out with the wife a lot. You've got the girlfriend. Is this where you spend most of your downtime or are there teammates where you're like So-and-so and I are really tight? We spend a lot of time together. McCallan Castles: Me and Jacob hang out, me Jacob and Hunter, Sam, we hang Austin Price: Out. Just a tied in thing. McCallan Castles: Yeah, we hang out a lot together. I mean I also hang out with Michael Bitner and Parker Ball, so sometimes my girlfriend goes, are you going to hang out with me? Sometimes I spend more time with them than I do with her, but it's just fun to hang out with those guys and that just shows you Austin Price: Don't make the girlfriend mad. It's McCallan Castles: True. Austin Price: Do not make the girlfriend mad. Where's the best date night here in Knoxville for? McCallan Castles: She likes Calhouns on the river to sit on the deck. She likes to be outside, Austin Price: She likes to sit outside. That's a big thing, sitting outside being part of the atmosphere. I understand that. I guess when you look at this team and this season, what do you like about this year's group? McCallan Castles: I think you have a lot of guys with experience returning that want to win and want to step up, take that next step from what they did last year. And then you have a lot of unproven guys, like young guys like Aon Carter that show up and want to make a statement right away. And also Joe, he's slightly unproven. He's only had a few sample size and that dude wants to show everybody that he's the real deal and I think that's just, it's caused everybody to try to one up each other and just keep pushing to get better and you just hold it to a completely higher standard. Austin Price: Can you tell, I've said for the last couple of months I said Ss c e D days, everybody kept coming up to Joe and ask him how far he can throw a wrench and how far he can throw an orange and all this stuff. He's nice about it, but I think he's like, guys I can throw it 95 yards doesn't mean that's all I want to do. I mean you look back at the Virginia game and I thought some of his most impressive plays were plays that he hadn't really shown he could make, which were the 12 yard hitch route and checking it out of the backfield for the fourth and five for the touchdown. Those were throws that a year ago. He impels the guy, he throws it so hard. It's like a rookie of the year with the kid throws and it feels like he's improved a ton. Can you sense that where he's kind of like, I'm tired of being known as the guy that can throw it a million yards. McCallan Castles: I think he's definitely, obviously he's improved as a leader, but he is also, you can tell he's put a lot of work into himself this off season footwork wise and just, I mean I think he's gotten significantly faster. I started off having to run with him in the mat drills in the winter and when we're getting close and then towards the end of it, I'm not even near him. And I think the touch balls have definitely gotten a lot better because you get here and I was like, oh my goodness, I think my hands are going to fall off if I catch a ball from this guy. And now it's like, I mean even on the little screen to me he touched up perfect place. I didn't even have to move, catch and run. So he's gone a lot. So Austin Price: You could tell the difference in the velocity from when you got here to now on passes like that? Yeah, McCallan Castles: Definitely. He touches it up a lot better. I think he's gotten a lot better feel for how much he needs to put on it depending on how close the defense is, the wide receiver and all that. Austin Price: Do you guys as pass catchers, whether it be the tight ends or receivers, do you all talk to him about that by you've gotten so much better in that area. Does anyone ever say, man, you've really worked on that and it's really so McCallan Castles: Much better. I'm just thanking for not breaking any of my fingers, but I think you can tell it's just everybody early on in the summer when we're doing routes on air, you catch a couple and you're like, oh, smoke off the hands. Then I think he just had realized that, oh my goodness, I can touch it up a little bit more and these guys will be all right and shed a little bit of mercy on my fingers, so it's all good. Austin Price: So when you hang out with Jacob, what's that like? Because he's been here really his whole life. He's a Knoxville native and here you're coming in for just this quick run through town. Not to say that you won't spend the rest of your life here after football is over. You've enjoyed it so much. McCallan Castles: I mean I refer to Jacob as the mayor of Knoxville because every time we go somewhere he knows at least 50 people there. They're like, oh my goodness, Jacob. And he goes, ah, I knew that guy from seventh grade peewee football. And I'm like, oh my goodness. But it, it's nice because kind of like I'm not a super outgoing person, so he kind of forced me to go do stuff with him that I wouldn't normally do. And so I've experienced a lot more out here than I probably would've if I was just doing it by myself kind of deal. So it's super nice to have him as a good friend of mine and he's showed me a lot of different experiences out Austin Price: Here. He's not an outgoing person, but yet he's grinning from ear to ear and has done so as you said since you arrived, but I mean we started this interview, you just keep grinning. I mean you just seem like you're just at a good spot in life. McCallan Castles: Yeah, I mean this place, it's hard to find any negatives. It's just so much fun. Football's competitive and every day I wake up and I'm looking forward to going to practice and getting better. So I think that's just another show of the culture that we have here is it's a fun environment that you want to be in. Austin Price: If there was a spot on campus where you could just go and just get five minutes a piece, where is it? McCallan Castles: Five minutes a piece. Oh, middle of the day. Probably the team meeting room in the athletic center just because nobody's in there and it's nice and cold. I don't go around campus too often just because all my classes are online in the grad program, but I heard the hill cool, but it looks like a lot of walking and I get pretty sweaty without hot. It is out here, so I might have to go there in the winter. Maybe Austin Price: You'll be gone by the time we get to winter. I was going to say you didn't do a lot of walking around campus. Don't want to make the girlfriend mad. You're already making her mad. Hanging out with hunter salmon of those. Yeah, McCallan Castles: No girls around me. How Austin Price: Long have we been dating this girl? McCallan Castles: We've been dating over two years. Austin Price: Oh McCallan Castles: Yeah, we met at Davis. She played soccer at Davis. She just graduated this last year right after in the spring, so she's actually got a job out here. She's medical scribe so it's cool. So she's a little bit busy so she doesn't mind when I'm gone on football day. Austin Price: Jacob's been dating a girl for a while, so every time I see him you bought the ring yet and he's grand. She's like, not yet. Not yet. Those are always my most fun. When a guy's got a girl Chase Lander on the baseball team, he come through with his girlfriend last summer or last fall and I said, man Lander, every time you walk through here you've got a different girl. And I was just playing and he goes, tell her you're joking. Tell her you're joking. Tell her you're joking. And I'm like, I'm joking. Her face was classic though. What's your goal? I mean obviously N F L yes. But if football didn't work out, what are you wanting to do? McCallan Castles: I mean it's a hard question because right now it's all in on football, but I mean I think I would still stay in the space around football. I love the training aspect. I don't know if I would go into coaching. I've seen how much time commitment. I'm definitely more of one of those guys where it's like if I'm not the one working out, then I don't know if I want to put that much effort into it, but I definitely would like to be around the strength and conditioning aspect of it. I love working out. I love those guys in that room. And so anything around that, Austin Price: Where do you feel like your game has the biggest chance to grow? When you look at it from a thousand feet above, can you look at it and realistically go, okay, I'm really good in this area, I need to work in this area? McCallan Castles: Yeah, I definitely, I think it's just sustaining those blocks. Like I played an offense where it's R p o, quick hitter where you only got to be where now it's like I got to insert and then I got to stay on that linebacker for three seconds. So just sustaining blocks and just, I think I got to play a lot lower. I was in the ffc s and I was a lot bigger than a lot of the guys that I was going against and now I'm playing against some pretty big dudes that are pretty developed. So I think just getting more prepared to take impacts and stuff. Austin Price: All right, let's hit some quick hitters here. Batman, Superman, spider-Man. Who and why if you could be one? McCallan Castles: I think Spider-Man just because he's a little bit more lighthearted and I think that's more my pace friendly neighborhood instead of, I think Aham City is a little dangerous for me and Superman. I don't know if I would want my weakness to be a Green Rock. That's just a little, Austin Price: He's thought about this way too much. Everybody says Spider-Man. It's wild. I mean it's wild. How many people say Spiderman when I ask that question? Jordan or LeBron? McCallan Castles: Oh, I'm Jordan. I'm like an old school Austin Price: Guy when it comes in. Yes, thank God we finally reached our, I think if we had Jacob out here, he would probably say Jordan too. Have y'all had this McCallan Castles: Discussion? I think so because it's always the young guys are like, oh, LeBron, LeBron. I'm like, the defense was different back in the day. That's all I got to say, man. Austin Price: Did you grow up being a fan of any particular team in the N B A? McCallan Castles: So growing up we were like Nuggets fans. We lived in Colorado and that was right towards kind of the end of Carmelo and Chauncey Bill. So you're Austin Price: Living the life right now. So n b Champs, lots McCallan Castles: Of them win and then we moved back, so we support the Kings and nice to see them in the playoffs too. Austin Price: Yeah, they had a nice run this past year. It's good to see them back. I like when it's a little cyclical. I mean everybody has goats and downs and everybody hated the Patriots for all those years with Brady and they've taken a turn and years from now they'll come back up and people will be like, oh, I'm glad to see them back. Not everybody but some favorite M L B team, McCallan Castles: M L B, the Royals, everything else. Kansas City. My dad's from Overland Park, Kansas City, so we are forced to be Chiefs and Royals fans growing up, Austin Price: Well again, chiefs, you're rolling it right now. You got the Super Bowl champs, the N B A champs, you're not going to have the M L B champs because the royals are McCallan Castles: Bad. They won't pay nobody. They get good for a year every six years and then they don't pay anybody and everybody takes the players Austin Price: Disneyland, Disney World. McCallan Castles: I've never been to Disney World, so I have to pick Disneyland just because I've actually been there, but I heard Disney World is pretty cool. Austin Price: Favorite part about Disneyland? McCallan Castles: Disneyland Space Mountain. I'm terrified of roller coasters, but the Space Mountain's in the dark. I can do it. I can't see how high up I am Austin Price: This guy. So you're terrified of rollercoasters. What else is a fear of yours? McCallan Castles: Don't like heights. I've gotten better about flying. I don't like turbulence on planes though. That's all. You'll see me go grab onto stuff and act like I can actually stop the plane from shaking. I'm not a big reptile guy either. My girlfriend's family, they have a snake and they forced me to hold it and might have been one of the worst experiences of my life. Just too scaly and they creeped me Austin Price: Out. See, for me it's insects, man. I'd rather be in a room with a life tiger than be in a room with a bunch of creepy crawlies that does nothing for me. Favorite meal on a cheat day for a workout warrior like you? McCallan Castles: Oh, favorite meal. I Austin Price: Mean is it something that a family member makes? Is it your mom, your grandma? McCallan Castles: My dad does Kansas City style ribs for special occasions and he'll do that with jalapeno poppers homemade and that's probably my favorite meal. That's good stuff. Austin Price: Is that something you ask for? So you're telling me right now if he called and said, Hey, I'm going to do something for you for the home game this weekend. McCallan Castles: Yeah, because it's a three day whole thing that he plans out and he's got, yeah, so you got to give him pretty good time in advance because he'll make probably 500 jalapeno poppers by hand and stuff for him because they go that quick. Austin Price: Flip it back to Paul. Will you try to go watch the South Do game this year? I McCallan Castles: Did. I already went. I went and watched them play week two. I forgot who they played, but they played Austin Price: Heritage. Yeah, they ended up could have won that game. McCallan Castles: They were playing good. I mean I think he's definitely brought a lot of good culture to that program and I think it's just developing guys as they come through and stuff, but I've seen that they've won last week or this week and I think it's just they needed to clean up some stuff, but they got good bones over there. They got good guys. Austin Price: If you were planning the family vacation, where would you go? McCallan Castles: Family vacation. Oh man. I think I like going to Denver, Colorado just in the summer too. It's good weather and you can go to a Rockies game and just hang out downtown Denver is pretty sweet. Austin Price: You like going into Rocky Mountain National Park? McCallan Castles: Yeah. That's good stuff. Like Estes Park up in, yeah, Estes Austin Price: Park. McCallan Castles: Yeah, that's great. Where you can see elk and stuff on the street. That's pretty cool. I like that. Austin Price: You ever done Yellowstone? I McCallan Castles: Have not done Yellowstone, which is surprising. Austin Price: Well, I mean it's very, it's similar. You have buffalo and stuff up there, but I mean Estes Park is neat elk just walking around and you get all kinds of other different wildlife up in mountain. McCallan Castles: That's somewhere to the home like South Lake Tahoe, you just see bears in your backyard, they'll hop on the fence. We have a bird feeder up on our second deck back there, so they used to just come up and ravage it and stuff. Austin Price: Best part about Lake Tahoe, McCallan Castles: Best part about Lake Austin Price: Tahoe is just the lake. McCallan Castles: Definitely the summer of the lake. Going out on a boat in the lake when it's like 80 degrees and it's just perfect. Austin Price: What's a day out there? Is this, you're getting up at six or seven, are you more of a get out there around noon? McCallan Castles: I'm get up early, get all your stuff ready. If it's summer, you got to get up early and go and get all your stuff and then get on the boat by nine 10 ish just so especially you're going to wake surf or something just because once everybody gets out there it gets kind of choppy, but if you get out early enough, it's like glass out there. It's nice. Austin Price: Big ski guy. McCallan Castles: I'm not a big ski guy. No winter sports for me too. Too much impact. Seen too many I've had because we had an alpine ski team and stuff at my high school. I've seen too many guys that I played football with. Just collarbone and stuff out. Zo. Austin Price: How different do you look now from when you were in high school? McCallan Castles: Oh, significantly different. I finally could Austin Price: Have you ever run into a girl or a boy that you went to high school with and they're like Macallan? McCallan Castles: Oh yeah. I mean I think they've all kept up with me so they kind of know what I look like, but they go, oh my goodness, you're huge because all my stuff I'd said I was 2 25 in high school, but I was probably two 10 at like 6 4, 2 10. So skinny and I definitely, I think I hit puberty a little bit late in college. I could finally grow a facial hair by the time I was a junior, but pretty clean face for the rest of it. Austin Price: And now that's what you keep all the time. McCallan Castles: It changes up from season to season. It feels like Jacob got me to do the mustache in the spring and that got a little gross and my girlfriend was not a fan of that one. She likes it if I got a little bit of scruff, but she can't do the full beard so she predicts. She's kind the one that ticks what it goes to. I Austin Price: Was like brew. I said, man, what's up with this clean shavin? He goes, I do that. This begin every year and then gradually grows back. Jacob does have the mustache game going strong right now. Yeah, McCallan Castles: But it's like Jacob shaved and by five o'clock he's got his beard back damn near. So it's crazy. Austin Price: He's got the Clark Kent glasses on too. McCallan Castles: He's got the look man. That's the facial hair is his look man. I kind of look a little creepy with it I think sometimes, but Austin Price: Have you kind thought about what it'll be like to get your first touchdown kneeling, that type of thing? McCallan Castles: Oh, I'm excited. Jacob's trying to get me to do the stinky leg too. If his touchdown celebration. I was like, I think I'm a little bit more vanilla, but we'll see if I'm feeling it in the moment. Might break something out. Austin Price: Are you a talker out there? McCallan Castles: No, I don't say anything during the game. Austin Price: So you're mute? Yep. McCallan Castles: No talking. Jacob talks a little bit. That would surprise me. He doesn't say anything during camp and all that and then we got out the there and he put someone on the ground and you could just see him from the sideline going at him. Austin Price: Who's the most surprising player in terms of that? Whether it's someone who you thought would be a talker and doesn't talk at all, or someone who you didn't think would talk at all. That's a talker that's not named Jacob. McCallan Castles: I mean I didn't hear John Campbell talks a lot in practice and then I didn't hear him in the game, but I'm assuming when he drive that guy to the tunnel he was giving him the business a little bit. Austin Price: Well everybody that said that last year with Elijah Herring, he was like this mild-mannered kid and then all of a sudden he got between the white lines on Saturday and he gets fired up. He'll McCallan Castles: Start Austin Price: Going just like a totally different dude. Yeah, McCallan Castles: You see that on scrimmage day with him. If he got you he'll let you know it and stuff and he's a good competitor and you can tell that's why he likes to talk out there. Austin Price: Biggest thing you've learned from Coach Hippel since you've been here? McCallan Castles: Just to let stuff go. I think that was my biggest problem when I first got here with the offense was I wanted to be perfect right away and with that kind of tempo, you're not going to be perfect every play and so I kind of let stuff lingerer and then he's just like, you got to just let it go and relax. He's like, the next play is the one that's going to hit and I think that's the best thing I've improved since I got here is just letting stuff fall right off the shoulders and just keep playing. Austin Price: How much have you changed? McCallan Castles: Oh, drastically. I am notorious. Even my mom will tell you, I beat myself up over the littlest things. So until I missed a couple blocks in the game against Virginia, just right to the sideline ready to go. So Austin Price: All this ends at the end of the year and then you're off to the N F L draft and hopefully it begins again with a new football career. Yes sir. If you had a perfect team to draft you, who would it be? I mean I know you don't really care, you just want to play, but if you got to pick, McCallan Castles: Well, obviously Austin Price: It'd be the Broncos. McCallan Castles: I don't want to, the high The Chiefs would be awesome. Austin Price: Go learn underground Kelsey. McCallan Castles: Staying in Tennessee, playing for the Titans would be Austin Price: Awesome. What'd you think of that turf? McCallan Castles: I didn't mind it. I played all of our Ss c s games are mostly turf because like everybody can't really maintain a field like that. The best part about it was you could significantly feel like on a day like that, if you're playing on the black rubber turf, you feel like your cleats are going to melt off your feet. That wasn't too bad. You could feel a little bit of the heat, but it wasn't nearly as bad. It didn't feel like you were on a microwave. Austin Price: I feel you. They put that coconut stuff in there and it was funny. After the game they turned the sprinklers on and they're watering and it's like they're watering a turf field. They have to because the coconut stuff has to have coconut husk I guess has to have so much water so often to maintain something. McCallan Castles: Yeah, I saw that tweet and I was like, I've never seen turf get watered down like that unless someone throws up on it. But Austin Price: Out of lefthand, where's Jeremiah Crawford at? Against Alabama. Did you watch that highlights? McCallan Castles: Oh, I've seen that so many times. That's crazy. When I met him, when I was like, I've seen the video of you just throwing up, Austin Price: You're McCallan Castles: Him. Even my girlfriend was like, oh, she saw him the other day and she's like, that's him. That's the dude. And I was like, yeah. I was like, that's how you really get under someone's skin and you throw up and show 'em what's up. Austin Price: Is this a place? I know again, we've talked about your time will be short here, but is this a place you've been here long enough to where you're like, no matter what happens, I will come back here. McCallan Castles: Oh, I already told my girlfriend, I said, I think it's done deal that I'll be somewhere around this area. I love it out here. I mean, I haven't had a bad day here since I got here. Love it. Austin Price: No bad days for Macallan Castles. He's hoping there's no bad games going down the stretch of this season. We're just getting started here on Vault Club Confidential. Many, many more episodes, many quality guests to come. Macallan, we appreciate you my man. Yes sir.