Mark Salling, who plays Puck on Glee, recently spoke about how much Cory Monteith will be missed as fans head into the final season of the series.

Monteith, who played Finn Hudson on Glee, passed away in July 2013. Salling had many kind things to say about his former co-star when speaking to People:

“Cory Monteith was a great leader as a character and person in real life. It’s a big, obvious hole. I still think about him all the time.”

Salling goes on to say that though it sounds cliché given the name of Monteith’s tribute episode and his role on the show as Finn Hudson, he and others saw Monteith as the “quarterback” of the cast:

“He was kind of like the quarterback of the show, which sounds cliché because the [tribute] episode was called that, but he was kind of like that in real life.”

Though Glee moved on with its fifth season last summer (albeit delayed by a few weeks), Salling admits that there isn’t much closure on the set following Monteith’s death.

“I don’t think there will be any closure. Not yet.”

When asked about moving on from Glee, Salling said that the cast members are like family and that he’ll miss it all:

“I’m going to miss it. Absolutely. I’ve been through so much with some of these cast members,” says the actor. “Traveling the world, international tours … it’s really like family.”

Fox recently announced that Glee’s sixth and final season will premiere on Friday, January 9 at 8 p.m before moving to its normal 9 p.m. slot the following week.

Will you be tuning in to Glee’s sixth and final season in January?