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Texas A&M Football Selected Quotes
HEAD COACH KEVIN SUMLIN
On Cedric Ogbuehi:
"The
biggest compliment you can give an offensive lineman is if you haven't
noticed them. I don’t mean that in a derogatory sense. If you notice
him, then you’ve got some problems. He's a natural tackle. He played
guard last year because we tried to get our best five guys on the
field. He moved out to right tackle. He's athletic. He's long. He's 300
pounds. He’s a good player. It took some time in the spring to know
that he was in space and didn't have help on either side. He’s a smart
guy. He faired pretty well against excellent competition last week. I
look for him to continue to get better.”
On bouncing back from the loss to Alabama:
"We're
probably a little bit different from some teams. We give our players
Sundays off. We don’t want them around here at all instead of coming in
right after the game. We get everyone back on Monday. There are
positives and negatives to that. It gives me an opportunity to analyze
the good and bad, whether win or lose. The players value that because
they can spend Sunday at church or with their family. We had an
opportunity to watch the video as a team. After that, we're not talking
about it anymore. Whether we had won or lost that would’ve been
my message. We have nine more games. That's been my approach, wherever
I've been. Games become big only when you're winning or in a position
to have success. It doesn't matter if you're mad or ecstatic, you have
to move on the next week and that’s what we’ve done."
On SMU:
"Everyone
tries to throw passing teams into one bucket. There are a lot of
different philosophies involved in the run-and-shoot as it was and now
what is termed the air raid. For them (Hal Mumme and June Jones) to be
together tells you what they think of each other. They're really the
Godfathers of the offense. I’ve been fortunate enough to be around both
of them. I consider June a friend. We came into Conference USA at the
same time. He's been a winner. He's one of the first guys that took a
non-BCS team to a BCS bowl. He's been at the NFL level. Hal's impacted
a number of coaches. I have a lot of respect for both men and how
they've altered the history of college football. Everyone has their own
twist on things, but the blend on those two guys is a little bit
different. I think right now they lead the country in completions per
game. They have two receivers who are in the top three in the country
in receptions per game. We’re going to have to defend the whole field.
They’ve got a veteran quarterback who was highly recruited out of high
school. He's still very talented. He's getting better. We're playing
another team that's had a whole week off before they play us. We’re
playing at home, I’m not complaining about that. They'll have some new
wrinkles and some new stuff. It’ll be another challenge for our defense
because it’s different than what we saw last week. We're going to have
to defend the whole field—vertically and sideline-to-sideline—because
they are going to stretch us out to make us play in space.”
On Mike Evans performance against Alabama:
"I've
been talking about him since last year. I don't think anybody on our
team was surprised. They didn’t know how many yards he had, but they
knew he had a lot. I said this before; he was hurt last year for the
majority of the season. He had a nagging hamstring injury. Even the
touchdown at Ole Miss, where he ran across the field he had to come out
of the game. If you watch the video, he is dragging his leg into the
endzone and still made it. It's a little bit of a different stage, but
I'm not surprised at all. If you watch the video, he's a great example.
Without the ball, he plays just as hard. That’s what keeps the pressure
on the secondary, because he doesn’t take a play off. If he's on the
field, he's playing lights out."
On Daeshon Hall:
"Where
we are right now, we need to get our program where a guy like Daeshon
gets to redshirt this year. We're not there. He has a lot of talent.
He’s got length; he’s got quickness. But physically, he's not mature.
The ability for him to add another 15 pounds and grow into his body, we
don't have that luxury right now. It will be a whole different
situation when he gets strong enough and big enough to get those guys
off of him. It was a big learning situation for him and a number of
those younger players in that game. He's going to be doing better five
or six weeks from now. For a guy that only rushed the passer and played
basketball, Saturday was a learning experience for him. All you had to
do was look at his jersey to see—from a physical standpoint—there were
a whole lot of things he had never seen before.”
On having the whole defense together:
"We
settled down, and we were able to get some guys reps that were going to
play. We had to catch up the experience with the guys that haven't
played. We had to replace four of the front seven coming into the year.
Then, three of the other seven missed at least one game. What you miss
is the communication, the ability to line up and make adjustments. It's
one thing for coaches to make adjustments; it takes experience and
wherewithal to use those adjustments during a game. Now that we know
what the rotation is going to be, the continuity, particularly with
those young guys to learn a couple different positions is going to help
us. The things that we saw are correctable. Our players understand
that. We'll get some continuity and not as much newness for the rest of
the year on defense.”
DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR MARK SNYDER
On Daeshon Hall rushing the passer:
"That's
going to be Daeshon's role is third and long. We had to throw him in
there a little bit on Saturday. That's really not his forte. We got
hurt a couple of times with him in against a very good left tackle. He
got introduced to big time SEC football, unfortunately."
On the mistakes against Alabama:
"There
were some mental mistakes and some physical mistakes. We were going up
against a really good offense. The things that we need to get fixed
need to get fixed. We addressed that yesterday. We're getting back into
our comfort zone going up against another spread team. We've got to
clean some things up because we're definitely going to see that again."
On addressing the defense’s confidence:
"I
think Coach Sumlin did a great job with that. We were rattled a little
bit on Saturday. They (Alabama) were doing some good stuff. Coach
Sumlin handled that yesterday. We were able to get back into our
comfort zone going up against another spread team."
On the lack of a pass rush:
"We've
played a veteran team in Rice, an option-oriented team in Sam Houston
State and the number one team in the country. It's a little bit of how
the schedule's laid out, but that's the way it is. We need to see that
improve moving forward."
On the positives of watching film:
"There
was a lot of great teaching yesterday. The thing is, our kids care.
There's a lot of hurt kids in that locker room. I thought they played
their tails off. There were some bright spots. We started fast, which
is exactly what we wanted to do to get the crowd into it. We had a
goal-line stand and in my career, having one of those early in the
season is huge. There's going to be another game where we'll be backed
up into the red zone and have to make a stand. Having one of those was
a positive. They played extremely hard, it just wasn't always smart."
OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR CLARENCE McKINNEY
On the offensive game plan:
"It
never changes for us week to week. We want to win on third down. We
want to move the ball by getting first downs and we want to protect the
ball. We didn't protect the ball. That was the issue."
On adjustments during the game:
"We
give our quarterback the ability to get us in the right place. As a
staff, we visit about what the defense is doing. When they stop
something, we want to have an answer for it."
On the play of the receiving corps this past weekend:
"I
thought all of those guys played well, both with or without the ball.
Mike had a few catches for a lot of yards. You watch the film and see
the things he did without the ball was great. Derel (Walker), Sabian
(Holmes) and Malcome (Kennedy) all played great both with and without
the ball."
On the improvements of Mike Evans:
"I think
the sky's the limit for him. He's really starting to learn the
position. From a talent standpoint, the talent is there. It's just
understanding the little things of playing receiver. He's getting
better each week."
SENIOR DEFENSIVE BACK TONEY HURD JR.
On watching film from the Alabama game:
“First
and foremost, I feel that as a defense we came out and played a solid
game. We have to fit our gaps a little bit better, better eyes on the
back end for the play action pass, and up front we just have to
continue to get better and work our craft. “
On getting the suspended players back:
“As
far as communication goes, I feel that we communicated well. We just
have to have better eyes, and we have to fit our gaps better. That was
actually the first game that the starting eleven on the defense
actually played together. I think from this point forward we can only
get better.”
On specific areas where the defense played well:
“For
that being our first time out as a unit, I feel like we communicated
well and for the most part ten guys were doing their job and it was
always just one guy with the mistake. Each and every play all eleven
guys have to be on one accord. One guy not being in his gap can make a
big difference especially when you are playing a veteran team like
Alabama.”
On the confidence level of the defense now:
“Each
and every week younger guys are stepping up and older guys are showing
slowly but surely that they can be leaders. Our confidence right now is
not at an all-time high, but each and every week as we get better.”
On having a great scoring offense:
“Our
offense is one of the best offenses in the country. But as a defensive
player, you can’t depend on the offense. As a defense, we should go out
there and try to pitch shutouts. I feel slowly but surely we’re getting
better and we’re getting closer to our goal, but it will take time.
Like I said earlier, that was our first time actually playing all
together as far as a unit and we played against the number one team in
the country. Looking at our defense I feel that we have a lot of guys
that are hungry and will be getting better in the coming games.”
On Mike Evans:
“He
didn’t surprise me at all. Ever since fall camp, ever since he’s been
here, he’s been a hard-working guy. Of course he’s a big guy, big in
stature, but he works very hard in practice. He works at his craft. It
didn’t surprise us at all that he had a good game like that. I feel
that it helps us as a secondary because we get to go against some of
the best receivers every day in practice.”
On Johnny Manziel:
“When
Johnny Manziel goes out and plays wonderful offense it’s just
high-powered. Johnny Football is being Johnny Football. He goes out
there and has fun doing what he loves to do along with each and every
one of our guys on offense.”
SENIOR RUNNING BACK BEN MALENA
On Mike Evans:
“For
Mike Evans his hard work pays off. He’s probably one of the hardest
working guys on this team. He deserved to have a good game like he did.”
On taking it one game at a time still:
“I
don’t think it will be difficult at all for us as a team. That’s what
championship teams do; they play at a consistent level. They have
similar emotion on a week-to-week basis. We do understand last week was
a big game and it will be kind of a challenge that we have that same
kind of enthusiasm just because of the different circumstances. Our
play on the field is not going to change. Our emotion level is not
going to change. We’re still the same team that we were last week this
week.”
On defensive struggles:
“It’s a team
sport. You can’t blame one team did this or offense did this or defense
did that. It’s a team sport and at the end of the day the all things
that count are the wins and losses. It doesn’t matter who has a big day
and who didn’t have the big day. We played the number one team in the
country. They are a pretty good team. We left some things out there
that we saw watching film and we’re going to correct it.”
On moving forward:
“I
think it’ll be easier. It’s easier just for the fact that we do have a
loss. We understand just how important it is to take it one game at a
time. It is a one game season every week. You have to prepare like it
is a one game season. This week we have SMU. We are looking at it as we
accept the challenge from those guys. They are going to come in and be
ready to knock us off. We are going to prepare just like we did last
week.”
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