COLLEGE STATION, TX -- The Texas A&M Football Team met with the media Tuesday at the Bright Complex on the Texas A&M campus to answer questions about their 48-3 win over SMU last Saturday and look ahead for their non-conference game with South Carolina State this week. The Bulldogs are coming to Aggieland after suffering back to back losses including a 56-0 loss to Arizona on the road last Saturday.
Kickoff between the Aggies (1-1) and the Bulldogs (1-2)will be at 6pm. The game was labeled a shutout Tuesday morning. The 10th straight at Kyle Field (dating back to the Nebraska game in 2010). If you don't have a ticket to the game it will be broadcast by Fox Sports Net (FSN).
HEAD COACH KEVIN SUMLIN
On improvement between games one and two…
“I thought that our effort on offense and defense has been really good the past couple of weeks. After the first game, we needed to improve our effort on special teams and that happened. We had positive results in the return game because of that, particularly punt return, not as much on kickoff return and we need to get better there. It was a great team win. Going on the road, things don’t always go right early. Our defense was consistent. We kept them out of the end zone. Our special teams changed field position with returns and that gave us an opportunity to kick it in offensively and get rolling and close out the game. That was a team win. There were some things involved in that from an adjustment standpoint for players and coaches. When you have a new team and a new situation, things are different for you: travel process, the routine is different. Going on the road for the first time and playing, I thought our guys handled it well. It’s always good to win. We don’t take that for granted. Winning is hard. It’s good, but we’ve got a lot more games to worry about this season.”
On challenges South Carolina State will present…
“I think [South Carolina St. Head Coach] Buddy Pough does a great job. He does a great job in the MEAC and has won championships there. They’ve got a variety – a wide-open run game, a quarterback run game, spread the field, reverses. He’s one of those guys that once you see one play he runs it in reverse. Don’t forget about it because he won’t be afraid to run it again two-or-three times. You watch them play – they’re wide open on offense. They’re all over the field, spread. They’re going to test our defense from sideline-to-sideline. Their defense is the same way. You watch their special teams – he tries to block every punt if he gets you to punt. It will be good for us because we worked a lot yesterday with special teams on things you don’t see traditionally from a lot more conservative-type teams, but they’re things we need to see that can really prepare us down the road.”
On Damontre Moore…
“Damontre is really growing up. He’s been a guy who has always had talent. It gets back to, and I’m going to keep using this word, consistency. It’s probably our biggest challenge. And from what I’ve seen from our players, it’s been our program’s biggest challenge to go out week-to-week and perform at a certain level and the expectation to play at that level every week. It’s been my experience that that comes with maturity. Damontre has been challenged through two-a-days and the first week he played very well and last week he played well again. Hopefully this will continue. What I think you see is a guy who’s talented and a guy that’s growing up and understands his role. The biggest thing about Damontre is that I think he played all but five plays against Florida. He had another 55 snaps this week. He would have never done that last year. That’s strength and conditioning but that’s also mental toughness, too. When you become a mature player, you understand that it’s not all about you.”
On Johnny Manziel…
“I think that Johnny’s improvement from Saturday to Saturday was his ability to throw the ball from the pocket and keep his eyes down the field. I think that as the season goes on, that will continue. What he’s finding out is that he’s not the fastest or most talented guy on the field. For a lot of players that go through that, you have to find out what you can do with your strengths and what you can’t do with your weaknesses. When you’re used to having success doing certain things a certain way, as you progress you start to learn the speed of the game, what you can get away with and what you can’t. The only way to really do that is to play. We can talk to him about what we want him to do and what we don’t want him to do, but he’s a very talented guy that has got to continue to work on moving from an athlete that’s playing quarterback to a quarterback that’s an athlete. There’s a big difference.”
DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR MARK SNYDER
On Deshazor Everett as safety…
“Love him. I think that’s the spot for him. I think that’s his natural calling. He has great range. He can close a lot of ground. He’s a great tackler. I just think he’s going to get more-and-more comfortable while he’s at that position. I think we’re going to see him excel. We’re going to keep him right where he’s at and try to get him really good at what he’s doing.”
On Damontre Moore…
“Damontre’s maturation process – you can see it. We do that effort tape and, shoot, Damontre is on there again twice and every other guy is on there once. That’s picked out by the staff. Damontre’s effort has been outstanding. We talked about what was needed and what kind of player he could become. If he would just trust in us and do what we ask him to do, good things will happen.”
On Mike Evans…
“Mike’s a weapon against us every day. He makes us better every day. Those are the guys we’re going to see. Those kind of guys are what we’re going to see coming down the pike here, so I think that helps us improve as well.”
On the challenges South Carolina State will present…
“I think they’re a well-coached football team. I’ve had the opportunity to play some MEAC teams in my career and this is a very well-coached football team. They’ve got nine returning starters. I think their quarterback is a smooth athlete. He can throw the football. They’ve got a couple of receivers that can play a lot of places. You can see schematically that they know what they’re doing. If you give them something here or there, they’ll counter with something. I’ve been very, very impressed with them. We’ll have to come to play.”
OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR KLIFF KINGSBURY
On Johnny Manziel…
“He made a bunch of plays, which you don’t want to take that away from him. We’ve said all along that it’s going to take a while to get the progressions, get the reads going. He’s getting better, better than week one. We stay on him but he’s going to do his thing. We’re all going to grow together.”
On struggling in the first quarter vs. SMU…
“SMU basically dared us to throw the football. That was something that we hadn’t seen in four years at Houston. Early-on we struggled and had some bad play calls. Once we made adjustments and came out and started throwing, everything started rolling.”
On Mike Evans…
“He’s got to keep getting better. He made some good plays and had some he wished he could take back. With his size and speed, what do you tell him? There shouldn’t be anybody covering you. If you execute the route you’re supposed to and use the technique you’re supposed to, you should be indefensible. He’s just got to take that same attitude. If [Jonny] has been uncomfortable or doesn’t like the look, he will just get the ball high and send it Mike’s way. Both of those guys are freshmen so they can grow together.”
On the senior receivers stepping up vs. SMU…
“It was big. We were all discouraged after week one. That’s not the way we wanted the offense to go. I tried to tell those guys that it would get better. We’ve just got to get rolling. It was good to see that they both [Ryan Swope and Uzoma Nwachukwu] had success with it.”
SENIOR RECEIVER RYAN SWOPE
On Mike Evans…
“Mike has got that explosiveness. He’s a physical receiver, he’s got the height. He takes his games to a whole new level and practices like that. That helps on game day. He practices hard and is hungry to win. I think this past spring is when I started to see a whole new guy. We’re going to need him out there every game. He’s an unselfish guy. He’s willing to go up there and block for his teammates and do little things that can help us eventually win games. He was a basketball player in high school and he’s got that athletic ability to go up and grab a football. He’s an exciting receiver to watch and I can’t wait to see what he does in the future.”
On the scramble…
“We work on that basically every day at practice. With Johnny Manziel back there, we know that he can extend the play. With the receivers that we have, we have to be always aware of those long extended plays and getting open and working on the scramble drill. The coaches do a good job of teaching us that. What it really comes down to is just being a football player and finding a void in the defense. I wouldn’t say it’s difficult but it’s definitely one of those things that you have to practice and work on and get a feel for. With Jonny Manziel back there, there’s no telling what that kid will do. He’s an exciting football player and for him to keep the play going for as long as he does is – it’s going to be a good year for receivers down the field.”
On South Carolina State…
“We know that they’re a football team that’s hungry to win. I’m pretty sure it’s the first time that A&M and South Carolina State have met. It should be fun to make history. We’re looking forward to this game and we’ve just got to take every game one at-a-time and take a look at the film and have a good practice.”
SENIOR LINEBACKER JONATHAN STEWART
On Mike Evans…
“Even his redshirt freshman year he was still making plays on jump balls like that. He kept improving and even to this day he’s improving. What he’s doing right now is not surprising me at all.”
On South Carolina State…
“They got beat pretty badly last week. They’re a team on the rebound. Just because they are a smaller conference, not a marquee conference, we can’t take them lightly. We only have 12 guaranteed opportunities and we’ve already played two of them. We have to prepare for every single opponent as if they are a big time opponent. We can’t take them lightly at all and end up being one of the teams that everybody looks at around the nation as, “How did you lose to that team?” We’re going to prepare as if this is any other opponent.”
On Defense…
“Secondary has improved a lot. The coaches had them working hard last week, making sure they improved on tackling. Tackling was a big part, but we always improve on tackling. I think we had five or six missed tackles the whole game. If we improve like that in every phase of the game, we will be a pretty good defense. The defense doesn’t listen to outside people and what they have to say. They have a will. They are all just doing a great job. They are just trying hard and doing what they need to do. We’re all loving it from the second level that they are dominating it up front.”
SENIOR RECEIVER UZOMA NWACHUKWU
On Johnny Manziel…
“When he was first announced as the starter, he decided it was time for him to step up and take ownership of the offense. Johnny never really gets down and doesn’t let anybody see him get down and that encourages our offense. It gives us the energy and confidence to know that we are going to be alright. It just propels us to do better. I think Johnny does a great job of making plays happen and making sure that we know that no matter what happens, you still have to try and make the play work.”
On Mike Evans…
Mike comes to practice every day with a great attitude and I think he gets better every day at practice. For a young guy to get better every day at practice, and wants to get better and improve, it speaks volumes about his work ethic.
On South Carolina State…
“I know that they’re a team just like us. I think that any team is able to be any team, that’s just the game of football. We definitely have to get better and definitely have to fix some things on offense. This is just another week for us to work and get better.”
JUNIOR DEFENSIVE LINEMAN DAMONTRE MOORE
Improvements on Defense…
“I think there have been improvements in just learning the scheme. With us being in a new system, I feel like people are understanding their assignments and their scheme better. They are just becoming more comfortable and just having more consistency.”
On personal improvements…
“When Coach Sumlin first got here, he was telling us how much time we have left and I’ve only got two years left. I slacked off enough, as it is. I just got tired of losing. I’m ready to win and my team is ready to win. We’re just ready to prove people wrong. I think it caused us all to concentrate more. Also, we are in a new league and a new system. All that played a key part. I was a little complacent, especially my freshman year. I was just being immature and didn’t have my priorities straight. I use [Von’s success] as motivation every day. I’ve been talking to his parents and they’ve been telling me that they see some of his qualities in me, and we’ve gone through some of the same hardships. They are constantly reminding me, ‘This could be you. You could be better. Use this as your motivation and strive to achieve that goal.’”
On the best advice from Von Miller…
“Don’t listen to the media too much. It’s good, take it in, but don’t take it in too much. Just be you. There are always going to be comparisons to other people. Don’t try to be like other people. Be yourself and do what you can do and do it to the best of your ability. Everything else will take care of itself.”
On personal ranking in the SEC…
“It gives me a certain gratification, but at the same time I use it as motivation. It’s only our third game and I use it as motivation like, ‘Okay, I am there now but don’t look at it like that.’ It doesn’t matter where you start, it’s where you finish. It’s not that I’m worried about myself; it’s that I’m worried about what I can do to help this defense stay at the top of the league.”
JUNIOR OFFENSIVE LINEMAN LUKE JOECKEL
On SMU 1st quarter…
“I think they did a great job of just throwing a bunch of different blitzes at us. Coach Anderson did a great job of getting us ready for it, but we weren’t able to trade some of them off. They were throwing some cross-bomb blitzes inside and they got some penetration there. They did a good job of just tackling inside the box. We’ve got to be able to hold blocks longer and just hold on their blocks.”
On the A&M offense…
“Coach Jackson has gotten us in great shape. We weren’t tired at all out there. With our tempo and our practice against our defense, fall camp really got us ready to play however many plays we need to play. I think we’re ready and we can play more. We’ve got to keep getting better. We can’t keep having those three-and-outs in the first quarter like we did against SMU.”
On the upcoming SC State game…
“As an offensive line, we have so many things to fix. I haven’t watched very much film, but I’m sure they’ve got a great group of guys, a good front. This is a huge week for us to get better and Saturday’s huge for us because we have to fix a bunch of stuff.”
On his brother, Matt, getting playing time…
“It was awesome seeing him out there. He was really happy and he did a good job. I am extremely proud of him. I know he’s a good quarterback and I trust him as our quarterback, but we’ve got three great quarterbacks here. We’re lucky enough to have that. He did a great job at fall camp just getting the offense down and getting rid of the ball quickly. He can run this offense like each of our three quarterbacks can.”
SENIOR DEFENSIVE BACK DUSTIN HARRIS
On team improvements…
“The improvement we’ve seen is better tackling. We had worked on that after the first game. As a defense, we need to have better tackling and better techniques. Just as a whole, we worked on that the whole week, starting on Monday and going through Thursday.”
On personal performance…
“I feel like I did good. The first half I felt really good about myself. I felt confident and it was really good to get back on the field and play with the guys I’ve been playing with. We played as a team, as a whole, and as a defense, we stood up and showed everybody why we could be one of the top ten defenses in the nation. I know I can play like that and I just needed to show somebody and I needed to show them. They have to trust the guys they throw on the field. Just to show them that, and for the whole defense to show how they played and how physical we can play, it will lead to good things later on down the road. I’m looking forward to SC state and the rest of the season as well. I had a lot of opportunities that my teammates gave me and some of them I took advantage of and some of them I didn’t. I played my role against SMU. I got in and took advantage of it. I feel like it’s becoming easier. I’ve had a lot of practice and now it’s just like it is first nature. It’s coming naturally and it seems much easier, yet I’ve still got to focus on that down and that play. Try to get the ball back to our offense and try to get them in the position where they can score. I felt like we did that against SMU as a punt returner team.”
On team attitude during SMU game…
“Everybody got a laugh out of that game. We laughed about the fumble, we laughed about getting tackled by the punter. We had fun, and that was the first time this year that I’ve actually seen this team just lay it on the line and have fun, not just playing to where the coaches are making us play. Playing to where we are having fun, and playing with excitement.”
