Photo by: Texas A&M Athletics
Football Weekly Press Conference
Oct 06, 2015 | Football
Head coach Kevin Sumlin, coordinators Jake Spavital and John Chavis, and select players met with the media on Tuesday at Texas A&M's weekly football press conference inside the Kyle Field Media Center.
A summary of Coach Sumlin's comments is posted below. Additional videos are posted on the page as well.
Impact of the Alabama game last year. Fact we were blown out, don't know that it can have any kind of positive impact at all. Starting this year everyone has been trying to compare this year to last. It's two different teams. A lot of people played in last year's game who aren't even on the field. What we did from a chronological standpoint immediately after that, was changes in personnel. Probably the biggest thing that came out of that. There were guys in critical roles that were replaced. Last four games of the season, we won a few of them and were within a touchdown of the other two. Then we won the bowl game. That's probably the biggest immediate impact out of that game, personnel changes.
Midseason bye week, do some teams need it worse than others. Just depends really on luck during the year. Teams have had players that are done for the year early. This is really the first week I've been able to pay attention to other things around the country. Teams like Notre Dame, I didn't realize they had those kind of injuries early. Michigan lost one of their best this week. Across the country you hope for the best. No real way to say what is best time for bye week. For us right now it's good. Played two league opponents and two divisional opponents, and won those games. Played a top-15 team to open season in neutral site. To win those games, come back home and open the new Kyle Field, (bye week) comes at a good time for us. Had a lot of rotation early at linebacker due to either suspensions or injury. Got some guys that have played two pretty tough SEC games at the end (of this stretch). Comes at a good time for us. Something that we didn't have the luxury of last year. We went 8 straight weeks and played I don't know how many top 5 or 6 opponents. This year's very different.
Avery Gennesy. Avery and Jermaine Eleumunor were two of the top junior college offensive linemen available a few years ago. Our ability to get those types of talents and redshirt them…they weren't real happy at first. But I think Avery understood that strength-wise he wasn't already there. Athletically he is very extremely gifted. Redshirt year really helped him. To just come in and play left tackle in this league isn't very easy. Pretty hard at practice too, based on guys he goes against. Eye-opening experience for him. Works extremely hard at his game. Has tremendous upside. Getting better to boot.
Mental work with team during bye week. They need time. Need time away from me. Time away from you (media), who tell them how good or bad they are. That's the truth. To play at this level, I've said before, the biggest deal with a guy making the transition from high school is that not every week do you play against guys with similar talents and skills. And in high school if you screw up you might get your picture in the paper. But you don't have to watch it over and over and over and over again all Saturday night on every channel. And then the next day. And then people talk about it all day Monday. Those guys are still kids, and I think people forget about that. Level that we play at in this league, it's a really, really high level, but it's not pro football. Sometimes people forget that. They go to class too. Got midterms this time of year. Papers to turn in. Lots of other things they go through from a mental stress point. This time of year you see some teams and some guys not performing very well, hitting the proverbial wall. Happens around this time of year, particularly with young guys. No coincidence we're hitting midterms and papers. Also defenses are changing for young guys who have had success, they're getting different looks. Now the expectation is to still play at that level. Physical part is a big deal, but the mental part gets left out.
Brian Dawkins. A guy that we've had lot of respect for. Had a tremendous NFL career. Analyst on ESPN. We reached out to him. Staff has lot of respect for him. Got him in to speak to team during fall camp. Hit it off with him philosophically. Way he played the game, passion he played with. Was a good fit for us. He hadn't done a lot of that (talking to teams). Bonded with our team some, got to know some of the guys, we stayed in touch, and he wanted to come back out. Came for 3 days this time. He's a guy that, without asking him this, you don't play at level he played for length of time that he played without missing football a bit. Ability for him to fill that void, (I think) he loved that. No doubt he had impact on a lot of our players individually.
Offensive player ejected for targeting before and gotten explanation from league office. Not that I can remember, no. We'll get that back from league this week. There are different angles of that deal. And you have to remember, the rule has changed dramatically since it's been put in place. Gets back to defenseless player. Not necessarily a targeting rule. Defenseless player. Let's say you have an interception, you used to see it all the time, you've got a change of possession, ball's picked off, guy peels back around and chases the ball carrier--an offensive lineman. Guy hits him and he doesn't see him. That also applies the defenseless player rule. More than just targeting. Defenseless player. And not necessarily helmet to helmet. Way I understand it anything above the shoulder. Rule has expanded for player safety, which I agree with.
Differences from this year to last year. Biggest difference is we've got different players. And the players that played at the end of the year are a year older. From a maturity standpoint, guys who are here are a year older, stronger, better. Have number of guys who aren't here anymore. Chemistry is completely different. Particularly at this time last year, when we had a different quarterback. Got three new coaches. Guys on the field who hadn't played in last year's game. Guys who are older and a year better. To me it's got a completely different feel.
Biggest question mark you hope to address during this bye week. We've got plenty of questions. This whole year, you've heard me talk about from day one, we're trying to get better every week across the board. As the coach my job is to take things we are doing well and try an accentuate those, but also stay ahead of the curve. Because that's what people are scheming against. Will try to take away what you do well. Trying to expand on that and not be too complicated. And the things we aren't doing well, to try and figure out is it scheme, or personnel, or both. And the quicker you can fix that the better off you'll be as a team. Obviously if you're 5-0, you're doing a lot of things better than doing things poorly. But you better worry about the things you're doing poorly too.
Anything surprise you about John Chavis since he's been here. Said right from the beginning it was a good fit for both of us. He was at a place and time where he was ready for a change. We were in same place. Ability for him to come in and communicate with our coaches, with recruiting as it was going on at the time, and also with the players, was a big deal. Buy in was immediate. We're not great but we've definitely improved. You can see signs we're getting better. We'll see here coming up. Will get challenged in different ways. I like our energy. I like the pace we play with on defense. A lot more aggressive on perimeter. Got to clean up penalties across the board as a team, but certainly in the last 2 weeks being +4 on turnover margin is a team deal. We're better at hanging on to the ball but also creating them this year. That means two things. Not only are you getting the ball out but it means you've got guys running to the ball and when it's on the ground you're getting it. Guys breaking on tipped balls, things like that. Effort is there. Attitude is good. Ability for us to talk during the week offensively and defensively how we'd attack each other, that's also been helpful. If you look at us schematically, we're a completely different team offensively and defensively and special-teams wise than we were at this point last year. Got more personnel on the field.
Taylor Bertolet, last week vs Arkansas and this week. He just missed it. I see guys playing on Thursday through Sunday who miss too. He's gotten better. Week before we praised him because he was perfect on touchbacks. I said (after Arkansas miss) Hey that's okay, we'll be fine. All we had to do was worry about what will happen in overtime. Have to have certain amount of confidence in people. I guess what we see is different from what y'all see. Y'all see Saturday for 3 ½ hours, I see all Monday through Friday and Saturday, and all day Saturday the look in their eyes in the hotel. Easier to make that decision when you're around people seven days a week.
Self-scouting process. We do a certain amount of that every week from a schematic standpoint. Ability to have a staff where we're able to talk to each other, that happens. Right now everyone has situational or computer-generated self-scout tapes. Look at where you are, what your tendencies are, what you've done over time. Start to develop a profile. As a coordinator the best thing you can have is the first three games. No one knows what you'll do. After game three, over time it becomes hard to break tendencies. You don't know it but that's just being a human being. To break tendencies is one thing. To break tendencies for breaking tendencies sake isn't very smart. You have to look within the scheme and try and get better. I laugh, because we don't have a bunch of bad plays. Sometimes they don't work, but trust me we aren't trying to get zero yards on a handoff. There's a thought process on it and it has a blocking scheme. As a coach you look and say is it design, or did we get whipped, or did he go the wrong way? And you have about 38 seconds to figure that out before the next play.
A summary of Coach Sumlin's comments is posted below. Additional videos are posted on the page as well.
KEVIN SUMLIN PRESS CONFERENCE SUMMARY
Impact of the Alabama game last year. Fact we were blown out, don't know that it can have any kind of positive impact at all. Starting this year everyone has been trying to compare this year to last. It's two different teams. A lot of people played in last year's game who aren't even on the field. What we did from a chronological standpoint immediately after that, was changes in personnel. Probably the biggest thing that came out of that. There were guys in critical roles that were replaced. Last four games of the season, we won a few of them and were within a touchdown of the other two. Then we won the bowl game. That's probably the biggest immediate impact out of that game, personnel changes.
Midseason bye week, do some teams need it worse than others. Just depends really on luck during the year. Teams have had players that are done for the year early. This is really the first week I've been able to pay attention to other things around the country. Teams like Notre Dame, I didn't realize they had those kind of injuries early. Michigan lost one of their best this week. Across the country you hope for the best. No real way to say what is best time for bye week. For us right now it's good. Played two league opponents and two divisional opponents, and won those games. Played a top-15 team to open season in neutral site. To win those games, come back home and open the new Kyle Field, (bye week) comes at a good time for us. Had a lot of rotation early at linebacker due to either suspensions or injury. Got some guys that have played two pretty tough SEC games at the end (of this stretch). Comes at a good time for us. Something that we didn't have the luxury of last year. We went 8 straight weeks and played I don't know how many top 5 or 6 opponents. This year's very different.
Avery Gennesy. Avery and Jermaine Eleumunor were two of the top junior college offensive linemen available a few years ago. Our ability to get those types of talents and redshirt them…they weren't real happy at first. But I think Avery understood that strength-wise he wasn't already there. Athletically he is very extremely gifted. Redshirt year really helped him. To just come in and play left tackle in this league isn't very easy. Pretty hard at practice too, based on guys he goes against. Eye-opening experience for him. Works extremely hard at his game. Has tremendous upside. Getting better to boot.
Mental work with team during bye week. They need time. Need time away from me. Time away from you (media), who tell them how good or bad they are. That's the truth. To play at this level, I've said before, the biggest deal with a guy making the transition from high school is that not every week do you play against guys with similar talents and skills. And in high school if you screw up you might get your picture in the paper. But you don't have to watch it over and over and over and over again all Saturday night on every channel. And then the next day. And then people talk about it all day Monday. Those guys are still kids, and I think people forget about that. Level that we play at in this league, it's a really, really high level, but it's not pro football. Sometimes people forget that. They go to class too. Got midterms this time of year. Papers to turn in. Lots of other things they go through from a mental stress point. This time of year you see some teams and some guys not performing very well, hitting the proverbial wall. Happens around this time of year, particularly with young guys. No coincidence we're hitting midterms and papers. Also defenses are changing for young guys who have had success, they're getting different looks. Now the expectation is to still play at that level. Physical part is a big deal, but the mental part gets left out.
Brian Dawkins. A guy that we've had lot of respect for. Had a tremendous NFL career. Analyst on ESPN. We reached out to him. Staff has lot of respect for him. Got him in to speak to team during fall camp. Hit it off with him philosophically. Way he played the game, passion he played with. Was a good fit for us. He hadn't done a lot of that (talking to teams). Bonded with our team some, got to know some of the guys, we stayed in touch, and he wanted to come back out. Came for 3 days this time. He's a guy that, without asking him this, you don't play at level he played for length of time that he played without missing football a bit. Ability for him to fill that void, (I think) he loved that. No doubt he had impact on a lot of our players individually.
Offensive player ejected for targeting before and gotten explanation from league office. Not that I can remember, no. We'll get that back from league this week. There are different angles of that deal. And you have to remember, the rule has changed dramatically since it's been put in place. Gets back to defenseless player. Not necessarily a targeting rule. Defenseless player. Let's say you have an interception, you used to see it all the time, you've got a change of possession, ball's picked off, guy peels back around and chases the ball carrier--an offensive lineman. Guy hits him and he doesn't see him. That also applies the defenseless player rule. More than just targeting. Defenseless player. And not necessarily helmet to helmet. Way I understand it anything above the shoulder. Rule has expanded for player safety, which I agree with.
Differences from this year to last year. Biggest difference is we've got different players. And the players that played at the end of the year are a year older. From a maturity standpoint, guys who are here are a year older, stronger, better. Have number of guys who aren't here anymore. Chemistry is completely different. Particularly at this time last year, when we had a different quarterback. Got three new coaches. Guys on the field who hadn't played in last year's game. Guys who are older and a year better. To me it's got a completely different feel.
Biggest question mark you hope to address during this bye week. We've got plenty of questions. This whole year, you've heard me talk about from day one, we're trying to get better every week across the board. As the coach my job is to take things we are doing well and try an accentuate those, but also stay ahead of the curve. Because that's what people are scheming against. Will try to take away what you do well. Trying to expand on that and not be too complicated. And the things we aren't doing well, to try and figure out is it scheme, or personnel, or both. And the quicker you can fix that the better off you'll be as a team. Obviously if you're 5-0, you're doing a lot of things better than doing things poorly. But you better worry about the things you're doing poorly too.
Anything surprise you about John Chavis since he's been here. Said right from the beginning it was a good fit for both of us. He was at a place and time where he was ready for a change. We were in same place. Ability for him to come in and communicate with our coaches, with recruiting as it was going on at the time, and also with the players, was a big deal. Buy in was immediate. We're not great but we've definitely improved. You can see signs we're getting better. We'll see here coming up. Will get challenged in different ways. I like our energy. I like the pace we play with on defense. A lot more aggressive on perimeter. Got to clean up penalties across the board as a team, but certainly in the last 2 weeks being +4 on turnover margin is a team deal. We're better at hanging on to the ball but also creating them this year. That means two things. Not only are you getting the ball out but it means you've got guys running to the ball and when it's on the ground you're getting it. Guys breaking on tipped balls, things like that. Effort is there. Attitude is good. Ability for us to talk during the week offensively and defensively how we'd attack each other, that's also been helpful. If you look at us schematically, we're a completely different team offensively and defensively and special-teams wise than we were at this point last year. Got more personnel on the field.
Taylor Bertolet, last week vs Arkansas and this week. He just missed it. I see guys playing on Thursday through Sunday who miss too. He's gotten better. Week before we praised him because he was perfect on touchbacks. I said (after Arkansas miss) Hey that's okay, we'll be fine. All we had to do was worry about what will happen in overtime. Have to have certain amount of confidence in people. I guess what we see is different from what y'all see. Y'all see Saturday for 3 ½ hours, I see all Monday through Friday and Saturday, and all day Saturday the look in their eyes in the hotel. Easier to make that decision when you're around people seven days a week.
Self-scouting process. We do a certain amount of that every week from a schematic standpoint. Ability to have a staff where we're able to talk to each other, that happens. Right now everyone has situational or computer-generated self-scout tapes. Look at where you are, what your tendencies are, what you've done over time. Start to develop a profile. As a coordinator the best thing you can have is the first three games. No one knows what you'll do. After game three, over time it becomes hard to break tendencies. You don't know it but that's just being a human being. To break tendencies is one thing. To break tendencies for breaking tendencies sake isn't very smart. You have to look within the scheme and try and get better. I laugh, because we don't have a bunch of bad plays. Sometimes they don't work, but trust me we aren't trying to get zero yards on a handoff. There's a thought process on it and it has a blocking scheme. As a coach you look and say is it design, or did we get whipped, or did he go the wrong way? And you have about 38 seconds to figure that out before the next play.
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