Football Weekly Press Conference: Nevada
Sep 15, 2015 | Football
Coach Sumlin, the coordinators and select players met with members of the media on Tuesday at the weekly football press conference inside the Kyle Field Media Center.
The Aggies are preparing for a Saturday morning battle with Nevada at Kyle Field.
COACH SUMLIN PRESS CONFERENCE SUMMARY
Assess Speedy Noil. Out of 28 practices in fall, I bet he practiced 6 of them. Nursing an injury. Practiced more first week of game. Think you saw better version of him last week, he's starting to get healthier. Coming along health wise. Last week you saw plan going forward putting both he and Christian Kirk back there (kickoffs). Benefits us to have them both there. As he gets healthier he's really accelerating and doing some things. Two impressive blocks he made on punts. Effort without getting the ball has improved from last year. Look for him to get better every week as he gets healthier.
With Brian Polian coming to town, enjoyment of watching coaching tree grow and playing former staff. Something we take pride in. In my 8th year as head coach, to have that many guys as head coaches in programs, yeah. Think that helps attract quality people to your program and create an atmosphere that is conducive to creating head coaches. Something I got from working with Bob Stoops for years. Something we take pride in. Got guys here now that that's going to continue to happen. Challenge is to replace talent with talent just like it is with your team. And no you don't like playing those guys but that's all part of it. More you're in the business you're playing guys that are your friends. That's never easy, whatever happens. Always winner and loser. Part of it. This game wasn't scheduled when he was here, I'm sure. Just like anything else coaches really don't have anything to do with scheduling. He texted me Sunday night and said I'll huddle if you'll huddle. I said we'll huddle on kickoffs and punts. Don't think much of a response after that (laughter).
Brice Dolezal. And update on Kendall Bussey and Jay Bradford. These guys have come in and played well. Brice has played in last 3 years. Some people refer to him as human victory cigar – when he would go in game it was pretty much in the bag. But he's moved up. Earned a scholarship here. Kwame (Etwi) has come in and pushed him too. Kendall is redshirting as freshman. With those 2 guys (Brice and Kwame) felt really comfortable with where we are. Brice knows offense very well and has played before. We'll see where James White is. Able to hold him (out) last week. Thought against Arizona State after first two carries he would have big night. With where we are depth wise, with James there and available, 4 running backs are plenty. Bradford, we'll talk about that as the season goes on. Medical situation. Care more about getting him well than playing football right now.
What you'd like to see from starters in game leading up to SEC opener. Want to see what everyone wants to see, have them play well. You have to respect your opponent every week. You can't ever, ever just expect (to play just a half).Think people get caught up in that. That is kind of disrespectful. We expect our ones to play well.
Confidence level in offense thru 2 games. Pretty confident. But had confidence in our offense going into game one. What we're doing is trying to set standard for play on both sides. Almost perfect on third downs offensively in first half and perfect on third downs defensively. Played a lot of different people. Played two quarterbacks in first half, couple different running backs. Different people on the line. Got a lot of people involved. Koda Martin playing tight end. Lot of different looks, gave us opportunity to be more creative than we were in first game. From that standpoint, offense is expanding week by week. To play well and have that expansion with that many new players in, don't see how you could be happier.
Status of AJ Hilliard and Zaycoven Henderson. AJ is back. Wait and see on Zaycoven.
Backup Defensive ends, Jarrett Johnson and Qualen Cunningham. Right now got pretty good rotation of five defensive ends. Myles and Daeshon have gotten lot of credit. Been really pleased with Jarrett Johnson's activity. Improved from last year. Really kind of come on and given us more punch than we've had. Qualen has always been that kind of guy. Plays with great effort. Young freshman coming in still kind of feeling way around. Got quality rotation at end. Inside I'd love to see Julien Obioha back. 2-3 weeks ago had appendicitis attack, had to have it removed. Something you never count on as coach. That dropped out one of our inside defensive tackles. He'll be back this week if not then next week for sure. Rotation of defensive line now has been five guys at defensive end spot, and now rotating inside with Daylon Mack and Alonzo Williams. With Julien back and Hardreck Walker, we've got four. We'll see where Zaycoven fits in to that deal. Big surprise and help has been Kingsley Keke. Big, athletic young guy, 6-5, 315 or so pounds, come in played lot of snaps in rotation. Best thing you can say about him was he made some plays, held his own and for a young guy in the interior has given us depth inside to rotate. Think we're starting to see that kind of depth available across the board on our defensive line. Will be critical as we get into season.
Otaro Alaka back and any update on Josh Walker. Those guys will all be available this week. AJ is coming back. Guy we haven't been talking about is Shaan Washington. Playing pretty well right now. Go from first game, from where people would consider us thin, now you put AJ out there and Shaan and Otaro, and Josh Walker will have to battle in there to get in there. Got a number of guys like that right now. What was interesting last week, young guys who played in that first game (Arizona State) played pretty good against Ball State. Guys who didn't play against Arizona State played like it was their first game.
Areas most need of improvement after 2 games. Would say we need to be more consistent as a football team. What I'm interested to see is improvement from our guys from a consistency standpoint to see if we can play at that level and to see if we can play like we did in first half again this week. And the improvement from other guys we're counting on from a depth standpoint, so there's not a drop off. We'll hold them to same standard as we hold the 1s—intensity level, knowledge of the game. Got to get better there. As we continue to develop across board on our offensive line and what we do from a run-game standpoint, we got better this last week. Got to take better care of the ball. Put it on the ground three times, we got it back twice. But that is not always going to happen. After we gave up two big plays early and settled down defensively, we are always looking to eliminate big plays and keep developing as a team.
Nevada's offense, especially in red zone. They're a downhill running team. Will get in different formations--tight end, 2 backs, 1 back, quarterback run game. Lot of things we'll see down the road in the SEC. Got a quarterback that's mobile, can run. In red zone they force you to have good eye control and throw play action off that. Going to stress us a little bit more downhill than against Arizona State. For us this is a game that we'll have to be physical front and be able to tackle in space and on the perimeter and have good eye control with our safeties on the play-action pass.
VIDEO: COORDINATORS JAKE SPAVITAL, JOHN CHAVIS
VIDEO: PLAYERS
The Aggies are preparing for a Saturday morning battle with Nevada at Kyle Field.
COACH SUMLIN PRESS CONFERENCE SUMMARY
Assess Speedy Noil. Out of 28 practices in fall, I bet he practiced 6 of them. Nursing an injury. Practiced more first week of game. Think you saw better version of him last week, he's starting to get healthier. Coming along health wise. Last week you saw plan going forward putting both he and Christian Kirk back there (kickoffs). Benefits us to have them both there. As he gets healthier he's really accelerating and doing some things. Two impressive blocks he made on punts. Effort without getting the ball has improved from last year. Look for him to get better every week as he gets healthier.
With Brian Polian coming to town, enjoyment of watching coaching tree grow and playing former staff. Something we take pride in. In my 8th year as head coach, to have that many guys as head coaches in programs, yeah. Think that helps attract quality people to your program and create an atmosphere that is conducive to creating head coaches. Something I got from working with Bob Stoops for years. Something we take pride in. Got guys here now that that's going to continue to happen. Challenge is to replace talent with talent just like it is with your team. And no you don't like playing those guys but that's all part of it. More you're in the business you're playing guys that are your friends. That's never easy, whatever happens. Always winner and loser. Part of it. This game wasn't scheduled when he was here, I'm sure. Just like anything else coaches really don't have anything to do with scheduling. He texted me Sunday night and said I'll huddle if you'll huddle. I said we'll huddle on kickoffs and punts. Don't think much of a response after that (laughter).
Brice Dolezal. And update on Kendall Bussey and Jay Bradford. These guys have come in and played well. Brice has played in last 3 years. Some people refer to him as human victory cigar – when he would go in game it was pretty much in the bag. But he's moved up. Earned a scholarship here. Kwame (Etwi) has come in and pushed him too. Kendall is redshirting as freshman. With those 2 guys (Brice and Kwame) felt really comfortable with where we are. Brice knows offense very well and has played before. We'll see where James White is. Able to hold him (out) last week. Thought against Arizona State after first two carries he would have big night. With where we are depth wise, with James there and available, 4 running backs are plenty. Bradford, we'll talk about that as the season goes on. Medical situation. Care more about getting him well than playing football right now.
What you'd like to see from starters in game leading up to SEC opener. Want to see what everyone wants to see, have them play well. You have to respect your opponent every week. You can't ever, ever just expect (to play just a half).Think people get caught up in that. That is kind of disrespectful. We expect our ones to play well.
Confidence level in offense thru 2 games. Pretty confident. But had confidence in our offense going into game one. What we're doing is trying to set standard for play on both sides. Almost perfect on third downs offensively in first half and perfect on third downs defensively. Played a lot of different people. Played two quarterbacks in first half, couple different running backs. Different people on the line. Got a lot of people involved. Koda Martin playing tight end. Lot of different looks, gave us opportunity to be more creative than we were in first game. From that standpoint, offense is expanding week by week. To play well and have that expansion with that many new players in, don't see how you could be happier.
Status of AJ Hilliard and Zaycoven Henderson. AJ is back. Wait and see on Zaycoven.
Backup Defensive ends, Jarrett Johnson and Qualen Cunningham. Right now got pretty good rotation of five defensive ends. Myles and Daeshon have gotten lot of credit. Been really pleased with Jarrett Johnson's activity. Improved from last year. Really kind of come on and given us more punch than we've had. Qualen has always been that kind of guy. Plays with great effort. Young freshman coming in still kind of feeling way around. Got quality rotation at end. Inside I'd love to see Julien Obioha back. 2-3 weeks ago had appendicitis attack, had to have it removed. Something you never count on as coach. That dropped out one of our inside defensive tackles. He'll be back this week if not then next week for sure. Rotation of defensive line now has been five guys at defensive end spot, and now rotating inside with Daylon Mack and Alonzo Williams. With Julien back and Hardreck Walker, we've got four. We'll see where Zaycoven fits in to that deal. Big surprise and help has been Kingsley Keke. Big, athletic young guy, 6-5, 315 or so pounds, come in played lot of snaps in rotation. Best thing you can say about him was he made some plays, held his own and for a young guy in the interior has given us depth inside to rotate. Think we're starting to see that kind of depth available across the board on our defensive line. Will be critical as we get into season.
Otaro Alaka back and any update on Josh Walker. Those guys will all be available this week. AJ is coming back. Guy we haven't been talking about is Shaan Washington. Playing pretty well right now. Go from first game, from where people would consider us thin, now you put AJ out there and Shaan and Otaro, and Josh Walker will have to battle in there to get in there. Got a number of guys like that right now. What was interesting last week, young guys who played in that first game (Arizona State) played pretty good against Ball State. Guys who didn't play against Arizona State played like it was their first game.
Areas most need of improvement after 2 games. Would say we need to be more consistent as a football team. What I'm interested to see is improvement from our guys from a consistency standpoint to see if we can play at that level and to see if we can play like we did in first half again this week. And the improvement from other guys we're counting on from a depth standpoint, so there's not a drop off. We'll hold them to same standard as we hold the 1s—intensity level, knowledge of the game. Got to get better there. As we continue to develop across board on our offensive line and what we do from a run-game standpoint, we got better this last week. Got to take better care of the ball. Put it on the ground three times, we got it back twice. But that is not always going to happen. After we gave up two big plays early and settled down defensively, we are always looking to eliminate big plays and keep developing as a team.
Nevada's offense, especially in red zone. They're a downhill running team. Will get in different formations--tight end, 2 backs, 1 back, quarterback run game. Lot of things we'll see down the road in the SEC. Got a quarterback that's mobile, can run. In red zone they force you to have good eye control and throw play action off that. Going to stress us a little bit more downhill than against Arizona State. For us this is a game that we'll have to be physical front and be able to tackle in space and on the perimeter and have good eye control with our safeties on the play-action pass.
VIDEO: COORDINATORS JAKE SPAVITAL, JOHN CHAVIS
VIDEO: PLAYERS
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