Weekly Football Press Conference: South Carolina
Sep 27, 2016 | Football
A&M visits South Carolina on Saturday afternoon (3 p.m., SEC Network).
A summary of Coach Sumlin's comments is posted below.
KEVIN SUMLIN PRESS CONFERENCE SUMMARY
Status of Myles Garrett.
No comment on any injuries. No different than usual.
In your opinion is this team physically stronger than last season.
Than last season, yes. Combination of couple things. Maturity factor. Guys older. Played lot of football. Year older. Heard me talk about some decisions that I made that were difficult decisions in December. Leaving Tennessee and getting back here and making staff changes. Also made changes with player development and what we do with lifting program. Not subtle changes, drastic changes. Has become apparent to me. Whether it changes results or not, we will see. Certainly things we wanted to get done because of our body types not looking like rest of body types in league. Lean, very fast, very athletic team that wasn't very big. Look at end zone tape, just looked different. That was fact. Over course of season that wears on you. Spend lot of time in nutrition. Sport science people. Great resources here even internally. Spent lot of time on player development piece. Guys like Shaan Washington who were safeties. See a different Shaan Washington at 240 than when he first got here. Or Daeshon Hall, who was 208 when we signed him. Little bit different looking team now. Little stronger. I'ver seen numbers, where we are coming into this season. That was goal. Will see where that takes us.
What Noel Mazzone has brought to program, and after 4 games what sets him apart from OCs you've worked with in past.
Worked with lot of them. Think there's comfort level with us, known each other for over 20 years. We've talked every year in offseason. Met in offseason. Talked during week at different places, whether he was in college or pro football. Never had opportunity timing-wise to work together since mid-90s. Lot of respect there. Think lot of commonality with that makes sense. See us talking on sidelines between series. Communication has been great. Guy who's coached football in high school, college, the NFL. Seen lot of different people and systems. Dealt with a lot of high-profile quarterbacks, and coached guys you've never heard of. Brings lot to table. His conversations with our QBs and our offense have been received the right way. Done a really good job of trying to develop our strengths. Every coach will say that, play to our strengths. Easier said than done. Evolution of Trevor right now has lot to do with his comfort level with our coaching staff and our comfort level with where he is right now. Only played 4 games. Didn't play for 19 months. Noel has experience and knowledge to be able to see that and play to those strengths.
Are you even surprised with what Trayveon Williams has done.
Everyone will look back and say he was always explosive. He did lot for CE King. They had him all over the place. Guy who was always explosive. Bit thinner but different build. Great hands. Guy we fortunately got flipped. Changed his mind and I'm glad he did. He's got real explosiveness. For him to be where he is right now you didn't know that. But he showed that. Early graduate, went thru spring. Issues picking up blitzes and some things but really works at it. Thing that sets him apart right now. Two guys who were early grads, him and Colton Prater, are playing at really high level for freshmen. Don't see that very often. Thing have in common is work ethic off field. Doing other things that have set them apart. Them coming in and seeing our change in approach in offseason with everything we do, that's all they know. Gave them opportunity to go through prehab, recovery and all that stuff. Have had great early start to season. If you're around them they don't wear it on their sleeves. (Trayveon) enjoys playing game but working off field to be as good as he can be.
You've mentioned the safeties' motivation about overlooked for preseason honors…you sense that Josh Reynolds has some kind of similar motivation?
We might have talked about that during fall camp. He wasn't on list either. Had that discussion with him just like the safeties.
How to avoid another stall after a strong start.
Think we just talked about that. In the offseason. That doesn't start during football season. Starts in January. Made some drastic changes throughout program. Made some subtle changes. Guarantee things change? No. Performance guarantees change. Things we've done since January, by the numbers we can see a difference. Until you do that on Saturday though none of that matters. Where we are right now is where we are. Guys understand that. Have different perspective on that than maybe they did as freshmen and sophomores. Maybe they handle it little differently as juniors and seniors. Group of guys that walked in here and won right away and didn't do anything their first year here. Maybe thought things would keep rolling. Think they found out it takes little more than that. Approach from January until now has been little bit different. Our schedule has been different too. Been little bit back-loaded. Last two years played non-conference schedule early in season, except for one opponent. South Carolina (2014) ended up not being that team everyone thought. Arizona State (2015) was okay. First four games (this year) probably little bit different playing UCLA, at Auburn. and (vs) Arkansas. Have little better feel where we are as team after 4 games than year or two years ago. Doesn't guarantee a change. What you can do is evaluate where you are as team a little bit better than maybe you could a year or two years ago.
Josh Reynolds like being that way (unrecognized)?
Dunno if Josh likes it that way or not. I just know I like he's on our team. He's not real talkative, not real flashy guy. Have pro scouts ask me how fast he is. I say he's fast enough. Not caught many times. Great hands. Really good athlete. Whether or not he likes it, I don't know. But wants to be elite player. Very evident after bowl game when he came in and knocked on door and told me I'm not happy with how I finished. I will come back next year and work harder and be best I can be. Great news for our team. Great news for him. For everyone. Will try and make most out of this senior year.
Play of Kingsley Keke and Zaycoven Henderson.
Keke and Zaycoven have been solid. Lot of people asking about Daylon (Mack), where is he? Nothing going on with him. Still work in progress. Keke is bigger man. Longer body. Daylon just as disruptive in that game as anyone. Production interiorly, way we play defense, is not necessarily about making tackles. Is more about holding the point, playing in other team's backfield, holding your gap, freeing people up to run and make plays. That's hard if you're used to in high school blowing through gaps and making tackles. David Turner has come in and done excellent job having these guys play with pad level and great technique. With little more control in defense that is more of gap-control defense. Allows linebackers and some other guys to play in backfield. Rotation I think has helped those guys too instead of them being on field whole time. Hardreck Walker and Reggie Chevis getting whole lot of snaps along with Keke and Zaycoven. Got 5-man rotation in there that can keep guys fresh. Something we've never had. Just because they're not making tackles doesn't mean not productive. Don't have 11 snaps inside 2-yard line without those guys being real force inside.
South Carolina.
People make coaching changes for different reasons. Will (Muschamp) has lot of experience in this league. They're entering really a new system. Been pretty good defensively. Second I think in scoring defense in our league. He and (Travaris Robinson) have been together for while. Always going to be good defensively. Still trying to get an identity offensively. Defensively there's never been a Will Muschamp team that hasn't been salty. Great place to play. Fans have a lot of passion. Loud. Think we opened SEC Network on a Thursday night there. Place with a lot of pride. Anytime you go on road in this league better be ready to play. Our message. Every week we want to get little bit better and want to be 1-0. Guys have focused on that. This is our furthest road trip of year. For young guys, riding bus to Dallas little different. First week we went to Auburn had a few guys who hadn't been on planes before. Lot of guys who have had play lot of football. Gaining confidence every week. Bring A game every week.
How would you judge defense at this point and is it what you expected to see year two under Chavis.
Think we've improved. Seen some good teams, will see good teams from here on out. What has been interesting is flexibility of defense vs some different style offenses. You don't get more diverse than Auburn and Arkansas from an attack and motion standpoint. That's the encouraging part. Key to this thing too is to stay healthy, keep our depth, keep guys playing. Everyone saw rotation other night. No matter what was going on, Myles and DaDa played a lot but so did Jarrett (Johnson) and (Qualen Cunningham). Ability to have confidence to roll those guys in and out of game has helped our defense. Also linebackers, playing multiple guys has helped our freshmen and speed on defense. Scheme been great. Ability to play 20 to 30 something guys has really helped our defense.
First time around here you were on tail end of RC Slocum-era of Wrecking Crew defenses. You allow that term to come back?
I don't know, that's something you earn. That's not really up to me. Everyone has own identity. For years when I was not here, as player in 80s and then young coach, certainly Texas A&M had two great things. Great tailbacks and played great defense. From outside looking in, whether I was in Big Ten or Pac-10, that's what you saw, without having TV exposure you have today. I would say because it was at such a high level, not something we're pushing, but if people start to identify us philosophically like that as a defense can't take that as anything but a compliment.
On forefront of wearing different uniforms...who decides you will do that and who has input.
Got great partnership with adidas across the board. Done great job with us. Started off first year as surprise, try to create a little energy in year one. When I got the job, actually at the national championship, adidas had reception at convention and had samples of uniforms right then. Made decision then to go to uniform we have right now, the traditional uniform. From there they've had all kind of different ideas. Approved through lot of different people. This uniform is one that pays tribute to team that finished fifth in country. Had one tie. Undefeated. Think it's great to recognize tradition, not just in what we do and pageantry. But also as a team. Great names on that team that were historic in Texas A&M Football as players and coaches. Think it's great we're able to have a replica uniform that's like that, not outrageous, traditional, and really representative of one of the greatest football teams to ever play here.
JOHN CHAVIS PRESS CONFERENCE
NOEL MAZZONE PRESS CONFERENCE
