September 30, 1997
Do you think the 1995 A&M-CU game was a turning point for the Aggie program? What did you learn from it?
"No. I don't see it that way to start with. If I learned anything from the game, it was that I allowed our players to be put in a situation where it's almost like the only way they could come out of there and survive was to blowout Colorado and that's really unfair to them. Looking at how we played and after the game, I allowed other people and the situation to put too much pressure on them to the point that the game became not something they were looking forward to or something that was fun to them. It became something where 'Gosh, we have to go win this game or we have to do this because if we don't win then this-and-that.' It shouldn't be that way and I don't think you perform well when you're like that. It has to be a free-wheeling kind of a thing where you say 'We've prepared well and we're going to go up there and find out; find out if we're good enough. We're going to go play and give it our best shot and either we are or we aren't.' I just felt watching us play that we were tight. It was a big ball game for us."
Do you think if a team is ranked high and the head coach tries to downplay it and say his team isn't that good, that his team will believe they're not that good and will lose confidence?
"Maybe so. I just fault myself for not working harder at disclaiming alot of those things (that happened in 1995) and telling the players, 'Look, don't get caught up into this thing. Go about your business. We have a great trip up to Colorado. Go up there and have fun and go play the game. Go out and play and give it our best shot.' I really think you have to keep it that way. It's a tight rope of being focused but not to the point of being tight."
How much did that game carry over?
"It carried over a lot. I really think it impacted our play the next week. We allowed it to be such a disappointment, such an ongoing thing. It should have been 'we went up there and played on the road against a top 10 team, got beat 29-21, good ballgame, had some plays to make but didn't make them, let's go to next week,' and we didn't do that. We rehashed it and what we did wrong. I take responsibilty for allowing that to happen."
You've been saying from the get-go that the biggest area of concern for A&M is the secondary. Do you think Colorado could another BYU game for A&M?
"No. Schematically, I think we are better than we were against BYU. I think that was one of those things where it was a runaway train and we couldn't get it stopped. I think our players are a little more experienced now than they were then. I couldn't see that happening then and I certainly don't see it happening again. Now whether it does or not remains to be seen. In terms of looking at our team, I think it's a legitimate question. If you look at us, yeah, they're 3-0 but they haven't played anyone. I think those are all legitimate questions. Looking at it from my perspective I would be the first to say that we're not a great team. If you say we're one of the top 10 or 12 team right now, I'd say that not the case. Based on being around good teams, I'd say we're not there right now. We're not a bad team either. We're one of those that if we can keep guys healthy and keep going along here, somehow beat Colorado then we could develop as the year goes along into being a pretty good team. Now we're not going to be one of those dominating teams that we can just trot out on the field and overwhelm people. There were times over the years where you could say if we don't screw up, we're going to be hard to beat from here on in. You play three or four games and you say 'You know what, if we keep these guys healthy, we'll be a hard team to beat.' I wouldn't say that right now. We're a team right now that if we play together as a team and we complement the offense, the defense and the special teams, then we'll be all right and we'll be able to compete with anybody we play all year."
You've always had a standout guy in the secondary, but not last year or this year. Do you miss those type of guys?
"Sure. Dang right. We don't have a polished big-time player in the secondary, not a one. We've got some journey-man, steady guys that are working hard. We've got some potential guys. I think a guy like Brandon Jennings that started as a true freshman could develop into something like that. Jason Webster certainly has a chance to develop into something special for us. Jason Glenn is a guy. Toya (Jones) may end up being a pretty good player, but he hasn't played a whole lot. Your evaluation is correct. We don't have a star guy back there. If you look at our team we don't have many stars. We've got some good young talent. We've got solid running backs, we've got quarterbacks that are getting better, the tight ends are solid. Dat Nguyen is a football-playing Jessie, but to say he's a first round draft pick, I'm not going that far. That's what I'm talking about: there's Sam Adams, there's Greg Hill, there's Patrick Bates. Right now I don't see a lot of those."
Does the zone blitz help the team?
"It helps us. It helps us a bunch, because we don't just have to lock on to people. We can disrupt offenses without having to go one-on-one. It always you to scheme a little and hide some things. We have some years in the past where we didn't care if you saw it or not. We'll put our four guys on your four and bring everybody else. You could see it and we didn't care if you saw it. But we care now."
Tuesday Injury Update: Missing Tuesday's workout were: RB Jason Bragg (knee); OG Steve McKinney (sprained foot).