Head coach Kevin Sumlin, coordinators Jake Spavital and John Chavis and select players met the media on Tuesday at the weekly football press conference inside the Kyle Field Media Center.
The Aggies close the regular season Saturday night at 6:30 p.m. against LSU in Baton Rouge.
A summary of Coach Sumlin's comments is posted below.
What a win would mean for team and program. Think a big deal for fans and big deal for seniors. You heard me say weeks ago these (seniors) are the pioneers. First group to come into this league. Met with them the other day about where they are and what's important to them. Look back at being there, the new guys in this league, expectations guys set for program are a lot higher than when I got here. Will continue to rise. Fact they've won 36 games in 4 years, this could get them to 37 and the possibility of 2 double-digit seasons in 4 years…if someone had said that 4 years ago, only people who would have believed that were the guys and the coaches we talked into coming here. That's where this program has come. These guys have a lot to do with that. That being said, this is the one program they haven't beaten in the west in their time here. Think it's something they want to accomplish. First group to go into SEC and the opportunity to have a victory over every western division opponent. Something we've talked about. What I care about more is how players feel, what's important to this group, and accomplishing those things. Think that's important to them. Whether we can get that done or not, it will be another big task for us. This team is dangerous. Lost 3 in row but certainly have the skill level, particularly offensively. Tremendous weapons. Can score points quickly. Have to eliminate the big play, try to keep things in front of us. Big play can come on perimeter. Also have to be committed to stopping run like we did at Vanderbilt. They put together a challenge for us offensively. Got real good speed defensively. 2 really good linebackers, 2 really good defensive ends. And everyone knows about the DBs back there. That's what makes this game the game that it is for us. Lot of players on this field--coaches and players--that have played against each other and recruited against each other. Some guys played at the same high school. Lot more of that than you'd think is involved in this football game.
Having John Chavis on your side this year. There's some familiarity with a lot of things. We lost last year by 6. That was a tough loss at end of year. I think there's some familiarity on both sides. He worked there too. They went against him every day also. People forget about that. Look at where we are. Are we defensively where we want to be, completely? No. I'd tell you that. John would tell you that. But without a doubt we've improved. Our run defense will be tested Saturday night. Last week we made some strides in that area. Anytime you have first shutout in 11 years you're doing something. Will be interesting to see how that plays out with (Leonard) Fournette. Got the #1 rushing attack in league. We're way down in stats on that. But somehow last few weeks have found way to play better up front. Personnel switches. Lot of energy. Have to bring same energy we had in Nashville to Baton Rouge.
Kyle Allen. Thought Kyle did what we asked him to do. Valued the football. No turnovers Saturday night. Had one or two ill-advised throws. But other than that when he missed down in red zone he missed high and away from people. Protected points. That was a real point of emphasis last week. That directive, he carried out. Didn't turn ball over and protected ball pretty well. Moved ball well. Weren't very good in red zone. That was #1 red zone defense in SEC. That's not an excuse for us. Had to kick 6 field goals. We could be better in red zone. Need to be better. But for us to play way we did Saturday night, we had most yards Vanderbilt gave up this year. Yards didn't equate to number of touchdowns we would like to have. Have to be better there.
Improvements in run game. Schematically things that are different. Tra Carson has been running well. Without a doubt James White being healthy, he's probably 90-95% now. Able to play him 10-15 snaps a game. What you saw early in year was Tra in the second half being tired. What you see now is Tra Carson in 2nd half being stronger. That's because hasn't played as many snaps early in the game. Been able to be effective recently in second half as much as anything. Gave us ability to close games out we had trouble closing out a year ago. Get some tough yards. Rotation of those 2 guys really helped.
Kyle as starter vs LSU. I answered that Saturday night. Said we're good with where we are. We're ready to roll.
Importance to get on top of LSU early. Just like any game we'd like to score first, get ahead and stay ahead. Understand what you're saying. Anytime you're on road want to start fast. Try to get crowd a little bit calmed down. No secret we like to start fast no matter where you are. Started fast a lot here. Finishing fast is just as important. No matter how game starts sure you'd like to do that. What's happened here recently, there have been some adjustments offensively and defensively during the football game that gave us opportunity to close out last few games. Consistency on the road to me has been the key to winning. When you can be consistent and when bad things happen the ability to limit the reaction to whatever bad happens is a big thing, when the crowd gets on top of you. If start fast doesn't happen, have to be ready to play, have to be able to answer. Team football game. What we've done best last few weeks is play really well as a team. Created long fields special-teams wise. Guys covered well on kickoffs and punts. Drew Kaser has punted ball well. That helps your defense. Blocked a punt. Defense got a shutout but there were other things that happened. Offense didn't turn ball over on other side of 50. When you're on the road things like that become even more important.
Speedy Noil, Josh Reynolds. We need those guys to play that way. Responded. Suspended a week ago, they came back and practiced at level they needed to. That showed during game. When you get into games like that, Vanderbilt really did some things a little bit different than they had done. Showed some different alignments. Took us some time to figure out. We've got to have guys on perimeter that make those plays. Got the guys able to make it, Josh and Speedy are guys on edge that have to be able to do that to really back people up off us and score points. Also helps the run game. If guys will load it up in there have to have guys on perimeter who can make plays 1-on-1, 50-50 balls. Will have to continue down that road, particularly this week, based on style of play that we have right now. Tra really has done nice job creating the situation where people are dropping another hat in there and giving us some 1-on-1s on perimeter. We will need everyone this Saturday night.
Feel for Les Miles. I have a lot of respect for Les and what he's accomplished in 11 years. Gotten to know him over last 4 years in league. Don't know enough about what's going on over there. I hear things, believe it or not. Feel for any coach. Lot of them this year. Every situation is different. I don't know details. But you can't help it, in this business in particular. Think Mike Slive said it best. Meet as 14 guys in a room, lot of personalities in the room, but it's like 14 guys who live in same house. Fighting for same thing all the time. But there's a relationship and there's a respect. I can tell you I have a lot of respect for what Les Miles has done and is doing as coach at LSU.
What Kyle Allen keeps showing you. Kid battles. Got to give him lot of credit how he handles every situation. Comes in every day, wants to get better. Tries to improve every day. Can tell he has a short-term memory. Overcomes it in games. Tries to fix it. Playing at a high level right now.
What Kyle did last week to earn starting job back. Throwing ball efficiently. Doing great job of getting through progressions, making smart decisions with the ball. We've struggled with turnovers from a quarterback standpoint and he's doing a great job taking what the defense gives him. Not making ill-advised throws that can cause turnovers. That's what it boils down to. Ball security.
Looking forward to not having to face John Chavis this week. Definitely. But he did recruit a lot of those guys to LSU. Done a great job for us. Know it's an emotional game for him. Recruited a lot of these kids. We have a tough challenge. Have to correct mistakes from Vanderbilt. Go out and compete.
LSU's defense. Tweaked it a little bit. You see little bit of Alabama sprinkled in from what Chief was doing last year. Still a very talented defense. Will be a tough challenge.
Red zone issues more what Vanderbilt did or lack of execution. Little of both. Stingy defense. We knew that going in. Did great job of outnumbering us in run game and forcing pretty tough throws for Kyle. Looking at it though we did good job of taking care of ball and at least getting points. Did some things we hadn't seen, we corrected it and moved on. Ready to push on to LSU.
3rd down conversions, play-calling or execution. Both. Were things we could execute better, and things where I could have put them in better positions. They showed us some things we hadn't seen before but we corrected and made some crucial third downs later in game.
Kyler Murray. In a good spot. Been a roller coaster in the quarterback room the entire year. Lots of highs, lots of lows. Every QB in the room all just open-minded about it and are supporting the person going out on the field, while at same time trying to improve their game as well. But Kyler is in really good spot right now.
Was it youth helping keeping competition open. No – think comes down to performance. If someone playing consistent throughout season wouldn't be having it.
Backup Saturday. Last week was going to be Jake (Hubenak) going in. Open back up again. How it is each week. Put them in a lot of tough situations in practice. Both did great job yesterday.
Certainly a lot easier coming in here this Tuesday. Things we accomplished last week. Made some strides we had hoped to make earlier. But is what it is. Really proud of team and how they competed on road. Even more proud of fans and how they supported us. Dang near a home game for us.
Facing a defense with so many guys you recruited and your relationship with them. It's a good relationship. We're competitors and we will compete. That makes it somewhat different. Don't say difficult, because when the time comes to compete that's what you go do. Lot of good kids there I really care for and wish them the best, but not on this Saturday. Looking forward to getting to Baton Rouge. Lot of preparation to do before that time. Head that way with idea we intend to play well.
Confidence of shutout. Kids were excited about it. Should be. Aren't easy to come by. Had some challenges with Vanderbilt. Their strength was running the football. We hadn't been very good against the run. Think our guys understood what they needed to do. First goal was to win football game, which we did. Offense did great job moving ball up and down field. We went out there and got stops when we needed to. Really excited about how they played on back end. Continue to be strong in fourth quarter. Plus for us all year. Been things to build on. Things helped us in this ballgame that we got accomplished last week in practice. That's what we have to do this week too. Know they'll be more confident after shutout.
Anticipate any extra emotion walking into Tiger Stadium. No. Been there a bunch. Spent 6 years there but had been a bunch before that. SEC football. What it's all about. I'm excited about walking in there as an Aggie.
LSU offense. Very fine offensive football team. Put up big numbers last week, just didn't score points. Had 500 yards of total offense. Big playmakers all over field. Talented quarterback. Healthy in offensive line again. But hey it's SEC football. It's big boy football. Have to bring your "A" game. That's what we'll prepare to do.
Things going on in Baton Rouge. This will be about Texas A&M and LSU on the football field. Don't know what is going on and not concerned about it. Moved on. Spent 6 years at Baton Rouge. People were great to me. Won a conference championship. Lot of great memories. My focus on A&M and getting them ready to play this week.
Leonard Fournette. He's one of the better if not the best back in the country. From year I was around him, he's an outstanding young man. First-class act. Blessed with a lot of talent. Worked to make it work for him. Will pose a challenge for anyone facing him.
The Aggies close the regular season Saturday night at 6:30 p.m. against LSU in Baton Rouge.
A summary of Coach Sumlin's comments is posted below.
KEVIN SUMLIN PRESS CONFERENCE SUMMARY
What a win would mean for team and program. Think a big deal for fans and big deal for seniors. You heard me say weeks ago these (seniors) are the pioneers. First group to come into this league. Met with them the other day about where they are and what's important to them. Look back at being there, the new guys in this league, expectations guys set for program are a lot higher than when I got here. Will continue to rise. Fact they've won 36 games in 4 years, this could get them to 37 and the possibility of 2 double-digit seasons in 4 years…if someone had said that 4 years ago, only people who would have believed that were the guys and the coaches we talked into coming here. That's where this program has come. These guys have a lot to do with that. That being said, this is the one program they haven't beaten in the west in their time here. Think it's something they want to accomplish. First group to go into SEC and the opportunity to have a victory over every western division opponent. Something we've talked about. What I care about more is how players feel, what's important to this group, and accomplishing those things. Think that's important to them. Whether we can get that done or not, it will be another big task for us. This team is dangerous. Lost 3 in row but certainly have the skill level, particularly offensively. Tremendous weapons. Can score points quickly. Have to eliminate the big play, try to keep things in front of us. Big play can come on perimeter. Also have to be committed to stopping run like we did at Vanderbilt. They put together a challenge for us offensively. Got real good speed defensively. 2 really good linebackers, 2 really good defensive ends. And everyone knows about the DBs back there. That's what makes this game the game that it is for us. Lot of players on this field--coaches and players--that have played against each other and recruited against each other. Some guys played at the same high school. Lot more of that than you'd think is involved in this football game.
Having John Chavis on your side this year. There's some familiarity with a lot of things. We lost last year by 6. That was a tough loss at end of year. I think there's some familiarity on both sides. He worked there too. They went against him every day also. People forget about that. Look at where we are. Are we defensively where we want to be, completely? No. I'd tell you that. John would tell you that. But without a doubt we've improved. Our run defense will be tested Saturday night. Last week we made some strides in that area. Anytime you have first shutout in 11 years you're doing something. Will be interesting to see how that plays out with (Leonard) Fournette. Got the #1 rushing attack in league. We're way down in stats on that. But somehow last few weeks have found way to play better up front. Personnel switches. Lot of energy. Have to bring same energy we had in Nashville to Baton Rouge.
Kyle Allen. Thought Kyle did what we asked him to do. Valued the football. No turnovers Saturday night. Had one or two ill-advised throws. But other than that when he missed down in red zone he missed high and away from people. Protected points. That was a real point of emphasis last week. That directive, he carried out. Didn't turn ball over and protected ball pretty well. Moved ball well. Weren't very good in red zone. That was #1 red zone defense in SEC. That's not an excuse for us. Had to kick 6 field goals. We could be better in red zone. Need to be better. But for us to play way we did Saturday night, we had most yards Vanderbilt gave up this year. Yards didn't equate to number of touchdowns we would like to have. Have to be better there.
Improvements in run game. Schematically things that are different. Tra Carson has been running well. Without a doubt James White being healthy, he's probably 90-95% now. Able to play him 10-15 snaps a game. What you saw early in year was Tra in the second half being tired. What you see now is Tra Carson in 2nd half being stronger. That's because hasn't played as many snaps early in the game. Been able to be effective recently in second half as much as anything. Gave us ability to close games out we had trouble closing out a year ago. Get some tough yards. Rotation of those 2 guys really helped.
Kyle as starter vs LSU. I answered that Saturday night. Said we're good with where we are. We're ready to roll.
Importance to get on top of LSU early. Just like any game we'd like to score first, get ahead and stay ahead. Understand what you're saying. Anytime you're on road want to start fast. Try to get crowd a little bit calmed down. No secret we like to start fast no matter where you are. Started fast a lot here. Finishing fast is just as important. No matter how game starts sure you'd like to do that. What's happened here recently, there have been some adjustments offensively and defensively during the football game that gave us opportunity to close out last few games. Consistency on the road to me has been the key to winning. When you can be consistent and when bad things happen the ability to limit the reaction to whatever bad happens is a big thing, when the crowd gets on top of you. If start fast doesn't happen, have to be ready to play, have to be able to answer. Team football game. What we've done best last few weeks is play really well as a team. Created long fields special-teams wise. Guys covered well on kickoffs and punts. Drew Kaser has punted ball well. That helps your defense. Blocked a punt. Defense got a shutout but there were other things that happened. Offense didn't turn ball over on other side of 50. When you're on the road things like that become even more important.
Speedy Noil, Josh Reynolds. We need those guys to play that way. Responded. Suspended a week ago, they came back and practiced at level they needed to. That showed during game. When you get into games like that, Vanderbilt really did some things a little bit different than they had done. Showed some different alignments. Took us some time to figure out. We've got to have guys on perimeter that make those plays. Got the guys able to make it, Josh and Speedy are guys on edge that have to be able to do that to really back people up off us and score points. Also helps the run game. If guys will load it up in there have to have guys on perimeter who can make plays 1-on-1, 50-50 balls. Will have to continue down that road, particularly this week, based on style of play that we have right now. Tra really has done nice job creating the situation where people are dropping another hat in there and giving us some 1-on-1s on perimeter. We will need everyone this Saturday night.
Feel for Les Miles. I have a lot of respect for Les and what he's accomplished in 11 years. Gotten to know him over last 4 years in league. Don't know enough about what's going on over there. I hear things, believe it or not. Feel for any coach. Lot of them this year. Every situation is different. I don't know details. But you can't help it, in this business in particular. Think Mike Slive said it best. Meet as 14 guys in a room, lot of personalities in the room, but it's like 14 guys who live in same house. Fighting for same thing all the time. But there's a relationship and there's a respect. I can tell you I have a lot of respect for what Les Miles has done and is doing as coach at LSU.
JAKE SPAVITAL PRESS CONFERENCE
What Kyle Allen keeps showing you. Kid battles. Got to give him lot of credit how he handles every situation. Comes in every day, wants to get better. Tries to improve every day. Can tell he has a short-term memory. Overcomes it in games. Tries to fix it. Playing at a high level right now.
What Kyle did last week to earn starting job back. Throwing ball efficiently. Doing great job of getting through progressions, making smart decisions with the ball. We've struggled with turnovers from a quarterback standpoint and he's doing a great job taking what the defense gives him. Not making ill-advised throws that can cause turnovers. That's what it boils down to. Ball security.
Looking forward to not having to face John Chavis this week. Definitely. But he did recruit a lot of those guys to LSU. Done a great job for us. Know it's an emotional game for him. Recruited a lot of these kids. We have a tough challenge. Have to correct mistakes from Vanderbilt. Go out and compete.
LSU's defense. Tweaked it a little bit. You see little bit of Alabama sprinkled in from what Chief was doing last year. Still a very talented defense. Will be a tough challenge.
Red zone issues more what Vanderbilt did or lack of execution. Little of both. Stingy defense. We knew that going in. Did great job of outnumbering us in run game and forcing pretty tough throws for Kyle. Looking at it though we did good job of taking care of ball and at least getting points. Did some things we hadn't seen, we corrected it and moved on. Ready to push on to LSU.
3rd down conversions, play-calling or execution. Both. Were things we could execute better, and things where I could have put them in better positions. They showed us some things we hadn't seen before but we corrected and made some crucial third downs later in game.
Kyler Murray. In a good spot. Been a roller coaster in the quarterback room the entire year. Lots of highs, lots of lows. Every QB in the room all just open-minded about it and are supporting the person going out on the field, while at same time trying to improve their game as well. But Kyler is in really good spot right now.
Was it youth helping keeping competition open. No – think comes down to performance. If someone playing consistent throughout season wouldn't be having it.
Backup Saturday. Last week was going to be Jake (Hubenak) going in. Open back up again. How it is each week. Put them in a lot of tough situations in practice. Both did great job yesterday.
JOHN CHAVIS PRESS CONFERENCE SUMMARY
Certainly a lot easier coming in here this Tuesday. Things we accomplished last week. Made some strides we had hoped to make earlier. But is what it is. Really proud of team and how they competed on road. Even more proud of fans and how they supported us. Dang near a home game for us.
Facing a defense with so many guys you recruited and your relationship with them. It's a good relationship. We're competitors and we will compete. That makes it somewhat different. Don't say difficult, because when the time comes to compete that's what you go do. Lot of good kids there I really care for and wish them the best, but not on this Saturday. Looking forward to getting to Baton Rouge. Lot of preparation to do before that time. Head that way with idea we intend to play well.
Confidence of shutout. Kids were excited about it. Should be. Aren't easy to come by. Had some challenges with Vanderbilt. Their strength was running the football. We hadn't been very good against the run. Think our guys understood what they needed to do. First goal was to win football game, which we did. Offense did great job moving ball up and down field. We went out there and got stops when we needed to. Really excited about how they played on back end. Continue to be strong in fourth quarter. Plus for us all year. Been things to build on. Things helped us in this ballgame that we got accomplished last week in practice. That's what we have to do this week too. Know they'll be more confident after shutout.
Anticipate any extra emotion walking into Tiger Stadium. No. Been there a bunch. Spent 6 years there but had been a bunch before that. SEC football. What it's all about. I'm excited about walking in there as an Aggie.
LSU offense. Very fine offensive football team. Put up big numbers last week, just didn't score points. Had 500 yards of total offense. Big playmakers all over field. Talented quarterback. Healthy in offensive line again. But hey it's SEC football. It's big boy football. Have to bring your "A" game. That's what we'll prepare to do.
Things going on in Baton Rouge. This will be about Texas A&M and LSU on the football field. Don't know what is going on and not concerned about it. Moved on. Spent 6 years at Baton Rouge. People were great to me. Won a conference championship. Lot of great memories. My focus on A&M and getting them ready to play this week.
Leonard Fournette. He's one of the better if not the best back in the country. From year I was around him, he's an outstanding young man. First-class act. Blessed with a lot of talent. Worked to make it work for him. Will pose a challenge for anyone facing him.