Jimbo Fisher and the fifth-ranked Aggies held their final weekly press conference on Monday inside the Kyle Field Media Center.
Jimbo Fisher and the fifth-ranked Aggies are preparing to head to Knoxville to face Tennessee (Saturday, 11 a.m., ESPN) and held their final weekly press conference on Monday inside the Kyle Field Media Center.
Fisher was joined by Kenyon Green, DeMarvin Leal and Isaiah Spiller. Videos and quotes are available below.
Opening Statement…
Glad to get back to game week. I hope we can have a good week of preparation. I thought we had a really good week of practice last week. We were able to get a lot of fundamentals worked on and got on a few things. I thought we got better and, hopefully, we can show it on the field. We need to have a great week of work this week against Tennessee. Tennessee had a good win this weekend. They are a talented football team. You look at them inside as being physical, big and strong. Their defensive front doesn’t get moved often and their edge rusher can edge any rush. Guys can hold the points and their backers are athletic and active. They have good ball skills. They have multiple secondary looks and are aggressive. They play physical in the secondary with good ball skills and can tackle well. Offensively, Eric Gray is a really good player. Their receivers are athletic, big and strong that can get down the field. They can run their lines big and strong. Their young quarterbacks came in and did a nice job for them the last couple of weeks. We need to play well with their tight end being good. Their special teams can run fake punts and they have good return guys. They like to return with receivers which makes them dangerous in the return game. They come with a punch and even try to block. They can do different things and have many looks. We are going to have to be on our A-game. This is going to be a tough SEC road game. We need to play well and practice well to get in a good week of preparation to go on the road to play a good football team.
On the talk of playoff implications and blocking out the clutter…
No we haven’t talked about it, not at all. What you do in postseason depends on what you do in the season. [Regular] season is not over, we will discuss that when we are done. We have to handle in season and play well along with preparing well, then we’ll handle our business to make decisions.
I tell them exactly what I just told you. You control where you are going to go based on what you do. Guys are either going to believe it or not. Our guys have done a great job at doing that. Eliminating the clutter and blocking it out. Those things are all poison since they don’t help you. What helps you is how you practice, play and prepare. It’s what it has to get down to and I think we have done that all year and hopefully can do that one more time before the postseason. We have done a good job of that this season and the maturity of this team has allowed us to do that.
On lobbying and no lobbying to be in the College Football Playoff…
“At that point after the season is over and if we are in a position to be able to do that, we’ll make our comments. The folks on that committee know what they are doing and how they are doing it. All the lobbying would be social media, to me, and who knows how well it works. But those people know what they are doing and how they are going to pick it. We have to take care of what we play with on the field and give them a good argument if we need one. We’ll give them the argument of how we play, not what we say.”
On upcoming signing day…
“We feel very good about our class. I love our class, or what I think will be our class. You never know until it actually becomes our class. There are a lot of guys we put the time in with that we think are good football players. Like I’ve said, we tried to hit all the positions. This day in time, we need everything. You have to get it across the board because guys leave, transfer or go out early. You have to build depth and quality to round out a team. We like the guys we have and our staff has done a great job, in my opinion. Hopefully, we can close out well and finish off by Wednesday.”
On Tennessee’s confidence …
“Their confidence is going to be up. It’s the last one of the year. They are going to play hard to finish up their season. Jeremy [Pruitt] is a heck of a coach, I’ve been around him. He was even on my staff. He was the defensive coordinator when we won the National Championship. He is going to have those guys ready to play and we are going to be ready to play on our side. It’s going to be a heck of a football game.”
On playing at Tennessee…
“Their field, unless it has changed, is 100 yards long and about 53 and a third wide. So, I think it will be the same field I have played in. You just have to lock in and play. We go on these hard trips to tough places to play and Tennessee is going to be one of them. They have an unbelievable atmosphere and environment. Which, this year with limited crowds is not going to be as big, but is still going to be a challenge. The biggest thing that makes playing at these SEC schools challenging is the atmosphere and environments, and I mean that. Everyone has good players. You can go back and look at the drafts after every year and see that everyone has guys getting drafted. It’s going to be a tough game and it is a place we haven’t been to yet. We will adapt and play well, no doubt.”
On the improvement and growth as an offensive line this season…
We are getting better as an offensive line, just working on the little things. If we want to keep improving and working on getting better each week, we have to cut out the little things we mess up on. That’s the main thing, getting that done each week. Doing that builds more confidence in the O-Line.
On the difference in opponent’s quality defensive lines this season…
Each team has great players, so we just really have to prepare for them. Tennessee, they are physical and have a big front. We are going to have to come ready to play because they are going to be ready to play.
On the College Football Playoff…
We focus on each week, we have Tennessee this week so that’s what we are focused on, Tennessee. Playoffs will come with us dominating each week like we should.
On Jimbo Fisher trusting them to run a lot…
It’s a beautiful feeling, that means he trusts us. With that trust we have to be prepared for each week. Preparing to be the best that we can be.
On the growth of the offensive line and classmate Kenyon Green…
I have seen Kenyon Green grow and I have seen our whole offensive line grow. Their chemistry, you can tell has developed in a very unique way. For them to be able to just run the ball and have the chemistry when it comes to the blocks, knowing where they need to be, knowing each other’s strengths and weaknesses and prospering each other to become better is very crazy and it amazes me every day. Kenyon Green, that dude is hard to get past, he really is. He is a monster and very destructive when it comes to helping with the combo block and blocking somebody by himself.
On the team’s practices …
We practice every single day like it is a game, honestly. When we go good-on-good it’s like a full game. That is how we get prepared for the games, we practice like it is a game and we try to make each other better.
On the team’s mindset and finishing the season strong…
The goal for the end of the season is to finish, to keep doing what we have been doing, to keep pushing, to keep climbing and going over those steppingstones. We have to figure out who we want to be and how great we want to be.
On preparing for the Tennessee game…
Just treatment and getting in the ice tub for me has helped. I feel like practice has really helped us a lot and we have gotten more practice time and more time to evaluate our opponents and get a better game plan. It has given us time to heal up and finish out this season.
On playing on the road…
It is very different playing on the road. You are in a hostile environment and nobody is cheering for you, so you have to bring your own energy. We just have to play together and be composed and play football in the best way we can each and every play.
On finishing the season strong…
Coach Fisher has been emphasizing finishing strong, so I feel like the whole team is really focused on this game, we are really pumped and ready to play.
On the College Football Playoff…
We just worry about practice today. Coach Fisher told us not to worry about that, it’s just all noise and all clutter. We are really knocking out the clutter and focusing on us as a team and just keep playing every week.
On the “run the ball until they stop you” game plan…
That is his mentality and that’s our mentality too. I feel like when we get the run game going, we are pretty hard to stop because then we can hit you with a pass. We are all-around a good team but when our run game is going we are pretty hard to stop.