Football Holds Fall Camp Media Day

Football held its annual Media Day on Sunday morning, taking the team photo and then meeting the press inside the Kyle Field Media Center.

You can watch the press conferences below in addition to read select comments from the session.

Two Takes: Jimbo Fisher

With the shuffling of coaching responsibilities, Fisher was asked about how maybe his day-to-day practice routine changes now that he’s not coaching a specific position or side of the ball. “You're able to bounce a lot more…Your emphases and your times are straight, knowing that if you leave over here that's going to be taken care of and you can work back in different areas and spend time on areas of need--just what you see on film. That’s why we watch film together every day. And there's some emphasis, when the head coach is at a drill and there's a part that needs emphasized? That says that's very important. So sometimes that even gives kids greater urgency to execute and do the things you’ve got to do. So you're able to communicate with a lot greater group of guys.”
Fisher later discussed the volume of freshmen that saw the field for the Aggies last year and whether he played more than he wanted to…he pointed out the reasons varied—sometimes athletic ability, sometimes injuries. “Like Conner (Weigman)…you bring Conner in a situation when he's ready for a situation. You want to bring all freshmen on when they're ready. Because what you never want to destroy in an athlete is confidence. You never want to put him in a compromising position. You say, well, he's got ability, but is he ready to play? Just because he’s athletic doesn’t mean he can play well. Just because he plays well doesn’t mean he can play winning football There's a difference. You want to put those guys at those points when you feel they're ready by watching the consistency in which they play…So when you put a freshman in, it has nothing to do with his abilities…now, if you’re forced to, you're forced to. If you're forced to you want to put them where you think they can handle the situation because when they fail, it ain't failing like it used to be 30 years ago. They get destroyed. they get destroyed by y'all, they get destroyed by social media, they get destroyed by the fans. And whether you think that affects them or not, it does. It drastically does what they read about themselves because that's their world today. So you can destroy a young player much faster than you can make him, and you’ve got to be very careful. When you're talking about playing freshmen, you want to play them when you think they're ready to handle what you're asking them to handle.”

Two Takes: Elijah Robinson

Robinson was asked about the recent passing of his friend and coaching companion, Terry Price, and how that’s affected his group. “Yeah, obviously Coach Price meant a lot to many of us, not just the D-line. I think the biggest thing I see out this unit is they don't care who gets the credit. And that's the biggest accomplishment you can have as a unit. You don't care who gets the credit. You just want to work as a unit. I think that's when you know you’ve got a special group.”
Robinson was later asked about how to keep such a talented group of linemen in his meeting room happy throughout the fall and into the season, and he reiterated what was mentioned earlier. “There’s no distance the word ‘unit’ can go as long as they understand it doesn't matter who gets the credit. And those guys are close. They spend a lot of time together. They have a real relationship with each other. And those guys, they always say ‘Everybody shines together’. That's what they say. So when you've got a unit that's unselfish, that doesn’t care who gets the credit, it doesn't matter how many are in a room as long as we had success at the end of the day.”

Two Takes: DJ Durkin

The Aggies’ second-year defensive coordinator was asked about the difference in comfort level, going into year two versus being in year one at this time—and it’s not a surprise that he notices a huge difference. “That's a normal transition. In the first year, everything's a first, from training camp, just knowing how things go, how the schedule runs, knowing your guys. One of the biggest things I think you do as a coach is really know your personnel really well and build what you do and how you do it based on their strengths. And sometimes it's hard to see all of that right away. You kind of learn as you go. So I feel much more comfortable about knowing our personnel now, this year. And I think those guys have the same comfort level with me and how we do things and what our scheme is and everything else. So absolutely. We're much further along.”
Durkin will directly oversee the linebacker core this fall and discussed what he’s seen from the group so far. “I love the competition in the room right now. I talked about it with them the other day. It's really good. It's a healthy competition. Those guys are great people, first and foremost, in that room, which is awesome. They really care about one another in there and they're competing. And you can do both those things, right? You can care for the guy next to you, but also go out there on the field and try to beat each other out for reps in the first spot. And so that's only going to make us all better. There's really good competition…(In reference to) some of the guys that we've brought in, they check all the boxes for us and so we're happy to have them.”

Two Takes: Bobby Petrino

Right off the top, the Aggies’ new offensive coordinator was asked why Texas A&M? To him, two words. “Coach Fisher. My respect for him and our ability to compete against each other when we're in the same conference…my knowledge of his success and what he likes to do on offense made it very, very attractive. When I was coaching at Missouri State, I was having a great time. One of my goals there was to mentor and raise young coaches. So that was a lot of fun. But I always had the itch to get back to this conference and be able to coach at this level. So it's been a lot of fun.” He also addressed rumors about the two coaches not getting along, pointing out “That's not really how it works. Coach is the boss, all right? My job is to try to keep him happy and make sure that everything works the way he wants it to work. I understand that more than probably anybody because of the number of years that I've been the head coach…I work for Coach Fisher. This is his program. I'm very, very impressed. That's one of the reasons I came here, is because of my knowledge of how he runs a program. It's my job to make sure I'm working hard every day. It's been fun, though.”
Petrino was asked about the tempo of his offense, but said that he feels that term is a bit overused. “We're not going be helter-skelter and just go as fast as we can. The ability to change tempo and go fast, slow down, huddle, do different things…I think (that) has a bigger effect on defenses. The way I look at it is maybe we create an advantage. Everything I like to do in offense is to create an advantage. Create an advantage in the run game, create advantages in the pass game, and take advantage of personnel matchups. So our tempo will be used to create advantages and see how we think we can attack them better and get our players in in the position where they make plays.”

Two Takes: Conner Weigman

It should come as no surprise that Weigman is way more settled in then last year at this time. “It's not even close. Last year, just coming in as a freshman, your head is spinning, you don't know what's going on. You're trying to just figure it out. And just to be able to be comfortable within the offense, know what's going on, know the checks and the run checks, pass protections and know where you're going with the ball? It's been just a crazy difference from where I was a year ago.”
Weigman raved when asked about the team’s growth in leadership over the offseason. “It's been huge, and it's not just a couple of guys. It's dang near the whole team. Just being able to step up, show that maturity and know the work that we have to put in in order to be successful, I feel like everyone's doing that.”

Two Takes: Max Johnson

Johnson is among a group of players in the quarterback room who spend more time with Bobby Petrino than any others on the team, considering he’s coaching their position group as well. “I love working with Coach Petrino. I think he's done a great job of bringing accountability to all our players and the offense. A lot of people are excited to learn from him and kind of pick his brain. He's done a great job of kind of controlling the offense and figuring out who the players are, how they are, how he should coach them differently from each player. I think it's been a great spring and a great fall camp so far.”
He was also asked about the quarterback battle and how it’s helping the growth of both. “I think we both really push each other every single day. We both make great throws. He'll make a great throw one play, I'll make great throw one play. And I think just bouncing energy off each other and leading this team has been really good for our team. Being able to have two guys that have played some college football has been big for our team.”

Two Takes: Noah Thomas

Mark down Thomas as one of many players who’s pumped about the team’s chemistry this season. “The vibe has been pretty great. We’ve added a lot of new guys to the team who bring a lot of energy and just great vibes, really, throughout the whole summer--just working hard and having fun with it. That's the most important part. I felt like we weren't we weren't having enough fun with it last year. We had a lot of pressure on us and stuff like that, but we’ve still got to perform. And this past summer we've been grinding with the whole team. It's been good.”
Thomas was asked whether he was surprised that he won the Offensive MVP award during spring practice. “Umm…I don't think it surprised me. I came in to the spring with a chip on my shoulder, trying to prove people that I can help the team try and get more wins and stuff like that. So, no, I don't think it surprised me. But I definitely came in with a different attitude, different mindset.”

Two Takes: Bryce Anderson

Anderson, a sophomore, was part of the country’s top secondary unit last season—but the defense as a whole saw its struggles especially against the run. That contradiction has made an older unit in 2023 even more hungry. “We most definitely take a lot of pride in knowing that we were one of the top pass defenses in the country. But we also, like Coach Durkin said, were not very good against the run. We still go into practice, like…we're going to the team run periods? We emphasize we're going to stop the run. We're not giving up any run plays, while still keeping that same mentality against the pass. That's only gonna make us be more great.”
As you might imagine, the competitive juices flow a little faster when Anderson’s secondary group goes toe-to-toe with the Aggie wideouts. “Oh, man. Competitive. Real competitive, we don't want them to catch no balls on us, and they always want to try to cook us, always want to get a snag on us. So we bring competitiveness every day. It's no days off. You're going to get embarrassed. That's the mindset you've got to have whenever you’re guarding those receivers.”