Sumlin, Holgorsen give final pre-Liberty Bowl impressions

Kevin Sumlin

Opening statement (partial)…

“We’ve had a couple different gatherings with West Virginia and I know our players are starting to get on edge a little bit.  It’s about time to play the game.  Coaches, players, there’s a lot of familiarity in this game and we’ll see where that goes tomorrow.  I think what you see is that both of us are extremely similar in not just our approach to the game but how our seasons have gone.  We have identical records. We’ve won some big games and lost some games that we probably could’ve won but just didn’t. 

"We’ve got some explosive players on both teams.  A lot of times in bowl situations, there’s different scenarios as far as the excitement of the players and being ready to play.  I have no reason based on the way that our week of practice has gone to believe that our guys won’t be ready to go tomorrow”

On the bowl game giving Kyle Allen experience for next season…

“We’ve had young guys playing all year.  One game, particularly for a young quarterback, does not define you.  All I can do is talk about our team and I think that Kyle has been very, very solid since he’s started.  I think that what we’re looking for tomorrow is more consistency, not just out of our team but out of the other ten people on the field offensively.  There’s no secret that I keep putting the pressure not on our quarterback, but on our other guys.”

On how the changes Texas A&M faced this year will impact the Aggies…

“I think for me it’s just part of coaching.  If you have a season like this you’re making changes for the good of the program. When you’re successful changes are made for you because other people couldn’t get your guys—good players or good coaches.  What you have to do is be able to assess the situation for what it is, figure out what you need to do to get better for the good of the whole program and I think we’ve done that.  In the grand scheme of things, we have an opportunity to take another step, whether that's coaches, players or how we play.”

On West Virginia…

“They’ve been pretty darn good against a lot of things.  Special teams wise, they’ve got a great returner.  Defensively they’ve been solid. You take a team that’s been battle tested with a lot of really good teams I think.  Playing a tough schedule starting off the year with Alabama, beating Baylor, losing to TCU by one point—arguably three of the best teams in the country at this point in the year.  They’re not going to be intimidated and not going to be afraid of anything that we’re going to throw out there. They've played well at home and better on the road.  For whatever reason, they get excited to play in games like that.  I think it’ll be interesting to see.”

On his relationship with West Virginia Head Coach Dana Holgorsen…

“We talk all the time.  Dana is a good friend.  We used to recruit Houston together when he was at Tech and I was at Oklahoma as an assistant and battle over players, battle during games.  Then we got together and from a personal relationship I can’t tell you how much respect I have for him as a coach.  I don’t use it very much but when it comes to football and being brilliant, that’s what he is.  His ability to not only X and O but communicate with players is outstanding.”

On game expectations…

“The football is going to get snapped a lot tomorrow.  That’s kind of the way it works.  At a certain point, we got to keep our players in positions to make plays.  They’ve got some great players offensively and defensively that even if you’re there they can hurt some people.  The good news is we got some guys like that too.  What we’ve got to do is put guys in those positions.”

Dana Holgorsen

Watch Dana Holgorsen's media Q&A here.

Opening statement… 

“We’ve had four good days of practice.  All four days we were outside, dressed out, going full speed.  We were fairly prepared to play this game a week ago with how much good preparation we had in Morgantown and when we came here we repeated everything.  Our guys are in a good spot and they’ve had a great time.  We shut things down last night and had a good day of preparation today.”

On both teams starting young quarterbacks…

“If you look back at his (Skyler Howard’s) last start, he should show a bunch of improvement.  Kyle Allen is a good young player.  From the time that he played his last game against LSU until the next game tomorrow he going to show a lot of improvement as well.  Two young kids that have taken advantage of this entire month to be able to practice and prep, it’s going to be fun to see what kind of improvement both those kids are going to make.  I think both of them have a bright future and will continue to improve down the road.”

On how this game can help with next season… 

“An extra game is unbelievable, just being able to spend as much time as we’ve spent with our guys is great.  Both Texas A&M and West Virginia have a lot of kids coming back next year.  It’s going to be something that is going to be interesting to keep our eye on.  I think we’ve got nine starters coming back on defense and we’re going to have about seven on offense coming back.  That’s a lot of guys that are able to play a 13th game that we can continue to evaluate those guys and they can continue to show improvement.  Getting a win here would definitely spring board us into next year.”

On what he has seen from Skyler Howard as of late…

“He tries so hard.  I don't know if I’ve ever been around a kid that it means more to him.  He’s a perfectionist.  Everybody wants to be good.  Everybody wants to win, but he really does live it.  He was not having success, he was frustrated—this goes back for the last 11 months.  He’s been on our campus for 12 months now and for the first 11 months he wasn’t getting as many reps as he wanted and wasn’t having the success that he wanted so his confidence was down.  Once he went into the game against Kansas State and he drove us down the field, his confidence got better.  Then he got more reps and he continued to do some good things.”

On his relationship with Texas A&M Head Coach Kevin Sumlin…

“It’s been good.  It was hard for me to leave Houston.  I loved working there and loved working for Kevin.  Our working relationship was great.  I learned a lot about being a head coach from working with him.”

On Clint Trickett…

“He’s realistic.  He knew this was going to come to an end probably pretty quick.  The fact that we got 10.5 games out of him is big.  Going through what he went through last year—we went through the same thing last year.  He worked his tail off to get him in a good of shape as he possibly could.  This is no secret to anybody.  You could see him deteriorate throughout the course of the season.  He’s been preparing himself for this and knew it was going to come to an end at some point.”

On the Mountaineers' biggest defensive improvement…

“Our secondary.  Coach Mitchell and Coach DeForest have both done a tremendous job with those guys getting better.  Obviously the number one thing is Tony Gibson in the scheme and the confidence that he gives our players.  The one area that’s been fun to watch mature and it’s pretty cool because we’re going to have all those guys back next year.  Daryl Worley getting better and KJ Worley becoming just an absolute terror out there.  Karl Joseph is what Karl is and Dravon Henry gets better every week.  Terrell Chesnut may have had quietly the best year of all of them.  We get all those coming back and those guys have done a good job coaching them.