Jackie Sherrill discusses UA contest, need for offensive consistency

Key quotes from Jackie Sherrill interview

“Special teams is an ‘A+.’ You have two senior kickers, punter and kicker. Both of them are very, very good. Matter fact, both of them will compete to be all-conference players. Then when you look at the return team, and when you put Kirk and Speedy Noil together, you can’t kick away from either one of them. And certainly on the punt returns, Kirk has been very electrifying. Now, defensively, there is no question, with Garrett and Hall. The one that’s really been impressive is Daylon Mack. When you look at his quickness, he’s a young man that’s going to get better and better. Right now, on a scale 1 to 10,based  his play technique, use of his hands, getting rid of blocks, anticipating -- he’s probably at a five compared to where he really will go. He’s just making plays on sheer talent right now.”

“When you go back in the history of A&M, you’ve had Roper and Wallace, you know, you’ve had some great outside rush guys. I don’t know the last great linebacker A&M’s had. It has been years. I think the corners are better, I really like the inside people, Armani Watts.  I’m not sure that Armani Watts couldn’t play closer to the line of scrimmage if he played in the open field. I think when you look at the corners ... De’Vante Harris has shown improvement. This style of defense really fits Harris. Overall, defensively, they have played well.  But, if you compare to last year, you have to say it’s an ‘A’ or even an ‘A+,' but we still have a long way to go.  Offensively, we have not hit the stride yet.  Even though we’ve scored points, we haven’t been really consistent on every possession. The weapons that A&M has at receiver, I don’t know if there’s anyone in the conference that can match up man-for-man all the way across.”

“The offense is going to improve, it takes time.  Any time you have a change, especially in the offensive line, defensive line, and some of the philosophy and some the techniques – it takes time.  I think the talent is certainly there and they’re going to get better and better every week.  Now, the challenge this week is you’re going against a team that is not bad.  Arkansas is better than what their record is.  They’ve had some problems in the offensive line in offensive protection.  You know, they moved a guard from guard to offensive tackle, and he’s not a tackle.  If you put him at tackle this week, you might give Myles Garrett 10 sacks.”

“I think Arkansas will come to play and play hard.  We’ll certainly have to play well. This game is important for two reasons. One, it means that you’re now 1-0 in the conference and you’re in the hunt. If you look at the stats, Arkansas is just only rushing 171 yards a game but they’re throwing for 305.  I probably could have anticipated Arkansas coming out the first game, with who they were playing, to really work harder and work on the throwing game and work on it a little more. but since when did you think you would go into a game with Arkansas and think they would have more passing yards than Texas A&M?”

“We can’t look forward to the next two games even though we want to start talking about the end results.  We’re not there yet.  It’s going to take some time for us to get there.  I just hope that we are there at the end.  There’s a lot of things that are still missing.  What you really want to see is being consistent, being consistent offensively.  You go back to Johnny’s push here, you dominated everybody offensively and that’s because you were always consistent offensively.  It didn’t matter what you put out there defensively, offensively they took care of it.  The tools are there.  You look at receivers, they talk about Mississippi having some of the best, well Mississippi has two guys.  Alabama really doesn’t really have a dominating receiver.  You look around the SEC, how many teams in the SEC can match A&M in receivers? I don’t see any that can."

“Don’t count Alabama out.  Even giving the ball away five times and giving 47 points up, they still had a chance to win it at the end.  So, they’re not out of the race."

"Right now, I’ve seen two dominating players defensively in the SEC and that’s Robert Nkemdiche and Myles Garrett."