John Chavis in-studio: Year two with Aggies, defensive guarantees & more
Key quotes from John Chavis interview
“The evaluation process is taking up a lot of time right now. You’re traveling around and trying to get in the right places at the right time. That part of it is fun. I enjoy the interaction with the head coaches in high school football. The thing about it is that you make a plan and say, ‘Okay, I’d like to get four or five schools in today.’ You’d like to get five, and you end up getting three because you get there and you get in a conversation. You don’t want to just pick up and say, ‘I have to go.’ You spend time with those coaches. That’s how you really – just talking about recruiting, I’ll say this: I’ve never signed an athlete without having a great relationship with his head coach. It’s about relationship-building.”“Recruiting won’t get old for me. You’d be surprised at some of the conversations that you have. It may be just like we did a little bit earlier before we went on air where you’re talking about pets and other things. You always get into football, but you get to know each other. They want to know things other than just football too. When you’re recruiting their kids, they want to know who you are.”
“Everywhere we’ve gone – talking about me, in particular – there’s been a great reception. The high school coaches are great. They enjoy seeing Texas A&M. They want Texas A&M recruiting their kids. Obviously, we’re going to recruit inside-out. We’re going to recruit this state first, because that is the most important thing – doing a great job in the state of Texas. Then we’ll branch out a little bit where we’ve got contacts. It’s fun going into the schools, and to be honest with you, you can’t get in them all. I’m talking about even recruiting from other schools coming into the state, just to touch on that a little bit. Now you’ve got time to develop those relationships with the high school coaches. I guarantee you they look at Texas A&M in a special way.”
“I think it’s always big to recruit Tennessee. Now when you’re recruiting a young man, they know those names of the guys we signed. They know those names because both of them were great players in the state of Tennessee. Both of them had opportunities to go to a lot of different areas. It was good because when you get those other kids on campus, they have someone they can relate to already.”
“There are a lot of ways for Aggies to help with my charity golf tournament. For one, there are a lot of Aggies in Knoxville. A friend of mine held their annual meeting and was one of the speakers there. They had over 200 people show up. I knew there would be a lot, but that was more than I anticipated. If you’re in the area or you can get to the area, come out and play. We’ll have a lot of fun, and it’s for a good cause. If you can’t be there, and you want to just support, then you can go to the Tennessee Children’s Home network on the web page. They have ways there for you to support the Tennessee Children’s Home if you want to do that.”
“Let me just say this about what they do. It’s amazing. They’ve been doing this for years and years. It started out – and still a big part of it – through the Church of Christ. They raise money and support those homes across the state. They’ve got four homes across the state of Tennessee. They take in kids that the state can’t get placed anywhere else. They’ve had a great, great success rate. There’s a lot of work going into it. It’s for the kids. It’s to give them an opportunity in life. That’s what we’re looking for. I enjoy so much being able to give back. I spent a lot of time in that state – 26 years. Giving back to the Tennessee Children’s Home – I’ll just put it this way. Not only do we put on this golf tournament, but I give back out of my pocket too because it’s important in terms of what we can do for those kids.”
“My family are members of the Church of Christ. We went to church with a lot of people, and they were talking about how they do a golf tournament. I told them I’d like to play in it. They said, ‘Yeah, we appreciate you coming out.’ Then they said, ‘Why don’t you put your name on it because of your notoriety. It can get more people involved.’ Again, it’s not about me. It’s not about my name being on it, but it’s about the opportunity to help those kids. I said, ‘I’ll be happy to do it. Whatever you want to do and whatever way I can help you to raise money for this cause, I’m happy to do it.’ I guess 12 or 14 years ago, we got it started, and it’s been going better and better each year.”
“There are a lot of different thoughts about the 2015 Aggie defense. Obviously, there are some really good thoughts, and those are the things you’ve got to focus on. When I say ‘focus on’, that’s in terms of selling what we’re doing to our athletes. We did some really good things. Then you say, ‘Okay, there are some things we’ve got to improve.’ There’s no question about that. I don’t know where we end up. I’m not a big numbers guy. I get people calling me and telling me about the numbers all the time. The only numbers that really matter to me are winning and losing. You win in a lot of ways, but we want to win on the scoreboard. When you look at where we started, we were below 100th. Somebody said we were 42nd before the bowl game, and we fell a few spots after the bowl game. We made a jump, but did it show in wins in losses? That’s what we’ve got to do. It’s got to be able to show in wins and losses.
The biggest thing is – frustrating is not a word I’m going to use – but inconsistency is what hurt us more defensively than anything else. Then it was lack of great play at linebacker. I coached the linebackers, so I can be critical of that position. I’m not being critical of the kids, but we’ve got to get better. I think we’ve made some improvements there. At times, it was a little bit frustrating because I felt like we had better players, and we didn’t get the linebacker play that we needed to be a really, really good defense. Did we improve? Yeah, we improved. The next step is improving from where we were last year. How far can we go this year? I think in the second year you should be better. You should be better. We look to be better. We’ve got good personnel. I can guarantee you this: we’re going to be better at linebacker.”
“The fact that we’re getting some guys coming back – a guy that didn’t play a lot last year, like Claude George – the fact that he made the big jump that he did during spring practice makes me feel very comfortable. He’s got a chance to be a very good linebacker in the SEC. With him, it’s just getting familiar with the position. You’re talking about a guy that never played linebacker in high school. He was a defensive end. He played defensive end about 60-percent of the time in junior college. We’ve got him at a position now. He’s going through spring practice, and he feels very comfortable.
You look back, and you can call it a mistake. I don’t mind if you call it a mistake. We did what we did. We felt like we had a couple of guys that would be really good middle linebackers for us. We put Claude at the easiest position to play at linebacker, but it involved a little more coverage. Mid-season, we moved him to MIKE because we had a couple of injuries. He’s going through spring practice in the middle, and he’s an SEC linebacker now.”
“Right now, Justin Dunning is a defensive back. He did a good job for us as a freshman at safety last year. We’re going to give him that opportunity, and hopefully that will be where he plays. If not, then he’ll transition to wherever we need him. He’s that kind of young man. Right now, he’s going to play safety for us. Not only Justin, but we had a couple of other guys that were out for spring practice because of injuries. To have a guy that has his size, range and speed, we have to make sure that we find a place for him on the field.”
“Let me say this about Richard Moore, what he gives us and
what he gave us toward the end of the season last year: he gave us that calming
effect. We can’t control how fast offenses are going. We’ve got to have
somebody that can make the calls, the adjustments, get the front set and do
those things. That was what Richard gave us along with the playmaking ability.
Richard is one of the most instinctive linebackers that we have. He’s got a
nose for the football. At this level, you cannot play unless you prepare. He’s
going to have to stay healthy. He’s so smart. When he’s out there, we’re going
to have fewer busts. You look at the last part of the season when he was out
there and making the calls for us, and we were a better defense at that time
after we got settled down.”
"Brandon Williams and I have a great relationship. I talked to him every week before the draft. Every week after the draft, he’s going to give me a call. I’m so proud of Brandon, and he made – I don’t know if you’d call it a sacrifice, but it was a calculated move for him – he made the decision to come over and play defensive back for us. When you look at Brandon and the type of athlete that he is, it was a no-brainer. There was no doubt in my mind that if he was committed to coming over, which he was, that he was going to play defensive back in the NFL. I’m so proud of him, and he’s certainly got work to do there. He’s with a great organization. They really, really like him. I think that Brandon will play for the Cardinals for a long time.”
“That’s the neat thing. Patrick Peterson and Tyrann Mathieu are both outstanding young people. They will help him learn the scheme and his technique. Really after it happened, I was saying, ‘Wow. He’s going to be in a great place. He’s going to be around some great people that will help him – not only his coaches, but his teammates.’”
“Hopefully some young guys will open their eyes and understand what we’ve been able to do through the years. Let me say this: what makes it even better at Texas A&M is that Terry Joseph is one of the best secondary coaches in the country. Give Terry a lot of credit for getting him ready. He spent the time with him, and obviously, he’s a very talented young man. Go back as far as we’ve been talking about. Looking at the All-Pro list – not the guys who went to the Pro Bowl – three of the four defensive backs that were All-Pro this year played in this system.
You’ve got to have good athletes. That’s Eric Berry, Tyrann Mathieu and Patrick Peterson. There are only four, and (three of them) played in this system. Hopefully some young kids will look at that and say, ‘Hey, if I’m a defensive back or corner and I want to learn how to play press-man, Texas A&M is going to put me in that position. They’re going to showcase my talent and give me an opportunity to be the very best I can be.’”
“It’s hard to put a time on it, but I’ll say this: in the second and third year, you’ve got to be much better than you were in the first year. We’ve got some great, great pieces in our defense next year with our two defensive ends. I told you guys last year that they were the two best defensive ends in the nation as a pair. There’s no doubt about that. We’ve got two safeties that can play anywhere in the country. We’ve got a group of linebackers that I promise you – I’ve already made the statement. We’re going to be better at linebacker this year. We hope to make a big jump this year. Obviously, what we want to do is play defense well enough to win championships. I understand that you win championships with defense.
That’s what Coach Sumlin brought me to Texas A&M for. It was to help get this defense to the point where we can win championships. We know that. We’re expecting that. I hope it happens next year. That’s what we’re looking forward to. To be honest with you, we’ve got to go into this season being very optimistic and with the idea that we can win and can win big. We’ve got some pieces. Do we have them all? No, but is there anybody out there that has every piece that they need? No, they don’t. We’ve got to overcome some things that will happen over the season, but we’re going to be good enough to win on defense this year.”
“We’ve got some guys at corner – you mentioned Nick Harvey – that played a lot of corner for us last year. He was our third corner and played a tremendous amount. Really, how well will Priest Willis play for us this year? That’s the question. I think it’s one that we can say that talent-wise, it’s there. If he plays up to the level that he’s capable of playing, we’ve got a chance to be really solid at corner. He’s going to be a big part of that.
We’ve got two freshman coming in that are guys that fit the bill. When you talk about Travon Fuller and Charles Oliver, those two guys are what you’re looking for as SEC cornerbacks. We’ll get some help from some young guys. Deshawn Capers-Smith – he’s got to grow up, and that’s got to be a part of it. We’re going to fix it where we need it. Donovan Wilson did a tremendous job for us at safety. If we have to look at him some at corner, we’re going to get that situation worked out there. If we get good enough at corner, which we are – we’re going to do that – it can be a really, really solid defense or better than solid.”
“I mentioned corner already. Donovan Wilson is going to have be ready to play corner, nickel – he’s our nickel and he’s as good as there is – and safety. That’s just part of it. We’ve got two safeties that can play anywhere in the country, but they can’t play every snap. We’ve got to be able to rest them. They play a lot of special teams. We’ve got to be able to give them a blow from time-to-time. When you start looking at how valuable he is to us, you can’t put a price on it. He’s got to be able to play all three of those positions, and he’s got to be ready to do that.”
“Justin Evans had an opportunity to go through spring practice at the position that he was going to be playing last year. Justin is a fast study. He understands it. He gets it. It takes some guys a little bit longer. At safety, you’ve got to be tough, smart and physical. He’s all of those things. He had all the things that he needed. He played safety in junior college, and it was an easy transition for him. With Claude (George), it was a little bit different. Hindsight is 20-20. If I had known that we were going to have the situation during the season that we did with Josh Walker getting a concussion in the first ballgame, we would have put him at MIKE during the spring and gotten him ready to go. He’d have been a lot farther along earlier. If you want to call it a mistake – we thought we were doing the right thing, but we know we’ve got him in the right position now.”
“From a physical standpoint, there’s not going to be a lot that Myles Garrett can do better. He does those things really well right now. The thing we need Myles to do – and this is a little out of his character – but he needs to step up and be a leader, be a vocal guy that when things aren’t going the way we want on the field says, ‘Listen, I’m going to get my butt in gear. You need to get your butt in gear, and we need to do things that way.’ If he can be that for us – we’re not going to force it on him, but if he can be that for us it will be great.
From an athletic standpoint and the way he has practiced – let me tell you this: you go into a spring practice and you wonder how he’s going to approach the spring going into his junior year, which could very well be his last. He was a worker. It was unbelievable what he got done during the spring. He did everything that we asked him to do. He’s always done that. That’s the kind of person that he is. He’s a great young man. He’s doing that. He’s a great young man. He’s taking care of himself. If he can help encourage his teammates a little bit, that’ll be a plus.”
“There are several guys that are defensive leaders. We didn’t have Donovan out there during spring practice, but he is a leader. He’s a guy that, emotionally, can draw it out of his teammates. Believe it or not, we talked about Richard Moore earlier. We didn’t have him for spring practice, but Richard is a natural leader. He’s a guy that competes. He gives you everything he’s got, but he’s also a guy that can rally other people around him. We’ve got several guys that can do that.
Again, Shawn Washington – we haven’t said anything about Shawn today but coming out of spring practice and being a year into (this system), Shawn Washington has been the most impressive guy that I’ve been around in terms of what he has gained. He had some injuries before we got here. He played last year, and nobody knows this, but he wasn’t 100-percent. He was okay to play. What Shawn needed was two more cycles in the weight room. He goes from being about a 300-pound bench press guy to about 395. You look at his body and how he has changed, and he looks like a bigtime SEC player. Shawn played well for us last year, but he is so much bigger and stronger, and he’s a guy that has become a leader for us too as he understands what’s going on.”
“We’re looking for range in a defensive back. It’s hard to find, to be honest with you. You’ve got to do a great job of evaluation. What happens when you get guys that have range is you usually lose short-distance quickness. That’s what you’ve got to have to play defensive back. To find a guy that has range and that short-distance quickness and change of direction is a premium. If you can find that guy – again, we go back to talking about Brandon a little bit earlier. I knew when I saw Brandon a little bit that he could be a great corner. He’s a guy that’s slightly over 6-feet tall. He’s a guy that’s got length. He’s got good long arms, and he’s got that burst. He’s got that short-distance quickness that you need to play corner.”
"There's no question (as to where the biggest improvement will be), it's going to be our run defense. We worked hard on that during spring practice. Some of it has to do with personnel, which we feel really good about. There's one of those guarantee's that I'm going to make, I'm going to guarantee that we're going to play a lot better run defense than we did last year."
"There's no doubt. Kingsley Keke is a big, physical guy that holds the point really well. He's going to continue to get better and better. He has a chance to be a big time football player."
"You could look at (adjusting to changes in football) from a lot of different angles. Ultimately, it's technique. You spend more time right now working on adjustments because you see so many formations and so many motions. You have to make sure your technique sound. We've even cut our scheme back a little bit so we don't ask them to do too much. If you ask them to do too much, they're not going to do anything well. We have to do some things really well, we have to play with great technique. I think that's a big improvement that you're going to see from year one to year two, there's no question. It's being technique sound. You can talk to NFL scouts and they will say that's the thing they see the most is guys being drafted technique-wise are not where they were 15 years ago. Everybody has a little bit of struggle with that and we have to make sure that we're the best technique team in the country."
"Here are guys that are very gifted and a bunch that will be NFL players. They are willing to take time, and lets talk about time ... When you start talking about time, it's the most valuable thing we have. We don't know how much time we are going to have here, we really don't. There are a lot of things we want to get done and a lot of things we could do, activities we could be involved in. For them to commit this amount of time to go over to Haiti and do such a great work, it almost brings tears to my eyes. I am so proud of what they're doing and it has nothing to do with football. They're giving their biggest asset, which is their time, to help other people. That's what it's all about."
"It's kind of like politics. You can take this swing, you can take that swing. There are so many things going on, to me, that are more newsworthy than what they've been talking about. What I see is young men that are developing. Why doesn't (the media) talk about our graduation rate and what Coach Sumlin has done to help these young people ... not just come to Texas A&M, but to leave here better and leave here with a degree. The leadership that we have, Coach has put that in place. It didn't just happen, he put it in place. Our kids are leaving here with degrees, some are going to the NFL, but they are also leaving here as better men. That's what you want to do. You don't get a chance to see that because you don't see the inner workings. If you want to dig and there's enough stuff out there where you can pick here and you can pick there ... NCAA violations, you don't see that. We're doing things the right way. Coach Sumlin has put all that in place.
"Our football team is getting better. We talk about the defense, but I get excited when we start talking about looking at our offense. With Noel Mazzone, the guy Coach Sumlin hired in here to come run the offense and Jim Turner the offensive line coach. You're talking about two areas where this team has taken a big jump. That's exciting to watch. People want to find a reason to pick at Texas A&M because they understand that when this program continues to grow and once it gets to the top, with all the facilities and everything we've had, the people that support this program have given us things we need to go out and recruit with and things we need to win with. They are afraid of Texas A&M making that next jump. But we're going to make that jump."
"The physicality (on offense) is where it needs to be in terms of a level of growing. I've been around a lot of great offensive line coaches and Coach Turner is by far the best that I've ever seen. Noel has done a great job running the offense and keeps a good balance. He likes to run the football, but he's got a wrinkle off every run that he's got. It's going to be very effective and he does a great job with it. He does a great job of preparing quarterbacks to play. It's very noticeable, the physicality. If you put a percentage on it, we're 40-50% percent more physical than we were at this time last year."
"David Turner has been successful where ever he's been. Obviously, he's an outstanding recruiter. The thing that I like the most is David cares about the kids. He cares about the kids and he develops a relationship with them. Coach Sumlin did a great job making the choice. We wanted someone who could come in and fit with us, fit with our philosophy. We're going to coach them hard but we're going to love them hard, too. That's a big part of it. When kids know that you care then they will do anything for you. Coach Turner can get that out of them because he does care."
"There's no doubt (about loving to coach at Texas A&M). It's one of those things where several years ago, I said that if the opportunity ever comes, A&M would be a special place to coach. Let me tell you, it is. I believe the Lord puts us where he wants us and there is no doubt he intended for me to be at Texas A&M. I think he had a work here for me to do and it's more than just win football games. That's a part of it, don't misunderstand me, but it's a different work. I couldn't be any happier and my wife is extremely happy. You know what they say, 'A happy wife is always a happy life'. She loves it here. Texas A&M is a special place and we have to continue to grow this program and put it where it needs to be in terms of football and the status there. Last year we were the best defense in the state of Texas. What we have to do now is be the best defense in the country. If we get the defense to that level I think everybody will be excited about what's going on."
