Aggies turn sights to Arkansas, SEC play

Kevin Sumlin

On talking to R.C. Slocum...

Sumlin: "We talk just about every week about a lot of things. I have a lot of respect for his vantage point. He had everything to do with me coming here as an assistant coach. We try to visit at least once a week. But he didn't want to come in here and talk to y'all. He said, 'I don't have to do that anymore.' He comes over here and works out and he's getting his handicap down. He gets to enjoy all the wins now and doesn't have to deal with the rest."

On Arkansas' run game...

Sumlin: "There's no doubt, anyone who's watched them play this year ... their style of play, the way they want to play the game is line up and run it at you. Then here comes a play-action pass off it. That's been (Bret Bielema)'s style, which has been extremely successful. There's no reason for him to go away from that. He creates an attitude in how he wants to play the game, how they want to play the game, offensively and defensively. I don't see that changing at all since that's been their proven formula for success.

"They've got two good running backs and, defensively, it's hard to argue the production of their two defensive ends that lead the league in sacks, tackles for loss, disruptive plays. That's a signature of the way Bret's done things, being physical up front and getting after it. It'll be a different game. Our transition from Alabama to SMU last week, a completely different style with them throwing it 60 times, I was pleased with that. We're going to have to make a transition again, that's the way it works in this league.

"The diversity in the SEC is a challenge for every team as you face it. Moving back and forth from different styles is a challenge, too. I am encouraged by what I saw last week from a communication standpoint. You take for granted because a guy is a good player, you're put in situations where you have to communicate. The ability to adjust during a game — for coaches to adjust is one thing, for players it's another thing — you get Kirby back and move Deshazor to safety and Howard Matthews in the back end and Toney Hurd at nickel, all five of those guys have game experience from last year.

"You have a true freshman out there in Sezer and Deshazor only out there a half, you've got guys just trying to do their jobs and not communicating. I was pleased with how we communicated better."

On the placekicking game and the onside kick...

Sumlin: "We go into every game with a fake punt and a fake field goal, whether we call it or not. We saw some things and we sit down on Sunday night and decide what the plan is on special teams every week and we practice it. If we want to use it, we use it. I felt like it was a situation that was there and Coach Banks has always wanted to call something like that. Obviously we executed.

"It's like everything else — we're going to compete. The first game didn't name a starter for quarterback for the first half until 5:00 Friday. It was important for those guys to continue to compete. It's important here too. You've seen since we've been here that what we're doing is based on competition — your ability to play. Playing in games is based on how you compete in practice and your success rate during practice. That's where we are. That will continue to be the case. It's not going to change this week or next week. It's a work in progress. There's some things both guys do that are positive. But in this business, what pays off are results. That's where it is."

On Malcome Kennedy...

Sumlin: "I haven't been surprised. I think the first half of the season he sat behind Ryan Swope and Ryan really did a lot. He started coming out and broke out against Alabama with the touchdown catch and that helped his confidence moving forward. The offseason, I know this: nobody had a better offseason than him. He had a great offseason and the players saw that. I think he's continued to work to become a complete player. He's a guy that was a high school quarterback, that usually takes you a bit longer to transition than a guy who's played the position the whole time.

"He's played very well for us. His leadership during the summer was critical with a bunch of young guys. To see that paying off, I think our guys understand the hard work he's put into it and that you can work yourself into being a really, really good player. I'm happy he's had the success he's had."

On the receivers' blocking mentality...

Sumlin: "Coach Beaty does an excellent job. We chart those. Guys take pride in that. You get a lot of outside criticism of spread offenses being soft. I think our guys take that personally. I don't hear a lot of people saying that about our team because I think our guys do play hard. The biggest transition for a receiver coming into this offense is understanding the need to play without the ball. That creates the difference between big plays — the ability to block.

"You've heard David Beaty say it — you don't block, you don't play. That motivates people, because they like to play. When you're in a program and after a year you watch video of Ryan Swope and you watch video as a young player of Mike Evans, we're just talking about Malcome, the young guys see that they get notoriety because of big plays ... but their effort on the back side of big plays when something's going on, it says a lot to the young players on this team. The importance of what to do.

"Deshazor battles with (Evans) every day during two-a-days and it gets ugly at times. They're competing to make each other better. As your program gets better, you get that."

On Nate Askew...

Sumlin: "He's a guy that's got that much talent. I just hated him standing there next to me during the game and playing all these guys. A guy with that kind of talent, you try to find a way to help your football team and help that guy. Sometimes you don't know what it is. You hope it works out. As a coach my philosophy has always been 'Let's not give up on a guy, let's try to find something.' A guy that can run that pass, is 230 pounds and 6-4 with a 42-inch vertical jump, we want to get that guy every year. We've got that guy in the program, so let's try to find a place he can help us.

"If he can't, we can sleep at night knowing we at least tried the best we can. He's already scored more touchdowns than as a receiver. I give him a hard time about that. (Straight face) He doesn't think that's funny. (Laughter.) It's good for him. You've seen across the country, some guys make that transition. A kid at UCLA is an All-American moving from offense to defense.

"(Nate)'s a really good player. He's embraced it, he's played with confidence. Has he made mistakes? Sure. But he's moving along that way. He's helping us as a team more than he was helping us at wide receiver."

On whether Askew would have fit at safety...

Sumlin: "I don't think he transitions well enough to be (at safety)."

On early surprises and redshirting players...

Sumlin: "There's a bunch of stuff that's surprised me. Every year you've got guys who y'all think are going to play for us and are highly rated guys. We've had some guys come out of the woodwork that, just to talk about high school ratings, guys that were highly rated that aren't playing for us and three-star guys that are playing a lot of snaps for us. That just goes to show you that the evaluation process is important.

"I tell these guys, 'Redshirting does not mean you can't play.' I try to remind our fans of this and parents. We've got two of the best players in the country on this team that redshirted, on offense, in Mike Evans and Johnny. The Heisman Trophy winner, Sam Bradford, redshirted. To redshirt does not mean you can't play, it means you may not be ready right now. When you sign 31 guys they can't get all on the field. We talk about the guys who are playing, but we've got a group of guys who aren't playing and want to and they're struggling with that.

"Last week we talked about what your role is and understanding your role and how you're going to help this team. There's been surprises from that standpoint from everybody. We play the best guys because of their ability to help us win. That doesn't mean because he's not playing, that's not going to be the case."

On Johnny's progress within the offense...

Sumlin: "That's not another surprising thing. I explained that during fall camp. His knowledge of the system is and should be better than it was last year. To think conceptually instead of just route-wise or one thing at a time has been the biggest challenge. It's the biggest challenge for anybody. You see Malcome Kennedy do that, you've seen Mike Evans do that, players that were just playing their positions last year. They understand route concepts instead of just what they're doing.

"I was very pleased with some of the things he was doing last Saturday. We're not where we were with Case Keenum, but he was a six-year guy. When you can do (the progression) one of every four plays, you feel good about your quarterback. He made some changes last Saturday that showed he's comfortable and he's progressing in the offense. I like the direction we're headed as a team from a communication standpoint, and that comes with time in the offense."

On how long Ricky Seals-Jones will be out...

Sumlin: "I don't know. He had surgery last Friday. You don't want anything to happen. I would anticipate that the decision hasn't been made completely, but I would anticipate the possibility of a medical redshirt, because he falls in that category. I talked with his dad, and him, last week and the situation is, yeah, he wants to play, but losing a year where you come back from surgery, he has another spring. He gets this whole experience back and has four more years. Like I told him, that seems to have worked out well for Mike Evans.

"It gets back to what I was talking about earlier — just because you don't play your freshman year doesn't mean you can't play. Guys want to play, and I appreciate that. But those kinds of decisions are mutual. He understands. After looking at it, I think we're going to pursue that. He falls in that category."

On Darian Claiborne...

Sumlin: "He's shown us enough to start last week. Here's a guy, all he does is make plays, make tackles on special teams, runs over a guy on the onside kick. He just loves to play football. He's out there now, he and Jenkins are extremely athletic and good tacklers. The decision to play Darian, last week start him in that game, I think was a good one. He's, just like everything else, we'll see how he handles that. Because you've got to come back and compete this week. You're only as good as your last performance around here. He'll compete and keep pushing.

"We've got a bunch of guys competing for playing time, Nate, Shaan Washington. They're all playing. They're all giving us a boost on special teams, which we didn't have last year. Now we've got a two-deep of guys we can get out of the game. That's helped us on special teams, particularly our coverage units. I think you could see the difference last week. Now Sezer is a special teams player, not a starter and a special teams player. These guys can play their full special team snaps and be backups."

Clarence McKinney

On the progress he's seen from Johnny and the guys returning...

McKinney: "With Johnny we see a lot of progress. He's checking us into the best play we can possibly get. Some of our younger guys are coming along. They're not quite where we need them to be yet but it's coming."

On Malcome Kennedy...

McKinney: "He's catching the ball well. He's giving Johnny that second option he needed so it's not always Mike Evans. He made big catches for us last year, so we knew he could do it. He knew we were losing three starters and this was his chance to step up."

On Johnny against Arkansas' pressure...

McKinney: "Their front is really good. They really get after the passer. It's going to be a challenge for our O-line to keep those guys off Johnny. For Johnny, it's a challenge he embraces, all those guys running and chasing after him. He embraces it."

On more designed QB runs of late and the philosophy...

McKinney: "As you know, he's pretty good running the ball. We're just trying to use his talents. He can throw it as well as run it and we're trying to make our offense multi-dimensional."

On the two new starters on the O-line...

McKinney: "Through four games they've played like we've expected them to play. You would think that after they played a game like Alabama they wouldn't have had the errors they did against SMU. But Germain didn't play at all last year, so there's going to be errors. They've just got to get caught up and get up to speed with the other guys."

On his guys playing on special teams...

McKinney: "First, you've got four guys and all four guys want to play running back. We're not going to put four running backs on the field at one time, so that's just another way for them to contribute to the team and win. On kickoffs you're running down the field and avoiding guys, which for running backs is magical. It's just another way for them to contribute to our team. Ben did a tremendous job on special teams last year and he's done a great job this year."

On Arkansas' Chris Smith and his pass rush...

McKinney: "He's big and he's athletic. He's a pass-rush specialist and our guys are going to have their hands full. We may have to use a back to help out sometimes. He's really good at what he does, without giving away our game plan. Sometimes they move him around."

On whether the offense has built-in RB blocks...

McKinney: "That's built into every pass play, the option to chip. We use our running backs in pass plays but that's not always the first option."

Mark Snyder

On Isaiah Golden...

Snyder: "I think there's no doubt he's going to get a lot more playing time as we go. We've got to get more comfortable with him. He's got to show us he knows what to do. Physically he's there. To answer your question, yeah."

On Askew...

Snyder: "Nate's up to the challenge. We're going to leave Jordan at MIKE to back up Darian and just play MIKE. This is Nate's chance to show us what he can do. This week is going to be a challenge."

On switching players from offense to defense...

Snyder: "We've done it, but not a lot. If a kid's got talent you want to find a place for him, offense, defense or special teams."

On Arkansas' offense...

Snyder: "Our league is becoming very diversified in the attacks, which we knew. We went from big boy football to spread to back to big boy football this week. It'll be a challenge for our guys."

On Floyd Raven's injury...

Snyder: "He's pretty chipper on the sidelines. He's keeping guys alive down there, keeping me alive down there. We moved Floyd last year because he was on the bench, to get him on the field. But I don't know. I hope to get him back here in a few weeks."

On Kirby Ennis...

Snyder: "He's doing really well. He's playing really well. I challenged him this week to get back to the question about Isaiah, I told Kirby in our meeting, you're playing the entire game. We need him to play like he's been playing. He was one guy that was overlooked in our game against Alabama. He played well in that game. We need him because he is an important part of what we're going to do. That's why Isaiah may not see the field. He may get a few, but I challenge Kirby to play the whole game. All four of those guys."

On Askew's move and why...

Snyder: "It was Nate's kind of game, a space kind of game. This is going to be a new challenge for him. In some of our drills he's going against Cameron Clear and those tight ends and he's done pretty well. So he's going to get a shot, because these tight ends are pretty big. We'll give him a shot to see what he can do."

On Deshazor Everett's safety move...

Snyder: "I was really proud of the whole secondary, not just Deshazor. Our kids played hard. I mean, we were running to the football. I saw communication, not just on the sideline, but within a drive, they were fixing themselves. They were communicating. They were disguising. They'd come back to that play within that drive and fix themselves. You'd see Howard going to the middle of the field, Steven going straight back. That's good to see in the middle of a drive. We're coming along. When you've got a defense that can adjust itself during a drive, that's when you've got something good. That's where we got to last year."

On whether he's excited to face Arkansas...

Snyder: "Yes I am, without a doubt. It's a different style of offense, slow down the huddle, all those kind of things. We'll have to create our own energy. But yes, I'm excited."

On his biggest fear with the unit...

Snyder: "The fear's gone. It's behind us in my eyes. Hopefully we gained some experience the last few weeks. This week will be telling. We've played spread teams and now we've got to face a power team, which we didn't fare well against the first time. We've faced about everything you can face during a football season."

On whether Arkansas plays different based on which QB is in...

Snyder: "They probably didn't throw it as much as they wanted to, but they still ran their offense."

On his early worries and getting through the early struggles...

Snyder: "It is what it is. We had a lot of young guys playing, 11 young guys. We got through it, we're 3-1, we got everybody back now and we gained some valuable experience. Will I throw Isiaiah Golden in this game? We'll see. I feel more comfortable about it now than I did three weeks ago. Same for Darian Claiborne. Jordan. As I look at it, we got some experience and we'll see on Saturday."