Texas A&M breaks down Arizona State win, what comes next

Kevin Sumlin

"Yeah, we wouldn't have been so aggressive in our pursuit (without John Chavis here). As I said before, he's a guy that I've always had respect for as a coach playing against his defenses and the way that philosophically how he does things. So like I said earlier, I think it was a good fit for us and a good fit for him too. A guy with knowledge, not just schematic knowledge, but what he brings to the table and experience and what he brings to the table in particular experience in big ballgames in our league.

"Yeah, I think the buy in, as I said in the off season, was immediate by our kids, and I think we were missing a couple guys tonight particularly at linebacker. So I think the good news is that some of our better players weren't involved in this game at linebacker, and we get those guys back. But we'll see where we are.

"If you learn anything, you learn from last year, it doesn't mean much of anything. I will say this. Somebody knew something. We weren't ranked, but we were favored, so somebody was right and somebody was wrong. I don't understand that. But that's a good football team, very, very talented. They're fast, well coached. So for us to come in and play the way we played for 60 minutes I think is really, really something that we can build off of because as I said, we've got other guys that are going to play significant roles that got better in the offseason—a lot of freshmen that are there now sophomores, and what a difference a year makes for them physically. It's just all around.

"Anytime you win a game like that, it wasn't one person. It was a three-phase win. Offense did what we needed it to do, and late in the game our defense stayed solid the whole night and our special teams were outstanding—the return, punt return for a touchdown, excellent coverage on kickoff cover. I don't know how many times we tackled inside the 20 and punt coverage. And it was a field position game—I thought our special teams were able to maintain our field position and maybe put Arizona State in some bad spots while we were struggling offensively. So for us, like I said, it's a three-part deal, and it's good to see a team win like that particularly this early in the season.

“I thought our front, we rotated a lot of guys in there. I said before the season it's really the first time we're able to get two deep. The inside guys rotated. Kingsley Keke and Daylon Mack are two freshmen that got in there and played substantial minutes. The ends are rotating and you're able to keep Dae Dae (Daeshon Hall) and Myles (Garrett) fresh because of Qualen Cunningham and Jarrett Johnson. So the depth is a big deal in a game like this, and it's going to be a big deal moving forward. That's going to be the key to our success across the board. We've got to stay healthy, but we have enough bodies up front now to rotate guys in and keep them fresh, and I think that's important.

"I can't say enough about both (Kyle Allen and Kyler Murray). I told Kyle after he scored the touchdown on the run and came over, I said, ‘Hey, listen, that's big time because a year ago I don't know that you would have done that.’ Then when Kyler came in, Kyler came in and gave us a spark. Really brought the crowd into it. Brought our guys into it before the half with something different. Maybe put them on their heels a little bit. They had some free runners to the quarterback. He made them miss. We put him back in when we were sputtering and gave us another spark in the third quarter.

"You know, both those guys I think handled the moment. I think Kyle coming back, as you said, with Kyler having a little bit of success and the crowd juiced up, to come back and go down the field the way he went was a big deal. That's, as I said before, he's maturing physically and mentally in being able to handle that and still lead and close out the game says a lot about both those guys.

"You look at Daylon with the tackle for loss and played a lot of minutes. You know, Christian Kirk, a dynamic player, there is a bunch of guys out there, freshmen that – Kyler, Justin Evans who is a first year, one of the better junior college safeties in the country, had an impact on this game as a first year player. So a bunch of those new guys. We started a freshman left guard in Keaton Sutherland. So we had a number of guys going in the game and have impact as freshmen. They're really good players that came here for a reason.

"Those guys are going to play. Fortunately they're as advertised against really quality competition. They showed up, and not only did they show up, but they played very well.

"So the future is bright for those young guys, and as I told them in there, let's see how they handle it as a team. We've got to learn from last year. I think where we are right now is not much different than where we were a year ago. But we're a year older with a lot of guys on the field, and we've got to listen to what's inside our building, not what's going to be on television and what's on the internet. I think our guys this year right now they understand that after going through what they went through last year and that's the kind of maturity it's going to take for us to play like that every week.

“Arizona State, it’s their trademark, it's a team that lives and blitzes almost every snap. We saw a lot of zero-blitz. We've got two young guys. We've got one quarterback that's played five or six games, including the bowl game, and one guy that was the first time he's out there. We knew they were going to turn it up. I didn't know they were going to blitz almost every snap though. It was very, very difficult for us to run the ball just because of the numbers.

"I thought that as the game went on, we stayed with it and obviously we had some success towards the end of the game. But it was tough sledding in there early, and they really forced us and dared us to throw the football, and we're going to have to continue to improve there. We're going to see some other teams and we've got to get some explosive players and we did have some explosive plays, but going forward as our guys start to get more and more healthy and we get our guys going and our passing attack going, we've got the guys on the perimeter. We've just got to make sure number one, we're putting them in the right position, and number two, we can execute it.

"Defensively it's a hell of a performance by a number of people. The coaches had a great plan. I thought our D-line was active and our secondary was extremely active and our safeties and corners challenged balls. Not a whole lot of wide open people. When they were, they came up and were physical. You would have to say looking at it as a coach, we've got a lot of things to work right now. But to be where we are after Game 1, as a coach, you've got to be looking ahead for this week and how we handle this going forward. We'll get some guys back as time goes on.

“(Donovan Wilson), what did he have in the bowl game, eight, nine, ten tackles? Yeah, he led the team in tackles in the Bowl game. He's kind of an unsung hero. We started two true freshmen back there in Armani Watson and Donovan against West Virginia in the bowl game, and all he did was have double digit tackles. Now he's playing a little more nickel, and he can play safety. He can blitz. I thought the biggest difference too was I thought our open field tackling was very good.

"They had some chances for some plays, and we missed a couple, but in general, I thought we tackled well tonight and it had a lot to do with those three guys back there. Armani, Donovan, Justin Evans covering a lot of ground back there and letting our corners play man-to-man and those guys kind of roaming the middle of the field. They covered up for a lot of different things.

Myles Garrett

"Really just executed well. Coach put us in the right position to make plays and we just got it done.

“(John Chavis) is just an honest guy. He gets after us. He's never going to tell us wrong. He just changed the demeanor around here. You've got to have effort, physicality, and we showed that tonight. We're just playing with a chip on our shoulder.

“Everybody's been down on us saying we're not going to do anything on defense. You know, there was no place for us to go but up, so we just have to take it from there and keep on going."

Tra Carson

“I think we did a good job and keep fighting. They do a lot of funny looks up front, and we did a good job picking it up and just ramming it in there and getting the tough yards.   

“(The quarterback situation) didn't really change during fall camp and during the week. We go with Kyle and Kyler. You work with both of them, so it really doesn't change anything really.

“Christian Kirk, he's a young guy, but he's a great player. He comes in and works extremely hard. He's one of the hardest workers on the team as a freshman. That says a lot about what type of player and person he is. We've seen him make plays in practice all the time, so we expect big things from him.

“When you first see Kyler Murray, he's an exciting player. He's another offensive weapon that we can definitely use and we definitely need him. We need everybody, so he's a great player.”

ASU Head Coach Todd Graham

"I want to congratulate Coach Sumlin and Texas A&M. I mean that was a heck of a physical football game. Obviously we're very disappointed. Special teams really killed us, and I’m really proud of our guys' character. I think there were four minutes left in the game and it was 24-17, thought we were going to win the football game. We made some real critical mistakes. Had some young guys make mistakes there were down the stretch there on kind of a blown coverage on the—they throw a bubble (screen) for the touchdown. As good as we played defensively, that was tough, but really, lots of positives from our guys.

"Obviously, we don't like losing, but we give credit to Coach Sumlin and their staff, especially their defensive staff did a tremendous job. Obviously we couldn't do much offensively. But want to wish them congratulations and thank AdvoCare for having us. I think people got a good show, and I know our guys played hard and gave everything they had. We had lots of positives but just made too many mistakes, especially in the kicking game.

"Roughing the punter killed us. I mean, that was a 7-point swing there, and then we give up a punt return for touchdown. I want to congratulate Christian Kirk, a great young man who I had the privilege to recruit. He had an unbelievable night, and I want to congratulate him as well.

"No, (Kyle Allen) really didn't do much offensively, I didn't think. The only time they make any yards was the tempo stuff. We were able to sack him, and I'm really proud of some things tonight. We fumble the ball I think inside our 5-yard line, and we go in and hold them to a field goal. I thought it was what we do is hard on quarterbacks. What really hurt us is when Kyler came in there and was just scrambling. We had him dead to rights and we had guys running on air at him and we couldn't tackle him, so that gave him a little bit of a spark on one drive. We had five three and outs, I think, in the first half and gave up one drive. Kyle did a good job of getting them going fast, and we got a little discombobulated.

"We had one little seam pattern. We played about as good as you could play a lot of the time defensively. I think when you ask me to comment on Kyle, Kyle's a heck of a quarterback. I think what we do is really hard on quarterbacks, and obviously that wasn't a very good offensive night for anybody. But I thought he did a good job. They put Kyler in there and when Kyle came back, that really gave them a little bit of stability on that drive. He made a couple of good throws and the bubble was just pretty frustrating because we had obviously run that pressure a million times, and our safety is supposed to be down to 6 yards and we just made a mistake and obviously they capitalized on it.

"You know, I was so concerned coming into this game about the receiving corps. I mean, they were dynamic, and I thought our corners did an unbelievable job. Our secondary, we really—they didn't do much. And obviously we did a great job stopping the run. They just had a couple of drives with tempo. You're playing this level, you're going to have some of that. It was pretty smart of them to switch him, because it kind of—I was trying to get our guys word to our guys, hey, we've got to keep this guy contained, because our rush lane angles against Kyle were very different how we practiced them against Kyler. So that gave them a little bit of momentum there, but what really steadied them out was he showed a lot of experience.

"I thought Kyle showed a lot of poise there in that. That was the critical drive. I mean it was 24-17 with four minutes left. That was it. He makes a good throw on the curl and then we blow a coverage, and they capitalize on it. They were the better team tonight.

"I thought we were just letting them tee off. I mean, you've got to vary your count. I mean, you know, Myles (Garrett) was just, I mean he was across the line of scrimmage when the ball was snapped. He was getting off the ball better than we were on offense. Obviously we did a poor job of handling that. I thought we'd be able to throw the ball with more efficiency. Then obviously we didn't run the ball very good either.

"We didn't do much very good at all offensively, and you've got to give their defense credit. It was a little bit difficult going into the game to see what they were going to do. But I didn't see them doing much that we didn't prepare for. They were just doing it really fast, really hard, and you could tell that Coach, their defensive coordinator has had a big impact on them because they played really good tonight.

ASU S Jordan Simone

We expected them to do a little bit of (rotating quarterbacks), and they're two good quarterbacks. At the end of the day, we just had to worry about what we were going to do. I felt like we played a pretty great game. That kid had a couple of good runs, but other than that, they didn't have too many big plays besides the one there at the end.

(Christian Kirk) is a good player. I just think it came down to us making mistakes. Obviously he had a couple of good runs, but if you look back at those plays, there are missed tackles, and that's something that's a critical error in our defense, and something that we'll get fixed and corrected and we'll move forward.

ASU QB Mike Bercovici

"Obviously we didn't expect to get out like that. You've got to give credit to their defense. They did a good job. We expected a lot of the looks that we saw, but just kind of stalled a lot of third down opportunities and came up short and had to punt it away. But it's something that we'll fix and move on to next week. We'll get that corrected because we had some flashes of some good things.

"Since January this team has done an amazing job accepting me as the starting quarterback. I'm just extremely blessed to be part of this football team. For the seniors on this football team, this means everything to us. We have a model to embrace and grind, this is just one step of it. Obviously we didn't come out victorious, but our focus right now is beating Cal Poly, and we're excited about that because it's a new week. Starting tomorrow, we have a new mindset, and we have to put this behind us, because we have way too much investment to worry about this moving on.

"Definitely got to give a lot of credit to their pass rush. They did a good job. We were prepared for it. We knew the type of opponent we were going against. Their D line did a good job getting off on the ball. Our tackles did a good job, offensive linemen worked their tail off all game. There were some flashes of us doing some good things, running the ball and moving the ball down the field fast. But at the end of the day, we didn't come out ahead, and we've got to move forward from it."