Nevada HC Brian Polian on Saturday's contest, coaching under Sumlin

On his text conversation with Sumlin this week…

“Yeah I said, ‘I’ll huddle if you will.’ And he told me, ‘Only on kickoffs and punts.’ This is the nature of this business. Kevin is a friend and a mentor, probably a bigger mentor to me than he even realizes. I watched him very closely in our year together. His wife, Char and their kids, they are great, great people and unfortunately in our business, unfortunately you have to play against each other. I have no illusions in my mind. I know we are an incredible underdog in the game, but we’re going to come in and fight our tails off and do the best job that we can do.”

On his takeaways from last weeks game against Arizona…

“Well, to be honest with you, we didn’t play very well and that game certainly could’ve been much closer. I don’t look at that and say, ‘Boy, it was tight at the half,’ because the reality of it was had we not shot ourselves in the foot, in some cases, frankly had we not had a touchdown taken away from us by a missed call and not a judgment call, a mechanical error by the officials, that game would’ve been a whole lot different. There are no moral victories in our business and I wasn’t looking for one last week, because frankly had we played better, had some bounces gone our way, we would’ve had a chance to win the dadgum thing, but it just didn’t work out.

There were some things that we could point out. Well, first of all you’re not going to beat out anybody by giving up seven yards a rush. I mean, that killed us, but we hit their quarterback a lot. We sacked him twice, we put him on the ground a bunch. Now, we have some guys that can rush the passer, but if you’re giving up seven yards a carry it doesn’t matter. You have got to get people into third and long so you can let your rushers rush. Then, there was a drive in the second half where I think we went 14 or 15 plays right down the field, finishing a touchdown and we wore them out. I mean, we were running the ball for five, six, seven yards a clip and putting their people on the ground. So, there were certainly some things to build off of, but like I said there are no moral victories and that game should have been a whole lot closer than it was, but we didn’t execute well enough.”

On what he likes about his team…

“I think we got a tough bunch of guys that are a real tight-knit group. They are highly competitive. You know, we probably play a little better than our parts would allow us, but I just enjoy coming to work everyday. I enjoy being around them. Not everybody in college football can say that. There are a lot of places you come to work and just hope that nobody did anything silly the night before or that guys are going to school or doing all those things that you are asking them to do. We have a really good group of kids. The other thing is, we only have 13 seniors. We went 7-5 last year, we beat Washington State and we beat BYU on the road. We went to a bowl game and we did that with the ninth youngest team in all of college football. We’re still young with only 13 seniors. So, for a group that doesn’t have a ton of experience, they compete their tails off and they take coaching. So, you know, this is the type of team I hope a month, five, six weeks from now will be a whole lot better then we are now. I think they will continue to improve as the season goes along.”

On the 2012 season at Texas A&M with Kevin Sumlin…

"That was one of my favorite years I have ever had in coaching. Aggieland was everything that my dad and everyone that knew college football really well said it was going to be. The fans were unlike anything I had ever experienced. The community was a great place to live. My wife and I were really, really happy and I said to her I could see myself staying here for a bunch of years if they would have us and I really enjoyed it. But, there are only 130 of these jobs and when you get a chance at one you can’t turn it down. Especially for a guy like me, I wasn’t a household name as a special teams coordinator. I felt like I was really good at what I did, but you know hiring a special teams coordinator isn’t going to win a lot of press conferences. So, when I got an opportunity I felt like I had to go.

With Kevin, specifically, his ability to communicate with just about anybody and make a connection and make those people feel good, it’s unlike anything I have ever been around. His ability to connect with the players -- old, young, black, white, offense, defense, it didn’t matter. He could connect with everybody. How honest he was with the team at all times, even though sometimes honesty is the more difficult path and frankly his ability to have the uncomfortable conversation when it needs to be had. Some people just don’t want to have that conversation, so they don’t and in the end it’s not the best thing for the team. Then, the last thing was just his philosophy that it needs to be fun and I didn’t grow up that way in the business. My dad is a very straight laced, straight forward guy and you know, that Friday walk through needs to be quiet and everybody needs to have their game face on.

The first time we do a Friday walk through I see Jake Matthews running go-routes in un-tied sneakers as Johnny (Manziel) is throwing balls as far as he could throw it and I’m going, ‘That guy is a first-round draft pick (Matthews), we’re not worried that he’s going to roll an ankle?’ The music would be pumping and Kevin would come up beside me and giggle, ‘You hate this, don’t you?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, it’s different. I’m learning.’ So, I asked about that once and he said, ‘They play better when they are having fun,’ and he’s right and I watched it happen the entire year. I mean I watched them go out during pregame warm-up at the Alabama game, just smiling having a good time, headphones on, bouncing around and sure enough we went out and played out of our minds. It was a great lesson that he taught me."

"You know, the music at practice at A&M I did enjoy, although I did not recognize any of it. I had to beg them to occasionally throw in a Bruce Springsteen song in there. Now that I am a head coach, more than one of my tunes will come on over the course of practice.”

On the excitement of bringing his team to Kyle…

“Well it’s interesting, my first game as a head coach was against UCLA in the Rose Bowl, who was ranked at the time. Everyone said to me, ‘What’s it going to be like bringing your team into the Rose Bowl?’ And I said, ‘Well there’s a lot of history there and it’s cool,' but I mean UCLA doesn’t sell out the Rose Bowl maybe once or twice a year. I mean, there were going to be 50,000 there and it’s not very loud. The Rose Bowl is a historic venue, but it’s not, in my opinion, one of the top five or 10 places in the country. Kyle Field is. I’m excited to see how much it’s changed. I’m excited to have our guys there and I know it’s going to be loud. We’re not going to be afraid of it, we’re going to enjoy it. How many of our guys are going to get a chance to play in front of 100,000 people? We’re looking forward to it.”