Regroup Ags and gig 'em!!
Kevin Sumlin
John Chavis
Noel Mazzone
Christian Kirk
Avery Gennesy
Jermaine Eluemunor
Kingsley Keke
Texas A&M Football
Texas A&M Football weekly press conference: Ole Miss
The following are live, paraphrased notes from Texas A&M's weekly
press conference. Videos of the interviews will be added to the story as
they are rendered.
• As we've done in the past, I'll bring you up to date on season-ending injuries. Noel Ellis had surgery a week ago on a torn upper-leg muscle. He's done for the year. Connor Lanfear tore ligaments in his knee on Saturday. He'll have surgery in a couple weeks. Trevor Knight left on Saturday with a shoulder injury. He's done for the season. At best, he'll be back for the bowl game. Jake Hubenak came in and performed pretty well. If there was a bright spot Saturday, that was it. He gave us an opportunity to win the game. Coming out of this game, he's our guy. We had a conversation with Nick Starkel and his family. He's on board with whatever we want to do. He wants to play. Trevor is still going to be a part of this program. I think he may be back for the bowl game. He's still a leader and is working with our guys. That's not going to change.
• Monday was a review of what happened this weekend. We've got to assess where we are along the offensive line. We've moved some guys around, fortunately. I can't tell you what the line-up will look like Saturday. I can't tell you for sure that Starkel is going to play. What I can say is we've had that conversation with him. When you're looking at a guy's redshirt season, those things are discussed with family. He's been on every trip this year. He's warmed up. He's been with our guys a lot of the year. He's with us all the time. The preparation is about to change for him. There's not a true answer there, but that's the best I can give you today.
• It was a combination of things on Saturday. We didn't coach very well. We didn't play very well. That's on me. Whatever approach we took last week was the same that we've taken all year. Maybe what happened on Tuesday last week was bigger than we've thought. The results were not indicative of what we saw. It's a results-oriented business. We played hard in that game. We bobbled early kickoffs. The effort on the video was really, really good. From an effort standpoint, it wasn't lacking. We didn't do what we were supposed to do and didn't execute. We've talked about it as a staff and as a team. It's been addressed schematically. We're moving on. We have to move on. We can't change last Saturday. What we can change is what happens from here on out. That's the direction we're heading.
• I had conversations with people about Trevor's injury and the hit he took out of bounds. We sent the film in. It made it worse.
• We've had some guys that have played well. We've been able to redshirt some guys. We have second-year players in there. We've had some recruiting misses and injuries. We've had some guys along the offensive line hang up the cleats. Trevor Elbert had career-ending surgery. The guys we've signed have been good players. Some guys have retired. We were able to redshirt our tackles out of junior college. Koda Martin was highly recruited. We're developing those guys. His development has been slower than anyone thought, physically.
• Knight's not having surgery. He's getting treatment.
• I don't know that Ricky Seals-Jones has been healthy the last few weeks. He's feeling better now. Speedy Noil took a big hit at Alabama and made some big plays for us on Saturday. We want him to be more dynamic. We missed some throws early in the game. The first play of the game should have been a touchdown. There's only one football. Ricky was playing well before he got hurt. An ankle injury can be a real hindrance. He's fighting his way back. He wants to play, but he struggles to move around after the games. Josh Reynolds and Christian Kirk are obviously playing at a high level. Speedy creates space for the other receivers. He's done a really good job this year of playing without the ball. He's a good blocker. He's a team guy. He's probably not happy that he's not getting the ball as much, but his time is going to come. The more consistency he shows, the more he'll be rewarded with production.
• Jake Hubenak has run before and run well. I don't know that there are many guys that can run like Trevor. Jake isn't a 4.5-guy like Trevor. It'll probably change some things we do a little bit. Some of those are designed runs, but most of them weren't. Trevor pulled some of those. The quarterback read game isn't the same for everyone. It'll change our scheme a little bit, but Noel Mazzone has done a good job of playing to our guys' skill sets. For the most part, Jake was effective in the second half. 11-17 is good for a guy when he's down by two touchdowns on the road. It says a lot about him. The communication between Jake and the staff was great.
• The preparation and how we've approached things every week has lead me to believe this team will respond well. Based on our conversations, I'll judge this team based on the other eight weeks of the season, not this last week.
• Shea Patterson is really a talented guy, but he's young. He's going to get two months of preparation if he plays the rest of the year. There's a lot of tape on Pellarin, because he was used in the red zone as a runner. We struggled with that on Saturday. He's third on their team in rushing touchdowns. In their offense, Chad Kelly was really good. He was also a physical, running quarterback. He could take hits and stand in the pocket. Pellarin has been in critical areas of the field. They trust him.
• There's not a lot I want to talk about. I'll answer questions about the game. It was very disappointing. We've already started trying to fix it. It's about dealing with our problems. We'll have our hands full again this week. There are a lot of good offenses in this league. We're disappointed, but we have to go out and play. We have to get rid of that. You have to handle success and handle disappointment. We've started our preparation.
• Some of it is the personnel we're playing against. Some of it is schematic. We felt like we had a good scheme. We didn't. After the first play, we changed the way we were playing it. When you take things from one spot and move them to another, you create new problems. We thought we could handle it, and obviously that wasn't the right decision.
• You're going to have missed tackles when you're up against good athletes in open space. They're always a factor, but it isn't the factor in my mind.
• If I said missing Myles Garrett was hurting the defense, I'd be making an excuse. I have to go back to work and do the things that we've done. I have to get the guys that are going to play ready to play. We had some great effort out of some guys, but when you give up big plays, you're playing from behind. If we had gotten one more stop, maybe we're in a situation to win a ball game that we played really poorly in.
• I think MSU did a good job of using their quarterback. He's a good runner. I think we had six tackles for loss. Give them some credit. They played well. We did not, and we got out-coached in a lot of areas.
• When you're running an offense, you look at what they've done thus far. We've seen the back-up at Ole Miss play. You have to treat him as a tailback, but he can throw the football. There's a reason everyone in the country is running this offense.
• We don't talk about injuries. I'm not a doctor. I just know who's available and who isn't.
• I'm always concerned when I put together a gameplan. If you're aggressive with what you do, you create concerns for the offense. If there aren't any concerns, you're happy. Our front is playing so much better than we did last year. Coach Turner and Coach Price are doing a great job with those guys. The next man up has to be ready to play. We have to set the tempo. MSU set the tempo on the first play. I allowed that to happen. We're going to try to fix our concerns. There are concerns every week.
• We coach these guys every day. We have to have them ready. I've coached for a long time, and there have only been a couple times where all the guys that started the first game started every game. A guy only has so many hits in him. It takes a toll. We have to get off the field so we don't have to play those snaps. We have to be better on third down.
• A lot of it is third downs. It's a big part of it, and that's what we can manage ourselves. When you look at the season, it's respectable in terms of third down, but it's not where we need to be. This game pulled us down a lot. That had a lot to do with us being out on the field that long.
Avery Gennesy
• We were inconsistent on Saturday. We didn't sustain drives. Injuries come with football. We have a lot of faith in Jake. We played with him in the bowl game last year.
• Jake can play ball. We always knew that. Trevor and Jake can both play. We just want to get better this week.
• We just have to focus and see what's going on in the film room. We need to fix what we can and play well against Ole Miss.
• We see a lot of different schemes and defenses. If we study those, we'll be fine.
• Going through the film, we made some mistakes. We'll get better. We missed some assignments. Coach Chavis and the rest of us will get it fixed. We have to figure it out.
• Gap integrity has been difficult. We haven't been as disruptive as we were in the first couple games of the season. I don't know why it's changed. I feel like we'll have more energy and get it fixed.
• The first play didn't effect us. We weren't phased. We've been there before, and you just have to keep playing.
• Getting over Saturday is the hardest challenge right now. Losing Trevor, we lose his running ability. We had a lot of stuff put in the scheme for that, so we'll have to adjust. We'll probably hand it to our backs a little bit more.
• We didn't play very well. We didn't coach very well. Our execution wasn't where it has been. We have to roll up the sleeves and get back to work. We have to be in the right place at the right time. There wasn't anything I saw leading up to the game that made me think that would happen.
• It's always tough to play young guys on the interior of the line. It's easier when those guys are 22 or 23. You start to wear down a little throughout the season when you're young. You haven't been in the weight room for five years. I think our guys have done a great job. We were just really loose on all of our execution the whole day. We need to tighten things up.
• I think Trevor is built to be a running quarterback. I've had guys get hurt standing in the pocket. It's part of the game. Injuries happen. He didn't even get hit. He was diving to score a touchdown. He'll be back. Hopefully that AC joint tightens up quickly.
• I think there's a chance for the wide receivers to get really involved in the running game now. I've been doing this for a long time. I went from Brock Osweiler to Brett Hundley. You just make some adjustments.
• In Minnesota in 1993, I lost my quarterback toward the end of the year. It's not tough because there's a drop in talent. It's tough because the new guy doesn't have eight weeks of reps. Our second team QB doesn't get a lot of reps in practice. The tough thing is to get him a bunch of those this week. It turned out alright when I was at Minnesota.
• Ricky Seals-Jones and Speedy Noil had one of their better games of the season on Saturday. The whole receiving group did. Both had injuries and setbacks, but I'm looking forward to those guys making a bigger impact going forward.
• You never want to speculate about an injury on Saturday. Trevor is a tough kid. He tried to give it a shot, but he'd lost strength in his arm. Everyone heals differently. After the doctors looked at it, we realized he had a sprain. We're protecting him and will see where he's at. We'll get Nick Starkel ready in case Jake goes out.
• Starkel is up to 207. It's hard to tell where he is. We were excited about him in camp. In the season, your focus is on the starter. He's not gotten to play a whole lot. He's a very smart guy. He's got a skillset we really like. It'll be cool to see how he attacks this situation.
• All I saw when Trevor went down out of bounds was that multiple guys went down.
• We couldn't have had a better guy come in here and do what he's done for this program. He's still the leader of our team and offense. He's Coach Knight for a few days. He'll help our QBs. You guys know him. You lose what he brings as an athlete, but we don't want to lose the other things he brings.
• Check back about the quarterback depth chart on Thursday. Until we get a couple practices in, Jake is our guy. Connor is here, and we'll bring Nick up to speed.
Kevin Sumlin
• As we've done in the past, I'll bring you up to date on season-ending injuries. Noel Ellis had surgery a week ago on a torn upper-leg muscle. He's done for the year. Connor Lanfear tore ligaments in his knee on Saturday. He'll have surgery in a couple weeks. Trevor Knight left on Saturday with a shoulder injury. He's done for the season. At best, he'll be back for the bowl game. Jake Hubenak came in and performed pretty well. If there was a bright spot Saturday, that was it. He gave us an opportunity to win the game. Coming out of this game, he's our guy. We had a conversation with Nick Starkel and his family. He's on board with whatever we want to do. He wants to play. Trevor is still going to be a part of this program. I think he may be back for the bowl game. He's still a leader and is working with our guys. That's not going to change.
• Monday was a review of what happened this weekend. We've got to assess where we are along the offensive line. We've moved some guys around, fortunately. I can't tell you what the line-up will look like Saturday. I can't tell you for sure that Starkel is going to play. What I can say is we've had that conversation with him. When you're looking at a guy's redshirt season, those things are discussed with family. He's been on every trip this year. He's warmed up. He's been with our guys a lot of the year. He's with us all the time. The preparation is about to change for him. There's not a true answer there, but that's the best I can give you today.
• It was a combination of things on Saturday. We didn't coach very well. We didn't play very well. That's on me. Whatever approach we took last week was the same that we've taken all year. Maybe what happened on Tuesday last week was bigger than we've thought. The results were not indicative of what we saw. It's a results-oriented business. We played hard in that game. We bobbled early kickoffs. The effort on the video was really, really good. From an effort standpoint, it wasn't lacking. We didn't do what we were supposed to do and didn't execute. We've talked about it as a staff and as a team. It's been addressed schematically. We're moving on. We have to move on. We can't change last Saturday. What we can change is what happens from here on out. That's the direction we're heading.
• I had conversations with people about Trevor's injury and the hit he took out of bounds. We sent the film in. It made it worse.
• We've had some guys that have played well. We've been able to redshirt some guys. We have second-year players in there. We've had some recruiting misses and injuries. We've had some guys along the offensive line hang up the cleats. Trevor Elbert had career-ending surgery. The guys we've signed have been good players. Some guys have retired. We were able to redshirt our tackles out of junior college. Koda Martin was highly recruited. We're developing those guys. His development has been slower than anyone thought, physically.
• Knight's not having surgery. He's getting treatment.
• I don't know that Ricky Seals-Jones has been healthy the last few weeks. He's feeling better now. Speedy Noil took a big hit at Alabama and made some big plays for us on Saturday. We want him to be more dynamic. We missed some throws early in the game. The first play of the game should have been a touchdown. There's only one football. Ricky was playing well before he got hurt. An ankle injury can be a real hindrance. He's fighting his way back. He wants to play, but he struggles to move around after the games. Josh Reynolds and Christian Kirk are obviously playing at a high level. Speedy creates space for the other receivers. He's done a really good job this year of playing without the ball. He's a good blocker. He's a team guy. He's probably not happy that he's not getting the ball as much, but his time is going to come. The more consistency he shows, the more he'll be rewarded with production.
• Jake Hubenak has run before and run well. I don't know that there are many guys that can run like Trevor. Jake isn't a 4.5-guy like Trevor. It'll probably change some things we do a little bit. Some of those are designed runs, but most of them weren't. Trevor pulled some of those. The quarterback read game isn't the same for everyone. It'll change our scheme a little bit, but Noel Mazzone has done a good job of playing to our guys' skill sets. For the most part, Jake was effective in the second half. 11-17 is good for a guy when he's down by two touchdowns on the road. It says a lot about him. The communication between Jake and the staff was great.
• The preparation and how we've approached things every week has lead me to believe this team will respond well. Based on our conversations, I'll judge this team based on the other eight weeks of the season, not this last week.
• Shea Patterson is really a talented guy, but he's young. He's going to get two months of preparation if he plays the rest of the year. There's a lot of tape on Pellarin, because he was used in the red zone as a runner. We struggled with that on Saturday. He's third on their team in rushing touchdowns. In their offense, Chad Kelly was really good. He was also a physical, running quarterback. He could take hits and stand in the pocket. Pellarin has been in critical areas of the field. They trust him.
John Chavis
• There's not a lot I want to talk about. I'll answer questions about the game. It was very disappointing. We've already started trying to fix it. It's about dealing with our problems. We'll have our hands full again this week. There are a lot of good offenses in this league. We're disappointed, but we have to go out and play. We have to get rid of that. You have to handle success and handle disappointment. We've started our preparation.
• Some of it is the personnel we're playing against. Some of it is schematic. We felt like we had a good scheme. We didn't. After the first play, we changed the way we were playing it. When you take things from one spot and move them to another, you create new problems. We thought we could handle it, and obviously that wasn't the right decision.
• You're going to have missed tackles when you're up against good athletes in open space. They're always a factor, but it isn't the factor in my mind.
• If I said missing Myles Garrett was hurting the defense, I'd be making an excuse. I have to go back to work and do the things that we've done. I have to get the guys that are going to play ready to play. We had some great effort out of some guys, but when you give up big plays, you're playing from behind. If we had gotten one more stop, maybe we're in a situation to win a ball game that we played really poorly in.
• I think MSU did a good job of using their quarterback. He's a good runner. I think we had six tackles for loss. Give them some credit. They played well. We did not, and we got out-coached in a lot of areas.
• When you're running an offense, you look at what they've done thus far. We've seen the back-up at Ole Miss play. You have to treat him as a tailback, but he can throw the football. There's a reason everyone in the country is running this offense.
• We don't talk about injuries. I'm not a doctor. I just know who's available and who isn't.
• I'm always concerned when I put together a gameplan. If you're aggressive with what you do, you create concerns for the offense. If there aren't any concerns, you're happy. Our front is playing so much better than we did last year. Coach Turner and Coach Price are doing a great job with those guys. The next man up has to be ready to play. We have to set the tempo. MSU set the tempo on the first play. I allowed that to happen. We're going to try to fix our concerns. There are concerns every week.
• We coach these guys every day. We have to have them ready. I've coached for a long time, and there have only been a couple times where all the guys that started the first game started every game. A guy only has so many hits in him. It takes a toll. We have to get off the field so we don't have to play those snaps. We have to be better on third down.
• A lot of it is third downs. It's a big part of it, and that's what we can manage ourselves. When you look at the season, it's respectable in terms of third down, but it's not where we need to be. This game pulled us down a lot. That had a lot to do with us being out on the field that long.
Avery Gennesy
• We were inconsistent on Saturday. We didn't sustain drives. Injuries come with football. We have a lot of faith in Jake. We played with him in the bowl game last year.
• Jake can play ball. We always knew that. Trevor and Jake can both play. We just want to get better this week.
• We just have to focus and see what's going on in the film room. We need to fix what we can and play well against Ole Miss.
• We see a lot of different schemes and defenses. If we study those, we'll be fine.
Kingsley Keke
• Going through the film, we made some mistakes. We'll get better. We missed some assignments. Coach Chavis and the rest of us will get it fixed. We have to figure it out.
• Gap integrity has been difficult. We haven't been as disruptive as we were in the first couple games of the season. I don't know why it's changed. I feel like we'll have more energy and get it fixed.
• The first play didn't effect us. We weren't phased. We've been there before, and you just have to keep playing.
Noel Mazzone
• Getting over Saturday is the hardest challenge right now. Losing Trevor, we lose his running ability. We had a lot of stuff put in the scheme for that, so we'll have to adjust. We'll probably hand it to our backs a little bit more.
• We didn't play very well. We didn't coach very well. Our execution wasn't where it has been. We have to roll up the sleeves and get back to work. We have to be in the right place at the right time. There wasn't anything I saw leading up to the game that made me think that would happen.
• It's always tough to play young guys on the interior of the line. It's easier when those guys are 22 or 23. You start to wear down a little throughout the season when you're young. You haven't been in the weight room for five years. I think our guys have done a great job. We were just really loose on all of our execution the whole day. We need to tighten things up.
• I think Trevor is built to be a running quarterback. I've had guys get hurt standing in the pocket. It's part of the game. Injuries happen. He didn't even get hit. He was diving to score a touchdown. He'll be back. Hopefully that AC joint tightens up quickly.
• I think there's a chance for the wide receivers to get really involved in the running game now. I've been doing this for a long time. I went from Brock Osweiler to Brett Hundley. You just make some adjustments.
• In Minnesota in 1993, I lost my quarterback toward the end of the year. It's not tough because there's a drop in talent. It's tough because the new guy doesn't have eight weeks of reps. Our second team QB doesn't get a lot of reps in practice. The tough thing is to get him a bunch of those this week. It turned out alright when I was at Minnesota.
• Ricky Seals-Jones and Speedy Noil had one of their better games of the season on Saturday. The whole receiving group did. Both had injuries and setbacks, but I'm looking forward to those guys making a bigger impact going forward.
• You never want to speculate about an injury on Saturday. Trevor is a tough kid. He tried to give it a shot, but he'd lost strength in his arm. Everyone heals differently. After the doctors looked at it, we realized he had a sprain. We're protecting him and will see where he's at. We'll get Nick Starkel ready in case Jake goes out.
• Starkel is up to 207. It's hard to tell where he is. We were excited about him in camp. In the season, your focus is on the starter. He's not gotten to play a whole lot. He's a very smart guy. He's got a skillset we really like. It'll be cool to see how he attacks this situation.
• All I saw when Trevor went down out of bounds was that multiple guys went down.
• We couldn't have had a better guy come in here and do what he's done for this program. He's still the leader of our team and offense. He's Coach Knight for a few days. He'll help our QBs. You guys know him. You lose what he brings as an athlete, but we don't want to lose the other things he brings.
• Check back about the quarterback depth chart on Thursday. Until we get a couple practices in, Jake is our guy. Connor is here, and we'll bring Nick up to speed.
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