Texas A&M standout WR Ryan Swope offers thoughts on Alabama loss

Former Texas A&M wide receiver Ryan Swope joined Thursday's edition of TexAgs Radio to discuss what he saw from the Aggie offense in the narrow loss at Alabama and what he hopes to see from the Maroon & White's offense down the stretch.

Key notes from Ryan Swope interview

• It's frustrating, and it's hard to come on air because nobody likes to talk about losing. I do think we got better, and I love the intensity we played with last week. You just have to brush it off and finish the year strong. We have a good opportunity to win five or six games down the stretch to finish the year.
   
• Evan Stewart is a young player, and I want to say this: I think I was hard on him last week, but for a true freshman to come in against the No. 1 team in the country and do what he did, I thought he responded well. That's what you want to see in a young kid like that, and I think that's going to help him. He's growing as a player and maturing. It's exciting. Being a young receiver, he should have gotten more depth on that route on the final play, and they ran out of real estate.
   
• I wasn't crazy about the play call. It was a venus route, and I ran it against Baylor a couple of times during my junior year. To run it on the short side of the field doesn't make sense to me. He ran out of room. Even if Stewart gets his depth, he runs out of room. I would have liked to see it run to the wide side of the field to have all the space you need to push for that pylon. It should be a two-option deal. If the venus route is covered up, the quarterback could tuck it and run. The timing was off, and it just didn't look good.
   
• Stewart is special. I was anxious to see how he was going to respond after having a couple of drops and a tough week vs. Mississippi State. Good football players know how to move on, and he did that as a freshman. The future looks bright for #1. He might big-time plays in big-time moments and is finding his identity, as is Moose Muhammad. He's becoming a guy we can lean on because he's dependable and has good hands. Those two guys have bright futures, and it's just a matter of getting them the football.
   
• All in all, offensively, there was a lot of improvement. Moving forward, we need to protect our quarterback and stay healthy.
   
• Muhammad fills Ainias Smith's role so well, and it's crazy that he's just now showing up because it looks like he has been playing for three or four years. I think he will emerge as the go-to guy in third-and-short or third-and-medium. We all miss Ainias, but #7 is doing a great job of filling in that role. He has taken it and run with it.
   
• Haynes King is heading in a better direction. I don't think he played that bad of a game. That one interception right before halftime was bad, but other than that, he's getting more comfortable. It's huge to have a guy that's comfortable back there. I do see moments of hesitation. You cannot over-coach these guys, and we can see how complex this system is in our quarterbacks.
   
• I think we're throwing too much at these guys. I would love to simplify things, let them play loose and have fun. If you get these guys thinking too much, you're losing a ton of speed on the field because they're second-guessing themselves and not making quick decisions. If it's too complex, you're never going to play fast. You can't force a guy to execute when he's overthinking and over-processing. Haynes had a good game. Guys rally around King, and that's important.
   
• I don't know how I feel about the rest of the schedule with our team. I wish I had a better report, instinct and feeling about this season. Is there an opportunity to win out? Absolutely, but with what I've seen on the offensive side of the ball and the lack of consistency, we're missing a lot of chances. We do things that kill momentum in games. It's going to be tough. Ole Miss is a good football team.
   
• With South Carolina, I never liked coming off a bye week because you can lose momentum and get lackadaisical. We can win out, but I don't know what to expect because I don't know what offense we're going to see.
   
• Our defense played fantastically. We forced so many turnovers, and it led to points.
   
• This was a big improvement. The offense looked terrible as an offense vs. Mississippi State. We took care of the ball well vs. Alabama, and when you're creating turnovers as a defense, you're setting your offense up to be successful. That's what you want to see. Go watch the film and figure out what we can do to be better. You have to be self-critical. The receiver play was pretty good, and I liked what I saw. There are a lot of positives to take from this loss.