Questions about La Tech? Eric Hyman has answers

Opening statement

* It's been interesting that one of the first things he's dealt with on the job was a hurricane. Never would have imagined that. There's been questions, so this is setting the record straight. He went to listen to Mike Slive speak in Arlington yesterday, having become a hurricane watcher in the last 48 hours. When he got off the plane he was excited because the storm was headed 100-125 miles east of Shreveport with a 30% chance of rain and 86 degrees temperature. At that moment, it was, 'We're on.'

There had been conversations with the Louisiana Tech athletic director and A&M's Justin Moore. The goal was to do what's right for football. It was important to get football's part of the decision-making process from Moore. Multiple contingencies were examined, such as playing Friday or Saturday. There was roadblock after roadblock. On Friday night there were high school games and on Saturday it was Grambling. Also looked at the possibility of flying there and back on the day of the game. Hotel rooms were taken, many were already booked anyway. The closest available was Monroe, an hour away.

A&M was also willing, after talking to home game operations people, to play in Kyle Field. Moore looked into allowing Louisiana Tech to use A&M's charter airline to come down, but it wasn't possible. The least desirable outcome, from the get-go, for both sides was playing on October 13th. After talking to the commissioner, that was the remaining option.

Coming back from listening to Slive talk and talking to him there, then having several conversations with him on the phone, the question was what SEC protocol was. The home athletic director and the referee make the decision at game time. Prior to the game it's the home school and the commissioner. Slive had been in touch with the WAC commissioner. So there was a lot of dialogue going on, many contingencies, many possibilities. A&M wanted the game on Thursday all along.

Unfortunately when he was headed back from Dallas, the storm had shifted to directly hit Shreveport in the near future. At that point there were discussions with LaTech and their people had met with a weather expert at the military base there, a colonel that's an expert meteorologist. They had been in discussions with him and the president and AD had been in discussions with security people, all kinds of people in the Shreveport area. They all said the game needed to be postponed. It couldn't be played.

Everyone is sensitive to the student-athletes, the community, etc. Based on the facts, prior to the morning, it looked good. Then it changed. The decision was the right thing to do based on what was known at that time. None of the other possibilities could come true. It's ironic that both teams had an open date on October 13. Is is something everyone wanted? No. But unfortunately ... it puts a challenge for the football team. Having coached a bit, you like to play the first game and make your best improvement before the second game. The positive is, Florida won't see A&M on film and A&M will see Florida against Bowling Game. But Florida will be able to work out kinks A&M won't.

That's the background. It was the least desirable choice to go to October 13. Those are the facts and that's what transpired to that point in time.

* He'll have been here two weeks on Friday. The first day on the job, he was in a five-hour meeting about Kyle Field and went to speak to a 12th Man camp and the first question was, 'What's going on with Kyle Field?'He said, 'I just got here.' He's looking, learning, listening, talking to everyone in the department to try and surmount his steep learning curve. Trying to get a sense and a feel for where things are. There's fact-finding going on, sitting down and talking to coaches and getting their perspective. Based on these discussions, planning will be developed for the future.

There will be a strategic plan and the starting point will be based on what the coaches say, because they're in the trenches. He's been impressed with the people at A&M and he's excited to be here. Texas A&M is not broken by any means. It's exciting to go around and see that, while it's not there yet, there's a lot of foundation and progress on a level that wasn't at TCU or South Carolina when he got there. He got to meet with student body leadership and talk to them and came away impressed.

What's the point of the job? The student-athletes. He had a coach be a difference-maker in his life and that's what he wants to try to do at A&M. The coaching staff is impressive. The SEC will be tough; it's a heck of a league. So there's pride and excitement. Both parties are happy to have each other. Is A&M there yet? No, but there's things to do to improve going forward. Playing the best is the way to become the best, and that gives a distinction to A&M that competing programs in Texas don't have.

* There's a lot of excitement and enthusiasm for Florida and it'll be a tremendous day. Activities, festitivites going on, it's just a wonderful time to be an Aggie and to be associated with and working at Texas A&M. It's not his athletic department, from a philosophical standpoint. It's A&M's. This is a team, and teammates make teammates better. There are fundamental things he thinks are important, but he's just part of the team. An athletic department tries to get everyone to put their work together, which is how potential is reached. That's the goal.

* He says that his pencils have erasers. He knows he makes mistakes. The whole key is to learn from them. He doesn't have a corner on the market and all the right answers, but hopefully past experiences can be merged in to form a department that makes donors feel like their contributions aren't wasted. And then, growing teams in the classroom is just as important.

Question session

* The issue with playing on Saturday was places to stay, how to get the team up there, et al. If it could have been played later in the afternoon, they may have just flown there and flown back. But the key was not putting a tremendous hardship on the team.

* Playing the game elsewhere wasn't an option that came close to fruition. The game was Louisiana Tech's home game. A&M would have loved to have them come to Kyle Field, but looking at it in their shoes, there would have been no desire to have it any place else. They were the home team and, unfortunately, both teams were open on the same day. Had that not been true, maybe other options would have been more viable.

* Ticket sales and LaTech having no film on A&M were not brought up in discussions with him, as Sonny Dykes purportedly said. All that was said was that the Oct. 13 option was the least desirable, something both sides agreed on.

* The thing about stadium expansions is you want to have a good fan experience. Your fan experience and student experience is paramount, and you have to adapt and adjust just like everyone has to. Even professional venues have had to adjust. Television is competition because you want people to want to come and want to come back, so there's things you have to do to make sure they have a quality experience watching the game live. He hasn't had a chance to talk to the A&M CFO to have a grasp of the budget and how suites will play into a stadium upgrade. At previous institutions, money went into suites and more (revenue) came out of it. But at Kyle Field, it would be starting from scratch.

Do you renovate Kyle Field or look at another alternative? The key is offsetting some of the cost. In his previous jobs the thing could be paid off. Here, there might be a need for a cash flow to offset paying for those things.

* The Arkansas game being played at a neutral site was consummated before his arrival and it is what it is. There's advantages and disadvantages of playing it at a neutral site, especially the Metroplex if you're not playing TCU or SMU. It gets you into the Metroplex. But then it takes away a big home game. He can't speak to that process because it was done before he got to A&M.

* There's a lot of water that needs to go under the bridge before LSU can become the Thanksgiving opponent. That would be fantastic, but there's work to be done on the football scheduling. How the future unfolds is to be determined. Selfishly, he'd love to see it. But if you have the SEC and other factors going into it ... as Slive said yesterday, you make shared sacrifices when you come into a league like this. South Carolina was always at the bottom of the totem pole. It is what it is ... now there are two schools that are at the bottom of the totem pole. A&M will have to earn its stripes; it'll take time.

It's a fair league, but A&M might not get the first servings. He's been in a lot of conferences, mostly because of TCU (laughter), but the SEC is the best. And that's because of Slive.

* Playing the LaTech game in Dallas never came up in discussion.

* Tuesday morning it seemed like the team was headed to Shreveport and he was ecstatic. Everyone is sensitive to Katrina and to the lives of people in harm's way and that has to be factored into it. The decision was made based on, from what he was told, the president and athletic director at LaTech talking to weather experts, safety people, and getting a consensus from everybody that the choice that was made was the thing to do. They're honorable people and he has to respect what they say.

Going back to the SEC protocol, it goes to the commissioner of the home team to make the call. And the home team has their home game. The road team can influence and have discussions, but if it's all equal, the home team has the perogative just like A&M would. Would A&M give up a home game if there were a hurricane here and go play in Shreveport?

(Long pause.)

Probably not. So if you're going fishing, think like a fish. He knows the passion and love and loyalty toward Texas A&M and Aggies' way of thinking and he supports that 100%, but in reality sometimes it's a bit different.

* If it were his decision, he'd have them come down here and play (chuckles). That's what he'd like to do. But playing the game tomorrow in Shreveport? No. He would've gotten every expert in the area together to talk about it. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he did something and it turned out to be a catastrophe. One has to look at the fans and students. It's a game and he doesn't want to put people in harm's way. Do it not from a dollar standpoint, but from a safety one. What's the right thing to do.

* On slotting a nonconference marquee game where Arkansas once was on the schedule ... he's been on hurricane watch and it's too premature to think about that. It was a contract and you have to live by that in this business. But things change and eyes have to be kept open. If something could change that would be in the best interest of Texas A&M, then he'd have to consider it.