Morrison's 'big' win over Texas only gets bigger if A&M continues to win

Despite upsetting then-No. 7 Texas in Austin last week, Jamie Morrison's Ags are STILL unranked in the latest AVCA poll. On Tuesday, the A&M head volleyball coach joined TexAgs Live to look back on beating the Longhorns before turning his attention to what's ahead.

Key notes from Jamie Morrison interview

• Our team's bodies needed the break. It is a long break. It is awesome timing being halfway through the SEC schedule. We have the chance to give the girls three days off. There is a lot of trust in that. We are coming back now and had practice yesterday.
   
• I'll keep saying it: the SEC is a grind. We have two matches this week.
   
• Beating Texas was special. It was a big deal. As I said before, in the locker room, it was not a matter of if we were going to beat Texas. It was a matter of when. It is tonight. It is awesome that it happened, but it is the how. It was the same grittiness we have seen all year. We found ways to win in different sets. We blew them out in some, grinding in the others, being down and coming back. That is what it takes to be a great volleyball team.
   
• I thought we should have won the first set. I was upset with myself about some decisions that I made. We came up two points short.
   
• In the second set, we hung on to the first set a bit at the beginning. At the timeout, I told everyone to take a breath and let it go. Let's go ball. All of a sudden, we won 25-14.
   
• In the third set, we struggled to pass a little bit. We had some talks with the passers, and that clicked in. We had some players offensively that weren't great then took off.
   
• In the fourth set, we were winning pretty handily, and they started coming back a little bit. That was the one time we let off a little bit. I was like, “Oh no.” Then I remembered where we were playing.
   
• One of the best things in sports is when you go into a hostile environment and make it quiet. That is a raucous crowd. They came to life in the fourth. We dug in and won that set.
   
• We went back and forth in the fifth set. We fought and clawed our way back. It was the little plays on defense and smart plays on offense that made the difference. We got a nice block by Ifenna Cos-Okpalla, and then they hit a ball out of bounds. Then, we were celebrating. I am most proud of the way we went about it and the grind we showed.
   
• Yes, it is a big win, but it will be bigger if we keep winning. We talk about it all the time: We need SEC wins. It matters who those are against, but it doesn't matter if you go out and lose the next one. Then you're still 1-1 in your last two.
   
• If we lose against Alabama, we're still 1-1. The one that we won looks impressive on a resume, but if we want to do what we are capable of, we need to get as many SEC wins as possible. We need to put those wins in our pocket and then go to work the next day. They have done a good job of that.
   
• I was most impressed with our practice on Thursday after beating Texas. To give them three days off, they had to come in right away on Thursday and practice. It was one of the best practices all year. They were dialed in and on point. We were getting better.
   
• The next day, they had weights in the morning, and it was the same thing. I am proud of the win, but the way we are going about working is how you win championships.
   
• Cos-Okpalla has not just played well but also acted well. You see how she carries herself when she comes in for an interview. We talk about the attitude that we want to play with, and I am going to show the team a clip of her that defines it. That is part of the motor that drives this team, and she is a huge part of it.
   
• People come to play and coach in this conference because of games and competitions like this. I would not want to have two great conference games yearly and know you'll win the rest. I looked around the arena and thought this was why I returned to coaching. It is more fun when it is a grind every single day. You have to get in that mindset.
   
• Our team is getting to the point where it is pretty deep right now. My goal is that practice is the most competitive thing that we do. When we get to six-on-six at practice, I want it to be an equal level of competition that we see on Friday and Sunday. We are getting to that point.
   
• It is awesome being around town. I was thinking about this for Mike Elko: It is getting hard to go around town and not get stopped by someone saying, "Great game." There are reasons why I came here. I wanted to be somewhere where people care. If you are a player, you want that support too. You want to be in a place where people show up, and you get recognized. You get to do the thing you love in front of 5,000 people. That is an amazing thing and what we look for as competitors.
   
• This place exceeds expectations by so much. We talk about how to get people to realize that in the recruiting process. The 12th Man is not just something talked about. They show up and are loud and vocal. You get to know them around town. They are a piece of the team.
   
• People don't recognize the resources that come with it. People don't recognize the feeling of this school. That includes the traditions that are at the core of it. You are a piece of something, and for the rest of your life, it will be a piece of you. That is really hard to get across unless you are here and here for a long period of time.
   
• Alabama is good. They struggled last year. They are taking all these teams to five sets. They are right there. They have two good SEC wins. It is another tough game, just like everything else we see in the SEC.