New Mexico State head coach Tony Sanchez previews trip to Kyle Field

Tony Sanchez is in his first season as the head coach at his alma mater, and on Saturday night, his Aggies of New Mexico State will venture to Kyle Field to face No. 15 Texas A&M. Ahead of the non-conference game, Sanchez joined TexAgs Live to talk about his NMSU squad.

Key notes from Tony Sanchez interview

• It’s a great opportunity. Fiscally, you play these games to help out your athletic department and such, but at the same time, it’s a great opportunity to compete against some of the best. Texas A&M is having a heck of a year. That program is rolling right now. They’re fighting to get into the playoffs and extend this special season. We’re excited. It has been a tough season for us. Last year, we went into Auburn and won, but we lost 38 guys in the transfer portal. We have 17 guys from that team starting on other teams right now.
   
• We’re a different team, and we’re not playing an Auburn team that’s trying to find itself. We’re going in with a fresh set of guys to play a lathered-up A&M team. At the end of the day, you don’t go into this business tippy-toeing. It’s still football. You’ve got to get in there. You have to play it right, alignment, assignment and technique. Play with fanatical effort. Execute at a high level and see what happens.
   
• The transfer portal is one of those deals that is hard to talk about a lot because you don’t want to whine. We’re not going to do that. It is what it is, and that’s the landscape. Having been here and been part of that process over the last two years and watching the team that we built and then watching what happened when coach Jerry Kill was debating whether or not he wanted to stay. The first signing day came and went, and then right before Christmas, he decided to make the move. At that point, our guys were all gone. There was nobody here, so it wasn’t like we could meet with our guys. Slowly but surely, guys started going into the portal. I get it, but you just wish you had that early signing period to combat it a little bit. In the spring, we had lost some guys and brought some in, but then a whole new window opened up. We lost all three running backs. We lost Eli Stowers to Vanderbilt. It was like, “Here we go.” You had to regroup again. It has been an interesting offseason. Having said that, I have a great group of kids. They bust their tails and work hard. We have some talented guys in here, but it went from being something that we’ve built to an absolute rebuild overnight. We’ll keep our heads down, and we’ll be alright.
   
• I don’t know how “cool” it is at all to see Diego Pavia and Stowers at Vanderbilt, to be honest with you. They could be playing for us. Again, it’s one of those deals where, as an individual, it’s great to see guys have success. They’re good dudes. I enjoyed my time with them. It’s a double-edged sword. You know what they’re capable of doing, so you wonder, too. Imagine if that entire team — we have a guy that is a starting defensive lineman at Syracuse, a guy at Missouri, the two leading tacklers at Arizona State, the starting middle linebacker and safety. There are a lot of guys doing a lot of really good things. You wonder if that team sticks together if you’re one of the best non-Power 4 teams in the country? You wonder that. It is what it is, and that’s all hypothetical. Those guys are doing what we knew they were capable of doing. They’ve done it for the last bunch of years. Our focus really isn’t on them and what they’re accomplishing. Our focus is on our guys and building this program.
   
• I played at New Mexico State in 1994 and 1995. My first year coaching here was in 1996, and then I went off on my journey. Coming back, it was 120,000 people, and I think in this day and age people like their kids being in a college town. Las Cruces is not too big. It’s not too small. We have amazing weather. We practiced on Wednesday in 71-degree temperatures. We have a nice stadium that seats 30,000. We have a great crowd. Sometimes, you see teams that play Saturday games in front of a sparse crowd, but we’re always going to get between 15,000-25,000 people at games.
   
• It’s a good town with a good atmosphere, and we’ve shown what you can do here over the last couple of years. You can win here. We’ve done it. We’ve proved that. Our athletic director has put a ton of money into the program that they never had before. We’re building a brand new locker room facility. We just put in a new field and a new scoreboard. There are a lot of good things going on here right now, so again, it’s a great place to live. It’s a safe place, and it’s a great place to get a degree. There is a lot to sell organically here.
   
• I had that good run at Bishop Gorman (NV) and got to go to UNLV and learned a whole lot there in making that place a little bit better. We built some facilities. All of a sudden, you’re out. I was sitting there, and then the pandemic came. I had an entire year of just sitting there. I took a lot of walks, bought some cookbooks and learned how to cook. I rejuvenated myself, and that was really good. I got a chance to go to TCU to be an analyst, and that was just amazing. Gary Patterson is a phenomenal, intelligent guy. Kill was an analyst there, and Tim Beck was there. We all shared an office, so the time with them was outstanding.
   
• I was drinking a beer with Kill, and he told me he was getting the New Mexico State gig. It was full circle for me because you never thought you’d get to come back here. It has been fun. When we got here, there were no expectations and not a lot of engagement. We were sneakily recruiting. It was us battling ourselves. We were able to build a good foundation here, bring in a lot of good guys and have a lot of fun doing it. Kill created a really good family atmosphere, and we had a lot of fun doing it. Last year took everything by shocking a lot of people. It was fun to be part of. In those two years, you create the possibilities here and the expectation where expectations are a good thing. For me, it’s great. This place has given so much to me. I got a bachelor’s degree from here and a master’s degree from here. Both of my kids were born in the local hospital. It was great to come back. Coach Beck and I actually lived on my best friend’s couches for our first month here. It’s nice to know people.
   
• We’ve had four guys play at quarterback this year, and that was probably the hardest thing because we lost Pavia. We also lost Blaze Berlowitz, who went to Vanderbilt. We lost Gavin Frakes, who went to Virginia. We didn’t have a quarterback on the roster when I took over, so that was hard. We brought some guys in, and one of them got hurt early on. We’ve been really sporadic there, and that’s the hardest thing because you have to have a quarterback. Our guys are competing and working hard. Santino Marucci was not here in the spring with us, so he got here in mid-June. He’s getting his feet wet. Deuce Hogan, who is out now, also wasn’t with us in the spring. That’s a position that we’ve been battling with.
   
• Seth McGowan is an amazing young man. He obviously made some mistakes, and we were able to give him a second chance. It wasn’t without due diligence. We sat him down, talked to him and got deep into the woods about what went on and why he’s going to be different. It’s really good to see someone with that much talent who cares that much be committed to making a change. Let me tell you, he’s one of the greatest practice guys I’ve ever been around. He works so hard. He understands the second chance he has been given, and he doesn’t waste it. He’s a special player.
   
• Mike Washington is the other running back. He’s a transfer from Buffalo. He’s a really good player and has had a really good year with six touchdowns. With McGowan, they’re the yin-yang. They run a little differently, and Washington is a bigger kid. He’s 220-something pounds at 6-foot-3 and catches the ball out of the backfield.
   
• A little Texas kid from DeSoto in TJ Pride is a young freshman receiver, who has a heck of a career ahead of him. Kordell David is another Texas kid with a good demeanor. You’re frustrated for him because we have not been able to throw the ball the way we’ve wanted to. He’s a good player.
   
• Shiyazh Pete, our left tackle, missed the first six weeks of the season. He’s a big kid at just under 6-foot-8 with a high ceiling. He has a great story, too, being a Native American kid. It’s good to see him.
   
• Canaan Yarro is a three-year starter coming back, and he’s our center.
   
• Defensively, Buddha Peleti is a really good player for us, who got hurt early on after the second game of the season and missed a handful of games. He’s getting back to full strength. He’s a really good football player.
   
• Linebacker Tyler Martinez has really stepped up and done a much better job this year.
   
• Our kicker, Freddy Joya, has been phenomenal this year. He’s like 13-of-15, and his two misses are 59 and 58 yards. He has been a really, really good guy here. He has been a weapon.
   
• The older you get, and the longer you’ve been around, you start rooting for coaches and following them, kind of like how we followed players when we were younger. I’ve watched Mike Elko a lot when he was over at Duke, and when he was the defensive coordinator at A&M. When A&M made the hire, I thought it was a really good hire but still a little different. You immediately see the culture, the way they run around on defense and the way they punch the ball out. They play a really physical brand of football, so you can tell Elko is instilling that in them. He’s a good coach. He does a great job. Your team reflects you as far as attitude goes, and you can see that. He has a good, calm and tough demeanor, and his guys play like it.