Exclusive: Sumlin stresses importance of continued growth

Billy Liucci: I’m joined here by Kevin Sumlin. Texas A&M is coming off of a 59-57 win over Louisiana Tech. It’s kind of hard for me to remember that final score.

Kevin Sumlin: “Was it a basketball game?”

BL: It looked like it. Like you said, a Conference USA game broke out out there. I talked to a lot of people, to be frank, who just aren’t used to this style of football that A&M plays now. Your philosophy in a game like that up 27-0 is not to begin running the ball and running down the clock is it? Your deal is that you are always going to try to score every time you have the ball.

Sumlin: “Particularly against a team like that. There are only two football teams in the country that average 50 points a game, and Louisiana Tech is one of them. The knowledge that we had of them from playing the year before, them being on the field and going to Virginia and putting 40-something on them, 50-something on Illinois … we knew they weren’t going to be intimidated. It was a big football game for them.

"Looking at their schedule, if they beat us they were going to beat everybody else they play and possibly play in a BCS bowl game. It was really kind of a Super Bowl of sorts for them, and having been in that position before as a coach, I understood the intensity level they were going to play with. Quenton Patton is just a fabulous, fabulous player.”

BL: What does that say about the team in general? It’s crazy, in each of the last three weeks, they have been doing something that they never would have thought about doing last year. To play that poorly on defense and to come up with that stop, what did you tell them before that play?

Sumlin: “It’s kind of interesting. We had a real sense of panic at one point. I thought Mark Snyder settled us down. We played 17 guys on defense the whole night. We had seven guys play over 106 snaps a piece including all three linebackers, Jonathan Stewart, Sean Porter and Donnie Baggs. Not only does Baggs get really his first start, but he has to play 108 plays. We were really limited in our nickel package. Porter was playing a lot more nickel and Hurd was playing safety, so there were some guys out of position. I think that hurt us a little bit.

"Steven Terrell, Damontre Moore and Spencer Nealy all went the whole game. I couldn’t have been more proud of their effort, I think that speaks to Larry Jackson. Even with that, we got down to the end and after all the yelling and screaming, the penalties and the frustration, I walked in the huddle and said, ‘hey look guys, after all of this, you make one play here and we win the game,’ and they all kind of laughed and settled down. The mentality was that if we could just make a play on the two-point conversion, this game is over with and we can go home, and we did.”

BL: What did Mark Snyder do on that last play to keep them from scoring? I heard Sonny Dykes talk about how they had three options. One was, obviously, throw it up to #4 (Patton).

Sumlin: “Well, we had a couple of people there on #4. We wanted to try to make them beat us some other way, and since #4 had beaten us all night …  I think people say, ’Well, why didn’t you double covered him?’ Well, when we double covered him, if you notice, they ran that power over there where they pulled the guards. With the safety out of it, they pulled the guards and ran over to that area and we were down a man.

"If we rolled a guy into the box, then they just threw it to him. He was very difficult, whether it was a short pass or a long pass. You get in that restricted area down around the three-yard line, and there are only two things you can really do. With our pass rush, it’s hard to double move which forces them to either run a slant or a fade, or something like that. We loaded the box and really gave them a one-on-one the other way, and they decided to go that way with it.”

BL: You talk about them attacking your weakness a lot during the night with their lineups and personnel. You guys did the same. They seemed to play very aggressive, maybe more aggressive than the last two weeks. How much better equipped is this team now to deal with that?

Sumlin: “That was good. They came out and played what they usually play, and you look up and the score is 20-something to nothing. I think they said, ‘to heck with that, we’re just going to bring them.’ They brought them. I think Coach Anderson is getting tired of staying up here all-night during the week and then when it comes to the football game, we’re seeing completely different defenses than people have shown on video. That’s largely due to Johnny Manziel’s ability to run and them trying to contain him. It’s given our linemen a different look.

"I think Saturday was the best job we have done this year of communicating with our front. It’s not just the offensive line, it’s the running backs and the tight ends. We’re playing a variety of guys for protection and to figure out where the running lanes are going to be because of the different styles of defense we’re seeing upfront.”

BL: The focus is going to be on Johnny Manziel the last two weeks with his flair for the dramatics, but I want to talk about the wide receivers. Ryan Swope gets knocked out, Kenric McNeal isn’t suited up and you guys are able to get freshman Thomas Johnson to come up with a big play, and then Mike Evans. If it wasn’t for Patton’s heroics, he would have been the best receiver out there. Talk about the way those guys stepped up as a unit.

Sumlin: “That’s good for us. Derel Walker is another guy that had some critical catches for us in the teeth of the defense. Thomas continues to get better every week, and he’s starting to make big plays which is who we thought he would be coming out of high school. Those are two first year guys, Derel out of junior college and Thomas out of high school. Mike being a redshirt freshman … those are great things to see, particularly with what’s going on with Swope being out.

"We have to have guys to pick up the slack, and early in the year, we didn’t have that. I don’t think Derel was in a position where he could do some things for us against Florida. Thomas was coming on, but I think now as we’re getting into midseason … LaKendrick Williams has really started to help us a little bit, too. We have a number of guys who are contributing and giving us depth at that position, which we need in the worst way.”

BL: LSU this weekend … I think it goes without saying that this will be one of the biggest games here in a while. You said that a couple of weeks ago, and before that game, there is no way you could have had as good of a feel for your team as you do now. How much more comfortable are you knowing how your team is going to perform against LSU, having seen what you saw a month ago in the season opener against Florida?

Sumlin: “I’m a pretty confident person. It’s really not about my confidence level, and rather it’s more about our team’s confidence level. I think, and I said this the first week after the first game, in a weird way, coming out of Florida as frustrated as we were and thinking that Florida is a pretty good football team, and us having an opportunity to win if we corrected some things … I think we drew some confidence from, number one, our defensive line holding up in a physical game, number two, our offense line being able to hold up against a really good defense and us being able to move the football. Did we complete it? Did we close it out? No, but I thought we played with effort and were physical.

"I said this before, when we were on the bus after the SMU game … we had played a lot better in that game. We sat on the bus and watched the Florida-Tennessee game just in time to watch Trey Burton take off down the sideline, and the bus got quiet. I think our team started to feel like, ‘hey, you know what? We did some good things a week ago. If we can just get a little bit better, we have a real chance to do something special.’ Over the course of the past four or five weeks, that’s been the case. Coming back home, we’re going to know a lot more about ourselves as a football team at about 3 o’clock on Saturday.”

BL: The offense should get their toughest test of the year. Florida is pretty nasty, but like you said, we’re in the SEC now.

Sumlin: “Everybody asks if you can compare this defense … I turn on the video and when you’re starting to watch league games, we’re in the SEC now. There are some big, fast guys running around all over the place ‘dealing out gratuitous violence,’ as Coach Polian says. It’s interesting. You watch that South Carolina-LSU game that was a physical game. You’re starting to see that as we start to trade opponent tape, there are some big, fast guys out there and some really good coaching going on. Guys are in position, blitzes, different looks and that’s what I think sets this league apart.”

BL: National television. 11 A.M. kickoff. Texas A&M against LSU, two top-20 teams sandwiched around Houston. How big is this for recruiting?

Sumlin: “It’s a big deal. Someone asked at the press conference if this is a benchmark game for the program. I just don’t believe in that. The more you win, the more important the next game gets. I think that if one thing has happened, our fans have been excited about this game all summer. They’ve been excited about it since the schedule came out and we knew that we were playing LSU at home.

"I think our team has now put ourselves in a position to where this is a meaningful game in the SEC West. To me, that’s what is important. It’s not just an event or a game, but it’s a meaningful game for both teams moving forward in the SEC.”

BL: It’s what has happened up until this point. Has the team done what you said when you’re looking back on the first half of the season? Have they gotten better each week?

Sumlin: “We’ve had our ups and downs. We’ve had to mix and match a lot of different pieces in our secondary. We’ve mixed and matched a lot of different pieces at receiver. The thing that has gone very well, I think, is our defensive front and how they have held up and if they can continue to hold up. This is going to be a real test again this week. This is a different football game than we’ve played the last two weeks.

"This is going to be a physical football game for 60 minutes. If you play 30 minutes of physical football, then you’re going to get beat. If you play 45 or 50 minutes … They’re going to play the same way to the end and we’ve got to match that intensity and that physicality. For us, this will be an interesting game. Like I said, we’ll know a lot more about our team on both sides of the ball after the game on Saturday.”