Photo by: Jack Coil/Texas A&M Athletics
Mike Elko Press Conference Quotes: UTSA
Aug 25, 2025 | Football
BRYAN-COLLEGE STATION--Texas A&M football head coach Mike Elko met with the media on Monday in his first weekly press conference of the fall.
The 19th-ranked Aggies are set to open the season Saturday night against UTSA at Kyle Field. ESPN will broadcast the game nationally with kickoff set for 6 p.m. Fans can also listen to the game along the Texas A&M Sports Network (1620 AM/94.5 FM locally) or worldwide inside the 12th Man Mobile App or at 12thman.com.
(Opening statement)
"Obviously excited. You know, it's that time of year. It's been a long training camp. The kids have been hard at work, doing the things that we've got to do to try to set us up for success. And as you get knee deep in the middle of that, you start really itching to go out and play somebody, you know? I think we kind of switched gears last Friday to kind of get into game preparation, gave them off yesterday and then came in today to kind of start our normal game week preparation. And so, obviously, we're really excited that the season's here and it's an opportunity to come out Saturday night and play in front of our fans at Kyle Field. ?There's only so many times you get to do that in your life. And so I know our guys will be ready. I know our guys will be excited.
"A couple injury updates that I just want to give you guys real quick as we kind of come out of fall camp. Jerome Myles will be out for the season. Unfortunately, he sustained a lower leg injury during camp that required surgery. Papa Ahfua will be out for the season. Same kind of deal. He had a lower leg injury that he's going to require surgery and is out for the year. And then Deuce Fatheree will be out for at least the first few games. We'll kind of see timeline-wise in terms of getting him back. But that's another lower leg injury. I think outside of that, we've came out of camp pretty healthy, excited, and ready to go.
"As we kind of shift gears into talking about UTSA...obviously, anytime you play an in-state program, there's going to be a little something to that. Those kids certainly will be fired up to come over here and play at Kyle Field. Their head coach, Jeff Traylor, does a phenomenal job. He's done an amazing job with that program, building it, being successful year in and year out, transitioning it up into the American Athletic Conference and obviously is picked to be one of the premier teams in that league. That is a very, very good football conference. Jeff obviously has ties to Texas A&M. His son Jordan was a graduate assistant here, played here. And so he's going to be fired up, I'm sure, to come back to Kyle Field.
"Offensively, they're led by their quarterback, Owen McCown, another guy with some dots to Texas A&M. He is the son of former NFL quarterback Josh McCown. So a lot of quarterback bloodlines in his family, but he's also the nephew of former A&M quarterback Randy McCown. And so I'm sure he spent some time in this stadium when he was young and he is a really talented kid. I think he can make a lot of throws. He's talented with both his legs and his arm. He's a really, really good quarterback. And so he'll present a lot of challenges for us. They've got three really talented running backs. Robert Henry (Jr.) returns off the team from last year, and they added A'Marion Peterson, who started against us in the bowl game for USC. John Emery (Jr.), who was a 1,000-yard back at LSU. So they've got a talented backfield. They've got three really talented pass catchers. Willie McCoy (III) had a really, really good year for them last year. Devin McCuin didn't make it through the whole season, but was still their leading receiver last year. And then David Amador (II) is a kid from Houston who missed a large part of last year, but is a really, really talented slot. And then they have Houston Thomas at tight end, a local kid who actually graduated with my son from College Station High School. And so I have known Houston for a really, really long time and he's developed into an elite tight end, both as a blocker and as a pass catcher. He's a mismatch for us as well. They bring back four of the five starters on the offensive line. This offense is really talented. They were humming at the end of the year last year. They got off to a little bit of a slow start, but by the end of the year they were putting points up on everybody. And so we expect to have our hands full for and this to be a challenge.
"Defensively, it is all new. It is 11 new starters. They went into the transfer portal hard for a lot of them. And so we're watching a lot of film from a lot of different places, from other colleges, from junior colleges, from high schools, to try to get a feel for personnel-wise. It's probably one of the most challenging personnel deals we've ever been through, where you're trying to piece together who you expect to be on the field and trying to get some feel for what their skill set is. There are two names that stand out at linebacker for them, Kendrick Blackshire and Shad Banks (Jr.), obviously are two kids that we're very familiar with from recruiting...or obviously Shad, having been here when I was here as the defensive coordinator. They added six DB transfers from other colleges and junior colleges. They've added a few D-line transfers. And so trying to figure out what they're going to be on defense is a challenge. But again, like everything, it's going to be our ability to come out and play our football the way we know how, the way we're capable, in Kyle Field for three and a half hours Saturday night. And so we're looking forward to the challenge and excited for it."
Q: I know early on, I think in the summer, maybe you talked about Le'Veon ramping up his practice to getting contact later on, Has he been able to do contact practice in what's his availability for Saturday.
"Yeah, Le'Veon's good to go. He's had a really, really strong two weeks. We're excited to kind of get him back out there and see him perform."
Q: Over 40,000 students pulled for this game. Talk about how important the student body is and what you guys are expecting on Saturday night.
"Yeah, I'll talk about it from a couple levels. From a serious standpoint, obviously, the support that we get from our student body is unbelievable. I've gotten a chance to get out a couple of times to speak to a couple different groups. Last week I spoke at Fish Camp, I spoke at new student orientation, and just the excitement and buzz around football on this campus is second to none. And that's really, really special. I was joking with somebody the other day about the 40,000, saying it must be because I'm here (laughter). I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that we have more students now than we ever have before. But no, it's good that we get such a large turnout for our games. I think it speaks to what Texas A&M football means and what football means on this campus. And so they'll bring a tremendous amount of energy and excitement and that'll drive our team for sure."
Q: You've mentioned your son's connection with Houston Thomas. How much do you remember maybe getting to know him at when he was in high school as he was coming up through there?
"Yeah, I don't know how much they were together. It was just kind of the name, you know, and you remember it as a ninth grader, like, 'hey, we've got this big tight end who I think is really good'. And then, obviously, when your son goes to high school there, you kind of follow it. So got to watch him grow and play. He was a really, really talented kid in high school, was a really long, athletic kid. And I think he's done a really, really good job of developing his body to where now he's not just a flex tight end. I think he's got the ability to get in the line and is a really, really good blocker. And so I'm sure he'll have a great year this year. I'm sure he'll go on to have an NFL career as well. It's just really cool to see a kid that you kind of saw from a young age become what he's become."
Q: And then speaking of local products, I want to ask you about one of your staffers in Matt Salvaggio and just kind of how you've seen him go from student worker to now on your staff and just kind of the role that he plays with your team.
"Yeah, Matt's such a cool story. So when I got here as a defensive coordinator, there was this kid on social media, '979editz' who seemed to know everything about recruiting. I just remember going into Mark Robinson's office one day saying, 'we've got to figure out who this kid is. This kid's got to be local, and he seems to have a real good pulse on recruits all over the country'. And we ultimately uncovered a junior at Rudder High School. That's how we first got introduced to Matt. We were able to kind of try to create an opportunity for him to work with us, went through the Blinn program, and then before he got here I left to go to Duke. When I got back was the December that he graduated. And so that was a really cool full-circle moment for me, to see him graduate and then be able to hire him onto our staff. I think he's really good with players. I think he's got tremendous relationship skills and does a really, really good job with recruits. He's certainly has been a large part of us landing some of the top prospects we've been able to land here over the last four or five years. He's a great addition to our staff."
Q: You had mentioned in your opening statement 20 additions and 18 departures. How do you prepare for a team in this era of college football, especially in week one with there's so much movement within the roster there?
"Yeah, week one is always a challenge, and I think we've spoken about this last year. The biggest thing when you go in is you know you've got to come up with a plan. And so you do the best you can off of what you anticipate it looking like. You study enough tape, you study enough players, you know the coordinators, you try to get a feel for how it's all going to go. But then you have to be relatively limited in that initial plan because you know it's going to be wrong to some degree. You know you're going to have to adjust. You know there's going to be things that get thrown at you that you didn't expect or didn't anticipate what they've decided to tweak in the offseason, what added things they're doing, what they've changed about how their structures work. And so when you go into an opener, it's like, okay, we have a plan, but we also have a real good feel on, okay, where might we have to go? What might we have to adjust? And you want to be careful not to throw it all at your kids so they start slow, but I think as coaches you try to have a lot of conversations about the 'what if' world and 'What if this happens, where do we go? What if they do this? What do we have to handle or what do we have to adjust to?' And so I think it's kind of that. I think you just go in with the best plan you can come up with given the information that you have and just be ready to adjust as you go through the game if you need to."
Q: Do you have benchmarks or play counts, if you will, for young players as you try to get closer to SEC play to make sure that they get to a level that you're comfortable playing with them?
"No, I don't think so. You go into every game with kind of a feel for how many reps each kid's earned. You know, this kid's gone through camp and he's the clear-cut starter. He's the number one at his spot. And so we want to play him 80, 85, 90 percent. This kid has really earned an opportunity. We're trying to figure out how to get him 30, 35 plays in this game. I don't know that any of that is class-related. I think it's more just performance-related. And then you evaluate, right? And so you go into game one with a plan and you kind of see how that plays out and inevitably someone in a limited role will play better than you thought he might, and you'll elevate his. And someone will play a little lesser than you thought, and you'll try to figure out how to make that work as well. I don't know that you're thinking about it in terms of building towards anything. I think you're just trying to get your roster right, and you do all of this internal competition to try to figure out what it's going to look like, but until you play somebody else there's always that variable that's the unknown, right? And what will it look like? 'Okay, it's looked like this for 25 practices against Texas A&M, but now under the lights, game conditions, atmosphere, what does it look like'? And I think you try to adjust to the best you can as you go through and see all that. "
Q: Friday we talked to Will Lee and he talked about just the way that players have taken initiative, whether it be taking extra reps, watching film on their own. Just how pleased are you with the way they've attacked the preparation so far?
"Yeah, I think it's been really good. I think we've acted like a veteran team. I think we challenged them going into camp saying, 'You can do two things when you're an experienced group. One is you can kind of coast your way through it because you've been there, because you've done it, and then really not put in the preparation or the work that you need to to go out and play at your peak levels this year. Or, you can say I've been through it, but I didn't have the results that I wanted. And if I drive myself to just be a little bit better and each and every one of us do that, there's something we can go out and we can achieve and we can accomplish'. And I've been really proud with how they've handled that. I think that's across the board. I think both sides of the ball you've got a lot of veteran guys who have been really, really professional about how they've come out and handled their business. And I think that's been really, really good to see. And hopefully that continues as we go into the year."
Q: And then Dezz Ricks, Jay Bateman talked about how he feels like he's been a shining star throughout camp. Just what kind of growth have you seen from him?
"A lot. I think Dezz got put in a situation last year as a young kid where we weren't as deep as we wanted to be. Jayvon Thomas was dealing with nagging injuries all year, and I don't know that he ever quite played to the level that he wanted to or we hoped he could. And I think that put a lot of stress on Dezz. And so there were times in the beginning, middle of the year where Dezz was playing at a really, really high level. As a young kid, I don't know that he was quite ready for the amount of snaps that he had to play last year. And I think his body started breaking down. I think his mental focus started breaking down, and I think he would tell you that if you asked him. It's just been good to see him take the next step, and I think he's very hungry to prove that he's a better player than maybe he put on tape the last few games. Obviously we know he is and we believe he is. So it'd be good for him to kind of go out with a fresh slate this year and kind of show everybody what he's really capable of."
Q: With Le'Veon being ready to go, and the depth you all have at running back and all the things we've been hearing about...how do you deal with an embarrassment of riches at running back?
"Yeah, for the record, you've been hearing about all those guys from yourselves, just so we're on the same page (laughter). It's you guys who have been writing about them and listening to yourselves write about them. But, yeah, I think we'll have a plan. We'll have a plan on how we want the carries to go, who we want to get touches. They have different skill sets. And so you have certain things in mind, okay, these are Le'Veon's plays, these are Rueben's plays. This is where we're going to get Amari and EJ involved. These are the things the young kid can handle, and this is what we want to get him in there to do. Then you've got to improvise, and that's like every rotation you set up. You get into the game and you try to figure out what's working, what's not working, who's playing at a high level...and you roll with it. Trooper's done a really, really good job with that. We talk a lot in our building about the need to have a lot of really talented running backs. I think running back is the position that gets beat up the most, obviously, as you go through the year. They take the most hits, they take the most pounding and as you put it an 'embarrassment of riches' can become very thin very quickly because of injury. So it's important that we get everybody ready. It's important that everybody understands it's a long season and it's important that everybody understands that there's going to come a time where we're going to need each and every one of them to shoulder a load and a burden to help us win a game to keep this thing moving forward."
Q: And now with an offseason behind you in a spring football and a camp all behind, how strong of a feel do you have for the issues that you referred to after the Las Vegas Bowl being not only addressed, but solved?
"You won't know until you go out there and play. Obviously, I've said this before, and we want to just keep going back to that...it's not that I walked into last year going, 'oh my gosh, we have all these issues'. You thought you were in a place and then you get out in the games and you have to do things on the run and on the fly and they don't go the way you hope they will. And you've got to adjust. So, yeah, obviously over the last nine months we believe we have solved the problem. We believe we've recruited and coached and did the things we need to do to fix and solve the problem. The reality is we'll find out Saturday night and I'm sure we'll be judged on that."
Q: Have you decided who your backup quarterback is and maybe what went into that decision?
"Yeah, we're going to go with Miles O'Neill. I think Miles had a really, really strong camp. He's a kid that we believe has a really, really bright future. He's got a big, strong arm. He kind of went out and won that job. So he'll go into the year number two, and he'll be ready to go if something happens to Marcel."
Q: And sticking with Marcel, just maybe what was the biggest growth you saw from him in camp?
"Again, I keep saying this and it sounds repetitive--and I don't mean for it to be--but the second time you do anything you can do it so much better, you know? Maybe not even to the same degree that your third or fourth time, right? Year one, you don't have any idea and you go into it as a starter and you don't know what it means. You don't know what film study means. You don't know why coach is on you about all these little details and little things until you get out in the game and the game's moving as fast as it is and the speed of the game is as fast as it is. And you're maybe a step slower at times that you really want to be, and you learn that when you go through experience. And so I think he came out of all of that with a really good understanding of what it takes to be a quarterback in the SEC. To his credit, he has worked really hard at improving that. I think that's improving his footwork, his ability to diagnose the defense, his ability to put the ball where it needs to go. Marcel has zero problems throwing the football. Marcel's got to get his feet, his rhythm, his timing in line with the passing game in order to deliver the ball the way he's capable of delivering it. And I think we've seen that. Now again, you've got to go out in Kyle Field and you've got to deliver. And that's what Saturday night will be."
Q: You've got a lot of new guys on defense. Not everybody, but you've got still quite a few new faces. How confident are you in what you've seen from this group as you go into not an easy opener and obviously Notre Dame two weeks away?
"Well, certainly I don't care about Notre Dame two weeks away and certainly I think we have a really challenging opener with a team that has a returning quarterback and all those skill kids we talked about and all the talent they have coming back. So let's make sure we say that the right way. I think the one thing that's cool about where we are now is we have a lot of new faces, but we also have eight returning starters. So what you have is you have a group that knows what they're doing to help bring the guys who are new along. I think that was part of our challenge last year. Even the returning starters didn't really know how to play football in this defense. And so you look at Taurean York, who's a returning starter, but he's having to figure it all out. Which means he can't help Jordan Lockhart come along with him and he can't help Noah Mikhail come along with him because he's buried in his own business trying to figure stuff out. I think we have a lot less older guys trying to figure stuff out now, and that helps. So you could see Cashius Howell talking to a TJ Searcy or a Dayon Hayes about how things work around here. Or you can see Al Regis and Tyler Onyedim having conversations about how game plans go, so that helps tremendously when it's not everybody. I think that that allows some of those new faces to acclimate a little bit quicker to what we're trying to do and what we're trying to get done."
Q: Tommie Robinson, what do you remember him being like as a coach here and what is it like going up against guys that you kind of shared rooms with like that?
"Yeah, Tommie was here when I was here. Tommie was coaching the running backs. Tommie's a great person, first and foremost, obviously a phenomenal coach, spent a lot of time coaching in this league, coached a lot of NFL backs, coached some really talented backs here at Texas A&M. Really good family man, really good family and I think it's just part of kind of what happens in this profession. (With) So many inter-twined circles, you kind of constantly come across people. It'll be great to see him Saturday."
Q: From a coach's perspective, what is that like to go back in coach out a venue at a place that you were at before?
"Yeah, I'm trying to think...I don't think I've ever done it. I'm trying to go back in my brain. I don't think I've ever, yeah, I haven't. I've never gone back and coached somewhere I've been. Yeah, never once in my career have I done that. So I don't know the answer to that one. I'd imagine it's an interesting feeling. I'll do it in a couple weeks for the first time. But yeah, I'm sure it brings back some emotions as you go. I've coached against former teams and former players. I've just never gone back to the venue before."
Q: You guys reshuffled the offensive line, moving Trey Zuhn to center. What have you seen from that group late in camp and then just how does the Ruben Fatheree injury kind of alter your plans there?
"Yeah, we didn't reshuffle the offensive line. Trey's been playing left tackle. Trey's played center. He's been doing that since I got here. So that wasn't a reshuffling. I think Trey's got flexibility to play both positions. I think we're going to always try to figure out what the best five is for us to put out there and play. And then we'll go from there."
Q: Looking at your return game, is Terry Bussey the guy on punts? And what about on kickoffs? What are you looking from that group Maybe in regards to last year moving forward?
"Trying to get more explosive, and I think that's not just the returners. I think we've got to do a better job in our return units of being able to set up returns and being successful. KC Concepcion and Terry Bussey, they're kind of in the competition to figure out who will go back there and return punts. It would kind of be Terry, Jamarion Morrow and Rueben (Owens) from a kickoff perspective. So that's kind of the group of guys that we anticipate being involved. It's an emphasis for us, from a unit standpoint, especially punt return. The way the game has shifted now, punt return has taken on a much stronger emphasis. Every kickoff seems to go out of bounds now. So the kickoff return game has gotten a lot more limited in terms of your opportunity to impact the game. That's kind of elevated a little bit of the priority on punt block, punt return to make that unit a unit that can impact the game."
The 19th-ranked Aggies are set to open the season Saturday night against UTSA at Kyle Field. ESPN will broadcast the game nationally with kickoff set for 6 p.m. Fans can also listen to the game along the Texas A&M Sports Network (1620 AM/94.5 FM locally) or worldwide inside the 12th Man Mobile App or at 12thman.com.
Mike Elko, Texas A&M Football Head Coach
(Opening statement)
"Obviously excited. You know, it's that time of year. It's been a long training camp. The kids have been hard at work, doing the things that we've got to do to try to set us up for success. And as you get knee deep in the middle of that, you start really itching to go out and play somebody, you know? I think we kind of switched gears last Friday to kind of get into game preparation, gave them off yesterday and then came in today to kind of start our normal game week preparation. And so, obviously, we're really excited that the season's here and it's an opportunity to come out Saturday night and play in front of our fans at Kyle Field. ?There's only so many times you get to do that in your life. And so I know our guys will be ready. I know our guys will be excited.
"A couple injury updates that I just want to give you guys real quick as we kind of come out of fall camp. Jerome Myles will be out for the season. Unfortunately, he sustained a lower leg injury during camp that required surgery. Papa Ahfua will be out for the season. Same kind of deal. He had a lower leg injury that he's going to require surgery and is out for the year. And then Deuce Fatheree will be out for at least the first few games. We'll kind of see timeline-wise in terms of getting him back. But that's another lower leg injury. I think outside of that, we've came out of camp pretty healthy, excited, and ready to go.
"As we kind of shift gears into talking about UTSA...obviously, anytime you play an in-state program, there's going to be a little something to that. Those kids certainly will be fired up to come over here and play at Kyle Field. Their head coach, Jeff Traylor, does a phenomenal job. He's done an amazing job with that program, building it, being successful year in and year out, transitioning it up into the American Athletic Conference and obviously is picked to be one of the premier teams in that league. That is a very, very good football conference. Jeff obviously has ties to Texas A&M. His son Jordan was a graduate assistant here, played here. And so he's going to be fired up, I'm sure, to come back to Kyle Field.
"Offensively, they're led by their quarterback, Owen McCown, another guy with some dots to Texas A&M. He is the son of former NFL quarterback Josh McCown. So a lot of quarterback bloodlines in his family, but he's also the nephew of former A&M quarterback Randy McCown. And so I'm sure he spent some time in this stadium when he was young and he is a really talented kid. I think he can make a lot of throws. He's talented with both his legs and his arm. He's a really, really good quarterback. And so he'll present a lot of challenges for us. They've got three really talented running backs. Robert Henry (Jr.) returns off the team from last year, and they added A'Marion Peterson, who started against us in the bowl game for USC. John Emery (Jr.), who was a 1,000-yard back at LSU. So they've got a talented backfield. They've got three really talented pass catchers. Willie McCoy (III) had a really, really good year for them last year. Devin McCuin didn't make it through the whole season, but was still their leading receiver last year. And then David Amador (II) is a kid from Houston who missed a large part of last year, but is a really, really talented slot. And then they have Houston Thomas at tight end, a local kid who actually graduated with my son from College Station High School. And so I have known Houston for a really, really long time and he's developed into an elite tight end, both as a blocker and as a pass catcher. He's a mismatch for us as well. They bring back four of the five starters on the offensive line. This offense is really talented. They were humming at the end of the year last year. They got off to a little bit of a slow start, but by the end of the year they were putting points up on everybody. And so we expect to have our hands full for and this to be a challenge.
"Defensively, it is all new. It is 11 new starters. They went into the transfer portal hard for a lot of them. And so we're watching a lot of film from a lot of different places, from other colleges, from junior colleges, from high schools, to try to get a feel for personnel-wise. It's probably one of the most challenging personnel deals we've ever been through, where you're trying to piece together who you expect to be on the field and trying to get some feel for what their skill set is. There are two names that stand out at linebacker for them, Kendrick Blackshire and Shad Banks (Jr.), obviously are two kids that we're very familiar with from recruiting...or obviously Shad, having been here when I was here as the defensive coordinator. They added six DB transfers from other colleges and junior colleges. They've added a few D-line transfers. And so trying to figure out what they're going to be on defense is a challenge. But again, like everything, it's going to be our ability to come out and play our football the way we know how, the way we're capable, in Kyle Field for three and a half hours Saturday night. And so we're looking forward to the challenge and excited for it."
Q: I know early on, I think in the summer, maybe you talked about Le'Veon ramping up his practice to getting contact later on, Has he been able to do contact practice in what's his availability for Saturday.
"Yeah, Le'Veon's good to go. He's had a really, really strong two weeks. We're excited to kind of get him back out there and see him perform."
Q: Over 40,000 students pulled for this game. Talk about how important the student body is and what you guys are expecting on Saturday night.
"Yeah, I'll talk about it from a couple levels. From a serious standpoint, obviously, the support that we get from our student body is unbelievable. I've gotten a chance to get out a couple of times to speak to a couple different groups. Last week I spoke at Fish Camp, I spoke at new student orientation, and just the excitement and buzz around football on this campus is second to none. And that's really, really special. I was joking with somebody the other day about the 40,000, saying it must be because I'm here (laughter). I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that we have more students now than we ever have before. But no, it's good that we get such a large turnout for our games. I think it speaks to what Texas A&M football means and what football means on this campus. And so they'll bring a tremendous amount of energy and excitement and that'll drive our team for sure."
Q: You've mentioned your son's connection with Houston Thomas. How much do you remember maybe getting to know him at when he was in high school as he was coming up through there?
"Yeah, I don't know how much they were together. It was just kind of the name, you know, and you remember it as a ninth grader, like, 'hey, we've got this big tight end who I think is really good'. And then, obviously, when your son goes to high school there, you kind of follow it. So got to watch him grow and play. He was a really, really talented kid in high school, was a really long, athletic kid. And I think he's done a really, really good job of developing his body to where now he's not just a flex tight end. I think he's got the ability to get in the line and is a really, really good blocker. And so I'm sure he'll have a great year this year. I'm sure he'll go on to have an NFL career as well. It's just really cool to see a kid that you kind of saw from a young age become what he's become."
Q: And then speaking of local products, I want to ask you about one of your staffers in Matt Salvaggio and just kind of how you've seen him go from student worker to now on your staff and just kind of the role that he plays with your team.
"Yeah, Matt's such a cool story. So when I got here as a defensive coordinator, there was this kid on social media, '979editz' who seemed to know everything about recruiting. I just remember going into Mark Robinson's office one day saying, 'we've got to figure out who this kid is. This kid's got to be local, and he seems to have a real good pulse on recruits all over the country'. And we ultimately uncovered a junior at Rudder High School. That's how we first got introduced to Matt. We were able to kind of try to create an opportunity for him to work with us, went through the Blinn program, and then before he got here I left to go to Duke. When I got back was the December that he graduated. And so that was a really cool full-circle moment for me, to see him graduate and then be able to hire him onto our staff. I think he's really good with players. I think he's got tremendous relationship skills and does a really, really good job with recruits. He's certainly has been a large part of us landing some of the top prospects we've been able to land here over the last four or five years. He's a great addition to our staff."
Q: You had mentioned in your opening statement 20 additions and 18 departures. How do you prepare for a team in this era of college football, especially in week one with there's so much movement within the roster there?
"Yeah, week one is always a challenge, and I think we've spoken about this last year. The biggest thing when you go in is you know you've got to come up with a plan. And so you do the best you can off of what you anticipate it looking like. You study enough tape, you study enough players, you know the coordinators, you try to get a feel for how it's all going to go. But then you have to be relatively limited in that initial plan because you know it's going to be wrong to some degree. You know you're going to have to adjust. You know there's going to be things that get thrown at you that you didn't expect or didn't anticipate what they've decided to tweak in the offseason, what added things they're doing, what they've changed about how their structures work. And so when you go into an opener, it's like, okay, we have a plan, but we also have a real good feel on, okay, where might we have to go? What might we have to adjust? And you want to be careful not to throw it all at your kids so they start slow, but I think as coaches you try to have a lot of conversations about the 'what if' world and 'What if this happens, where do we go? What if they do this? What do we have to handle or what do we have to adjust to?' And so I think it's kind of that. I think you just go in with the best plan you can come up with given the information that you have and just be ready to adjust as you go through the game if you need to."
Q: Do you have benchmarks or play counts, if you will, for young players as you try to get closer to SEC play to make sure that they get to a level that you're comfortable playing with them?
"No, I don't think so. You go into every game with kind of a feel for how many reps each kid's earned. You know, this kid's gone through camp and he's the clear-cut starter. He's the number one at his spot. And so we want to play him 80, 85, 90 percent. This kid has really earned an opportunity. We're trying to figure out how to get him 30, 35 plays in this game. I don't know that any of that is class-related. I think it's more just performance-related. And then you evaluate, right? And so you go into game one with a plan and you kind of see how that plays out and inevitably someone in a limited role will play better than you thought he might, and you'll elevate his. And someone will play a little lesser than you thought, and you'll try to figure out how to make that work as well. I don't know that you're thinking about it in terms of building towards anything. I think you're just trying to get your roster right, and you do all of this internal competition to try to figure out what it's going to look like, but until you play somebody else there's always that variable that's the unknown, right? And what will it look like? 'Okay, it's looked like this for 25 practices against Texas A&M, but now under the lights, game conditions, atmosphere, what does it look like'? And I think you try to adjust to the best you can as you go through and see all that. "
Q: Friday we talked to Will Lee and he talked about just the way that players have taken initiative, whether it be taking extra reps, watching film on their own. Just how pleased are you with the way they've attacked the preparation so far?
"Yeah, I think it's been really good. I think we've acted like a veteran team. I think we challenged them going into camp saying, 'You can do two things when you're an experienced group. One is you can kind of coast your way through it because you've been there, because you've done it, and then really not put in the preparation or the work that you need to to go out and play at your peak levels this year. Or, you can say I've been through it, but I didn't have the results that I wanted. And if I drive myself to just be a little bit better and each and every one of us do that, there's something we can go out and we can achieve and we can accomplish'. And I've been really proud with how they've handled that. I think that's across the board. I think both sides of the ball you've got a lot of veteran guys who have been really, really professional about how they've come out and handled their business. And I think that's been really, really good to see. And hopefully that continues as we go into the year."
Q: And then Dezz Ricks, Jay Bateman talked about how he feels like he's been a shining star throughout camp. Just what kind of growth have you seen from him?
"A lot. I think Dezz got put in a situation last year as a young kid where we weren't as deep as we wanted to be. Jayvon Thomas was dealing with nagging injuries all year, and I don't know that he ever quite played to the level that he wanted to or we hoped he could. And I think that put a lot of stress on Dezz. And so there were times in the beginning, middle of the year where Dezz was playing at a really, really high level. As a young kid, I don't know that he was quite ready for the amount of snaps that he had to play last year. And I think his body started breaking down. I think his mental focus started breaking down, and I think he would tell you that if you asked him. It's just been good to see him take the next step, and I think he's very hungry to prove that he's a better player than maybe he put on tape the last few games. Obviously we know he is and we believe he is. So it'd be good for him to kind of go out with a fresh slate this year and kind of show everybody what he's really capable of."
Q: With Le'Veon being ready to go, and the depth you all have at running back and all the things we've been hearing about...how do you deal with an embarrassment of riches at running back?
"Yeah, for the record, you've been hearing about all those guys from yourselves, just so we're on the same page (laughter). It's you guys who have been writing about them and listening to yourselves write about them. But, yeah, I think we'll have a plan. We'll have a plan on how we want the carries to go, who we want to get touches. They have different skill sets. And so you have certain things in mind, okay, these are Le'Veon's plays, these are Rueben's plays. This is where we're going to get Amari and EJ involved. These are the things the young kid can handle, and this is what we want to get him in there to do. Then you've got to improvise, and that's like every rotation you set up. You get into the game and you try to figure out what's working, what's not working, who's playing at a high level...and you roll with it. Trooper's done a really, really good job with that. We talk a lot in our building about the need to have a lot of really talented running backs. I think running back is the position that gets beat up the most, obviously, as you go through the year. They take the most hits, they take the most pounding and as you put it an 'embarrassment of riches' can become very thin very quickly because of injury. So it's important that we get everybody ready. It's important that everybody understands it's a long season and it's important that everybody understands that there's going to come a time where we're going to need each and every one of them to shoulder a load and a burden to help us win a game to keep this thing moving forward."
Q: And now with an offseason behind you in a spring football and a camp all behind, how strong of a feel do you have for the issues that you referred to after the Las Vegas Bowl being not only addressed, but solved?
"You won't know until you go out there and play. Obviously, I've said this before, and we want to just keep going back to that...it's not that I walked into last year going, 'oh my gosh, we have all these issues'. You thought you were in a place and then you get out in the games and you have to do things on the run and on the fly and they don't go the way you hope they will. And you've got to adjust. So, yeah, obviously over the last nine months we believe we have solved the problem. We believe we've recruited and coached and did the things we need to do to fix and solve the problem. The reality is we'll find out Saturday night and I'm sure we'll be judged on that."
Q: Have you decided who your backup quarterback is and maybe what went into that decision?
"Yeah, we're going to go with Miles O'Neill. I think Miles had a really, really strong camp. He's a kid that we believe has a really, really bright future. He's got a big, strong arm. He kind of went out and won that job. So he'll go into the year number two, and he'll be ready to go if something happens to Marcel."
Q: And sticking with Marcel, just maybe what was the biggest growth you saw from him in camp?
"Again, I keep saying this and it sounds repetitive--and I don't mean for it to be--but the second time you do anything you can do it so much better, you know? Maybe not even to the same degree that your third or fourth time, right? Year one, you don't have any idea and you go into it as a starter and you don't know what it means. You don't know what film study means. You don't know why coach is on you about all these little details and little things until you get out in the game and the game's moving as fast as it is and the speed of the game is as fast as it is. And you're maybe a step slower at times that you really want to be, and you learn that when you go through experience. And so I think he came out of all of that with a really good understanding of what it takes to be a quarterback in the SEC. To his credit, he has worked really hard at improving that. I think that's improving his footwork, his ability to diagnose the defense, his ability to put the ball where it needs to go. Marcel has zero problems throwing the football. Marcel's got to get his feet, his rhythm, his timing in line with the passing game in order to deliver the ball the way he's capable of delivering it. And I think we've seen that. Now again, you've got to go out in Kyle Field and you've got to deliver. And that's what Saturday night will be."
Q: You've got a lot of new guys on defense. Not everybody, but you've got still quite a few new faces. How confident are you in what you've seen from this group as you go into not an easy opener and obviously Notre Dame two weeks away?
"Well, certainly I don't care about Notre Dame two weeks away and certainly I think we have a really challenging opener with a team that has a returning quarterback and all those skill kids we talked about and all the talent they have coming back. So let's make sure we say that the right way. I think the one thing that's cool about where we are now is we have a lot of new faces, but we also have eight returning starters. So what you have is you have a group that knows what they're doing to help bring the guys who are new along. I think that was part of our challenge last year. Even the returning starters didn't really know how to play football in this defense. And so you look at Taurean York, who's a returning starter, but he's having to figure it all out. Which means he can't help Jordan Lockhart come along with him and he can't help Noah Mikhail come along with him because he's buried in his own business trying to figure stuff out. I think we have a lot less older guys trying to figure stuff out now, and that helps. So you could see Cashius Howell talking to a TJ Searcy or a Dayon Hayes about how things work around here. Or you can see Al Regis and Tyler Onyedim having conversations about how game plans go, so that helps tremendously when it's not everybody. I think that that allows some of those new faces to acclimate a little bit quicker to what we're trying to do and what we're trying to get done."
Q: Tommie Robinson, what do you remember him being like as a coach here and what is it like going up against guys that you kind of shared rooms with like that?
"Yeah, Tommie was here when I was here. Tommie was coaching the running backs. Tommie's a great person, first and foremost, obviously a phenomenal coach, spent a lot of time coaching in this league, coached a lot of NFL backs, coached some really talented backs here at Texas A&M. Really good family man, really good family and I think it's just part of kind of what happens in this profession. (With) So many inter-twined circles, you kind of constantly come across people. It'll be great to see him Saturday."
Q: From a coach's perspective, what is that like to go back in coach out a venue at a place that you were at before?
"Yeah, I'm trying to think...I don't think I've ever done it. I'm trying to go back in my brain. I don't think I've ever, yeah, I haven't. I've never gone back and coached somewhere I've been. Yeah, never once in my career have I done that. So I don't know the answer to that one. I'd imagine it's an interesting feeling. I'll do it in a couple weeks for the first time. But yeah, I'm sure it brings back some emotions as you go. I've coached against former teams and former players. I've just never gone back to the venue before."
Q: You guys reshuffled the offensive line, moving Trey Zuhn to center. What have you seen from that group late in camp and then just how does the Ruben Fatheree injury kind of alter your plans there?
"Yeah, we didn't reshuffle the offensive line. Trey's been playing left tackle. Trey's played center. He's been doing that since I got here. So that wasn't a reshuffling. I think Trey's got flexibility to play both positions. I think we're going to always try to figure out what the best five is for us to put out there and play. And then we'll go from there."
Q: Looking at your return game, is Terry Bussey the guy on punts? And what about on kickoffs? What are you looking from that group Maybe in regards to last year moving forward?
"Trying to get more explosive, and I think that's not just the returners. I think we've got to do a better job in our return units of being able to set up returns and being successful. KC Concepcion and Terry Bussey, they're kind of in the competition to figure out who will go back there and return punts. It would kind of be Terry, Jamarion Morrow and Rueben (Owens) from a kickoff perspective. So that's kind of the group of guys that we anticipate being involved. It's an emphasis for us, from a unit standpoint, especially punt return. The way the game has shifted now, punt return has taken on a much stronger emphasis. Every kickoff seems to go out of bounds now. So the kickoff return game has gotten a lot more limited in terms of your opportunity to impact the game. That's kind of elevated a little bit of the priority on punt block, punt return to make that unit a unit that can impact the game."
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/ FootballConversations: Cashius Howell
Tuesday, September 16
The Drive
Monday, September 15
Notre Dame Postgame: Mike Elko
Sunday, September 14
Notre Dame Postgame: Marcel Reed
Sunday, September 14
