Texas A&M coach, player quotes

Texas A&M Head Coach Kevin Sumlin

On the importance of a road win…

“Anytime you’re on the road, that’s important. I think coming off last week, which was really taxing for us physically and mentally, to come out and play with that kind of energy and excitement on the road is extremely important. We wanted to have some success early. We talked about it all week as a team—offensively and defensively, be good on special teams pretty early in the ballgame. Whenever you get on the road, that really helps your chances of winning.”

On the three running backs getting involved…

“We were able to get those guys going. Ben [Malena] has been steady through the whole year. It’s probably [Christine Michael’s] best game this year. He was extremely effective. It was good to see Trey [Williams] do a lot of work tonight. He’s been patient, and he’s done a good job on kickoff returns for us. He’s really been coming along in the playbook learning what he’s supposed to do, and the guys put in that kind of work. As I said at the beginning of the year, we’re going to need all three of them to go down through this stretch, and they all three were productive tonight.”

On keeping momentum following a fast start…

“You hope there’s no lull. Your people make adjustments, you adjust. I think the ability to be consistent is important. I think the big difference between us tonight and the last couple of weeks is we took care of the football. When you do that, and you’re moving the chains and not giving the ball to the other team and turning it over, that’s how you have this kind of success and you’re able to score like that. We’ve put a big emphasis on that at the beginning of the year, but like I said, penalties and turnovers the past couple of weeks have been a thorn in our side, but tonight we were pretty good at that.”

On coming back to the state where he was born to coach…

“We had a lot of people here. Anytime you win in this league, it’s good, but it’s always good when you have a bunch of family and friends around.”

On the first of a three road games…

“We said we wanted to be 1-0 at the end of this week, and then we will reset that and enjoy this for 24 hours, then we’ll say the same thing next Monday. We want to be 1-0. We can’t get past anybody. We’re new to this league, we’re in new environments playing different teams and we really have to stay focused one week at a time. As I said, we’re getting great leadership out of the seniors right now. Coaches do so much, but during the week, players have to stay focused and these guys are doing a great job.”

LB Jonathan Stewart

On being a defensive player in the league…

“It’s great. It’s a lot easier because it’s predictable. On our offense, when they keep scoring like that, we know that their offense, they have to put points on the board. They are going to have to score quickly, because our offense every time they’re out there they’re scoring in five or six plays, so it makes it a lot easier.”

On taking the crowd out of the game…

“It’s great. Their fans were rocking at the beginning of the game. Our offense went down and scored, and then we stopped them. I think in the first quarter they had three series that were all three and outs. Defensively we came out fast. We’re playing great and the offense is playing fast.”

On setting the tone for the upcoming stretch…

“It was important, but we don’t play attention to the stretch, we paid attention to this one week. We have the 24-hour rule. We’ll enjoy this win for the plane ride back, and when we wake up in the morning we’ll get ready for a very good Mississippi State team.”

WR Ryan Swope

On key to their quick start…

“I think what it really comes down to is our preparation. We practice all week, and coach emphasized we have to come out and start the ball game with tempo. We did that. We took the ball down the first drive and scored. From there on out, we were rolling. The offensive line did a great job tonight of giving (quarterback) Johnny (Manziel) protection. Johnny was really spinning the ball great tonight and did some good things on his feet. Just a great overall performance tonight.”

On consistent scoring on opening possession…

“That’s one of our main things we come out to do, to set the tempo and score in the first drive. We take pride in that, so we are going to try to keep doing that as much as possible. Coach has really emphasized just to set the tempo of the game. We’ve done really well the past couple of games of doing that.”

Importance of the game being the first of a series of road games…

“It’s very important. It gives us a lot of confidence. We’ll enjoy the win and get back to work this next week.”

On what it’s like to play when the offense is clicking…

“When everything is clicking, and everything’s working, it’s a lot of fun to be a part of. It’s hard to stop at the speed that we go at. We left a few plays on the field that I think that we can get better. It’s a scary thing, but we’ll take a look at the film. We’ll build on that and be real critical, but we’re excited about tonight. We did some good things out there.”

On whether Johnny Manziel’s performance is surprising anymore…

“He’s just one of those kids that can go out there and perform at a high level. He makes plays on his feet that I’ve never seen some quarterbacks do. It’s just something really special that he has. He’s getting better and better. He’s just got to keep focusing during the week, the preparation. You’ve got to keep practicing hard, can’t get complacent. The rest will take care of itself. Overall, he had a good game tonight. His leadership really stood out to me tonight.”

DL Damontre Moore

On defensive impact early in the game…

“We just really executed what we had practiced and what we had been taught. We played hard from the first snap and things just fell our way.”

On crowd noise…

“We got up early and that crowd really started to get quiet; the fans were starting to leave.”

On TAMU QB Johnny Manziel…

“I don’t want to say I’m surprised, he’s a great play-maker. Every week he does something; never ceases to amaze me.”

On good start of three-week road trip…

“Every week is a new week. It’s nice to get this win, but now we’ve got to just get ready for next week.”