Live at Bright 10/2

Coach G is here talking about Soccer, the A&M girls finally allowed a goal the other night (hadn't in like five games) in a tie with Kentucky, but they remain the only unbeaten team in the SEC and their lead in the SEC West is hilariously huge.

Ryan Swope

- Not much they can do except play and execute. As long as they do those things the rest will take care of itself, just have to keep practicing hard. Admits he notices it and uses it for motivation and inspiration. Just one of those things you have to keep working and it will come.

-Takes pride in blocking, all the receivers do. Coach Beatty really emphasizes just playing the best game possible and that involves blocking. Blocking gets him fired up and it's a good way to start the game and set the tone.

- They have a "knockout sheet" that keeps track of blocks and body blows and things like that. The receivers had a really good week.

- Expects Ole Miss to be a crazy atmosphere and real loud. Going to be special though, this is what he signed up for when he came back to play, the road games at SEC schools. Getting to see how they do things and how loud the stadiums are is going to be special to see from here on out.

- Continue to emphasize that they have to be a smarter football team and working on not committing penalties in practice. They realize they can't beat themselves, have to play Texas A&M football and play smart. If they have penalties in practice they pay for it at the end of practice with up downs.

Jonathan Stewart

- Doesn't care about not being ranked, a lot of season still to play. No important right now.

- Haven't gone deep into Ole Miss film yet, have a very good offense. Similar to what A&M does running the ball. Have to fit their gaps and have to prepare. Guys have to know responsibilities.

- It's fun, there are a lot of guys making plays. When it's third and long you never know who's going to make the play. It could be Damontre or Spencer or a DB, it's fun and exciting and fresh guys bring energy.

- Great to have interchangeable players in the secondary, all of the guys are versatile and bring different things to the table.

- Always loves playing at Kyle Field so he doesn't look forward to playing somewhere else, but excited about it. Have to have positive energy.

- As a defense they don't go out each week to prove themselves as an SEC defense, just try to play their game. Goal isn't to be put into a category, just play.

- Defense doesn't have crazy punishment for penalties like the offense, but it's mostly just focus in practice.

- Guys maturing has helped guys realize it's just one bad play and it's on to the next one. You're as good as your next play so you can always redeem yourself on the next play.

- Look at each game as one season. Only opponent worried about is Ole Miss. Can't be worried about LSU or Alabama or those games will be insignificant because they didn't take of business when they had an opportunity to.

- Always joking with Johnny that he's only as good as his next game. Done great things this season but he tells me to stay consistent and keep climbing that mountain. This is where good teams become great or good teams become average. They trust him though and know he's going to do great things out there.

- As a senior class they've had one real winning season so they don't care who gets the success, just want to win games. Redshirt senior, redshirt freshman or true freshman, just a bunch of unselfish guys on this team. Just looking to have fun and win games.

- Learned from last year that you can't go by expectations. They expected to win a lot of games last year and compete for a national championship, but maybe weren't attentive to details because of it. Now they know it's their last time to do this as a senior class and they've been focused on the details. Have to keep getting better and stay attentive.

JStew has really stepped up from a year ago

Steven Terrell

- Hope they're an SEC defense, but it's just one game. Have a lot more to go. Want to prove they're an SEC defense.

- Have to be fundamentally sound against Wallace. this week it's going to be important for everyone to do their job. If you make a wrong read and somebody goes down they could be "out of the gate."

- It's great to have Hurd and Everett being able to move around. Good to have different people at different spots. The players know the roles and know what each other are doing so that helps everyone. Nickels play safety and know what each other are doing.

- They can be a dangerous team. Speed on the outside and a quarterback that can run is always a problem for a defense. Just have to worry about their responsibilities and what they can do. Especially on the back end.

- Felt good to get interceptions, always do turnover circuits in practice so seeing it transfer over is really good.

- Receivers block hard every play. you can tell in practice that it's a big emphasis is blocking. They've been doing a great job on that. When they block like that it also helps give the defense a better look on teams that are good at blocking downfield.

Kevin Sumlin

- He and Freeze have talked a bunch. Freeze asked him about media days, they've known each other for a while. Excitement at Ole Miss is high, Nick Saban said it's a team that plays hard and is well coached. At high school, Arkansas State, he's won wherever he's been. You turn the video on and this is a well coached bunch that plays extremely hard.

- If you're conscious about what you're doing then you realize it's hurting the team. Also talking about Polian coming and speaking to the team earlier this year. When you talk in terms of what it costs, guys understand that. There's always going to be situations where a guys' aggressive but five yard penalties are controlled by the players, not by the coaches, you're responsible for lining up correctly and not jumping offsides. You have a responsibility to everybody to do your job, and that's it. You hold people accountable for that.

- Knew Price for a while but he had SEC experience, is a former player at A&M so understands culture and traditions and he's a tremendous recruiter. He's a guy who when you start checking off the boxes for a d-line coach at Texas A&M all the boxes are checked. Great teacher, important for him to be here. Said it helped the day they got serious about hiring him it was snowing in Lubbock.

- Team is where they thought they'd be at this time.

- Trying to be consistent in what they do. Hard to say they are because they're four games in, but improved every week. Everyone's always waiting for the other shoe to drop around here. Things they've talked about from day one, reducing penalties and turnover margin, guys are listening. That's what they wanted to accomplish while keeping intensity and effort up, those two areas are biggest improvements. But only four games into the season. Key to championship football is consistency. With midterms, guys have a lot going on.

- Everything works hand in hand. It's not like Swope hasn't been open, key was to keep playing and keep working and let the offense progress. Both blocking and the quarterback playing in the pocket, got the ball down the field last week.

- Staff is doing a good job with the pieces they have, and they have quality pieces just not a lot of them. Yates and the defensive staff have moved some guys around and made things work. Everett has been a big part of doing that. You're playing different kinds of offenses.

- Steven Campbell still hasn't practiced. Another reason they have interchangable starts, don't have a choice.

- David Beatty has done an excellent job with receivers blocking downfield. Guys understand, maybe they didn't in the spring, that if you dont' block you don't play here at any position on offense. Whether you're a receiver or a running back or a lineman. It's how you play without the ball that defines you and they point that out positive and negatively to the team, that's your job. You never know when a ten or fifteen yard run could be an 80 yard run, you have to take care of business on the perimeter and you get rewarded down the line. If you're able to run the ball, teams bring more people in the box, and that's less people for you to deal with when you're trying to get open.

- You see a lot of spread offenses now, 7 on 7 has a lot to do with quarterbacks being better prepared. Two biggest changes in offensive football have been 7 on 7 in high school growing and the summer bridge program which allows freshman to come immediately after graduation. Instead of in the old days where it was in the fall, you get guys in in June and they have the ability to go through offseason workouts, they have eight weeks to work on conditioning. Quarterbacks and receivers organize 7 on 7s in the summer, players are acclimated to what's going on. When you get to two-a-days there's no time wasted on getting people in shape, they're in shape. They know the players. Number of coaches throwing the football in high school. A number of coaches all over the country and this state, they move on to be coaches and coordinators at the division one level basically running the same offense that they did at the high school level.

- You see Manziel getting better. As a young guy you have to handle success at all positions but moreso at quarterback. Get too much credit and blame, when you figure out how to deal with it as a quarterback, it's important. That comes through experience. I think the thing that he's doing right now, he wants to be really really good. Not just a guy that's playing and doing some things, but he wants to develop into a complete quarterback. In order to do that you have to be honest and critical with yourself about your limitations and strengths, and that takes time. Not four days from game to game, it takes a long time. Small steps are important, not going backward is important, being able to more forward in mechanics, knowledge of the game, things you have to work on daily as a quarterback. Continuing to improve is a daily routine.

- At places that win you don't see players jealous of younger plays. In a culture of "the best players play" you don't have that. An understanding of how they practice and play, watching film and pointing out plusses and minuses together. Haven't had that issue. If you can execute with effort and they can trust you, you're going on the field whether you're on scholarship or not.

- Wallace is a tough guy, he's bigger than he though. You get glimpses on television, so busy with what they're doing. Saw a little bit of Texas and Ole Miss a few weeks ago. But looking at film he's bigger than he thought. No wonder he's throwing it around in there. He won't hesitate to run it, has taken some shots. Been impressed with their team speed. You look at what they do offensively, they're 23rd in the country in rushing the football and played two top ten teams with good defenses and been able to move the football and score points on everybody. Thinks they've done a nice job. Jeff Scott is fast, anyone who can run away from Alabama and Texas is pretty fast. they do a great job offensively in their schemes and they have home run hitters. Have some weapons, have a great scheme. Biggest difference for them, looking at them, the combination of their scheme with the speed.

- Good players understand value in any system and the system can be improved when them in it. Guys are excited to play in this system. Going to play a number of running backs, a number of receivers, guys understand they're going to get the ball. On defense they've played about every front you can run in first four games. Not plugging guys in, it's making it fit what you have. People understand that. The more talented they are the more flexible they'll be across the board.

- You never know when a guy is going to have to play meaningful minutes so the more you can get him out there and not dirsupt the flow of the game the better off you are. Been fortunate the last couple of weeks to play a lot of people and be able to evaluate them. One thing to be able to evaluate guys at practice, another to be able to analyze them in the game and get a grade sheet just like Sean Porter is. You can see what you're doing and not doing. Can't put a price on that.

- Football is a funny game, told his team that there are players that you might not even know their name who you're going to be relying on to win games down the road. Nobody thought Julien Obioha would be starting four games. You have to get guys ready.

- Bertolet was a little nicked up and didn't practice for a couple of days. If you don't practice you probably don't perform at your best even as a kicker. Wasn't even sure he was going to play.

- asked when the injury happened he said "I don't know, and if I did I wouldn't tell you." Pretty funny moment.

- Bertolet has been "fabulous" this year in practice.

- The offensive line has taken steps. There's a lot of things going on in the new offense. Seeing some new looks based on formations and what Johnny has been doing. Made some strides last week. It's not just the quarterback that's in a growth process, it's the whole offense that's in a growth process.

Kliff Kingsbury

- Manziel's done well, he's a football player. He's shown up eager to learn and get better.

- Just looks at improvements they've made each week. Still feel they left points out there.

- Receivers blocking has been huge, they've made it a competition in that room on who can make the biggest blocks and the most blocks. When Manziel comes out it's those guys doing work down the field.

- As the season goes on you can put more in that he feels comfortable with. It looked like things slowed down for Manziel on Saturday, hopefully that continues.

- Knowing what Swope has done in the past they wanted to give him a shot at that position, want to get him the ball more and more.

- He and EZ are team players. Never said a foul word about anybody and kept working hard and knew it was going to come.

- Running backs all played well Saturday. Teams wanted to see if Johnny could throw it so they put numbers in the box. Saturday his ability to throw the ball down the field loosened up the run defense a little bit.

- He says he needs to slide every time, but that's how Johnny plays the game, he hasn't been hit that hard yet.

- Ole Miss is getting better and better each week defensively. To hold Alabama to really 24 points is impressive. Have energy and enthusiasm.

*** Y'all need to listen to the end of this today and hear him talk about rolling down the field. It's pretty funny.

This is the team the sips beat by 30 points and scored 60 on or am I imagining that?

When Campbell first got here I used to think he'd play at the next level. He has flashes of brilliance, but he's a knucklehead sometimes and is just way too fragile. What does he have now? It's a concussion, right? Or is it a "concussion?" Man, I hope he finishes the season stronger than he's started it. He's too good of a player to end his career like this.

Also, love that KK wants Johnny to slide. That's a must.

Thanks for the write up, Aubrey.