What Kevin Sumlin had to say following Texas A&M's loss to Alabama
Here’s what Aggies coach Kevin Sumlin had to say in the postgame press conference after No. 9 Texas A&M’s 41-23 loss to No. 10 Alabama:
On trying to overcome turnovers and mistakes:
“It’s virtually impossible to win when you play that way…They played very well. When you play a quality football team like Alabama your mistakes are amplified.”
On making a game of it in the second half:
“At half-time, believe it or not, we actually felt half-way decent. I was pleased with how our guys approached the second half. Our defense played hard, the entire game, & we had guys playing up until the end. We didn’t have that last year in this game. There’s a lot of lessons to be learned for players and coaches alike.”
On Alabama running back Derrick Henry:
“He’s a man. We said that coming into the game.”
On what went wrong:
“We can’t play that way against a team like that. It all works together. Offense, defense and special teams”
On Alabama’s performance:
“That’s a good football team we lost to. We need to learn from that…this is where the maturity aspect comes into play.”
On looking for positives:
“We still have all our goals ahead of us. I thought our special teams were again, well above average. Games like this you try to manufacture points anyway you can… I thought our special teams played above average…”
On the road ahead:
“It’s a team game…there’s a lot to take away from this game and build on moving forward.”
On QB Kyle Allen’s response to throwing interceptions:
“Today was kind of a slap in the face…for him to go back in and throw a TD and give us a chance was big. “I told those guys, ‘Playing quarterback is just like being a head coach. Too much credit when you win and too much blame when you lose.”
It may be a team game, but the special teams and defense did thier part. Especially against an Alabama team. Offense was the overwhelming contributing factor to the loss.
Pick sixes were huge, but Henry was running wild. Gotta get that interior defense up to SEC standards or teams like LSU and Bama will do this every time.
Henry had a field day in the first quarter, but after that he didn’t win the game for them. What decided that game was when we threw more passing yards to Alabama than we did A&M… Henry is a beast don’t get me wrong but 75% of his yards came in the first quarter alone. It’s just nice to finally have a DC that can make adjustments – Last years D would have given up 400 yard to Henry alone
Henry didn’t do squat in the second half. In fact our defense virtually put Henry and Drake on a cart, once Chavis loaded the box and walked the safeties up.
Yes there are some issues with our gap control, but don’t act like the complexity of the game didn’t change in the second half.
We’ll get you next time. Or with some magic, this loss might not mean anything, and we still make it to Atlanta.
We’ll see.
Gig’Em!