2009 Big 12 Conference Media Days: Texas A&M Coverage

Yesterday A&M was one of the teams in focus during the 2009 Big 12 Conference media days. You can see video coverage of Trent Hunter, Jerrod Johnson, and Coach Sherman here. Coach Sherman had many interesting comments while he spoke, a few of which I want to touch on. Coach Sherman talked about the difficulty of making the transition with a new coach working with a new team, our need to become better at running the ball and stopping the run, and the move of Lucas Patterson from defensive tackle to left tackle on the offensive line.

On moving Patterson from defense to offense:

When I look at a football team, if I have a list of priorities, it's a quarterback, a pass rusher, a pass blocker at left tackle and a cover corner. If Lucas Patterson was a dominant pass rusher who can change the context of the game, I'd probably keep him on defense, But if he's not playing left tackle, then the other guy on their team could probably change the game (for them). If he's going to play in the National Football League, it's a position he's probably more ready to play than defense. He has a confident, cool attitude about playing the position. He's very smart, very tough, and I think he gives a certain amount of credibility to that group. I just think if we can keep the ball longer on offense, we help our defense.

This was one of the moves in the off-season that concerned me the most, simply because I've never really been a fan of Patterson at defensive tackle. I don't think he moves well or showed much athleticism while he played defensive tackle, two traits that are needed at left tackle. I'd be much more comfortable if we had moved a TE to LT, or converted a DE to left tackle, because both moves would be taking an athlete and putting him out on the edge. However, I trust Coach Sherman when it comes to offensive line play, and he seems happy with what he has seen from Patterson so far.

Coach Sherman said we need to improve at running the football:

Areas that we have to get better at, I think, from a football standpoint in particular, I think, number one, we have to get better at running the football. I'm a firm believer that in order to throw it, you've got to be able to run. We have to be able to run the football a heck of a lot better than we did last year. We really struggled in that aspect of our game. I felt at times we threw the ball okay, and we made a lot of progress throwing the football. I think Jeff Fuller and Ryan Tannehill for receivers had some pretty decent numbers. It all comes back to being able to control the game and being able to run the ball. We didn't do that effectively.

We also need to be able to stop the run:

"On the other side of the ledger, defensively, I don't think we stopped the run very well. When you can't do that, you can't get people at third down and seven and ten, I think it makes life hard. I know a lot of people in this conference throw the football, but it was the running game that concerned me as much as anything."

There is no surprise here, as I think we all know that last season our struggles on the offensive and defensive lines contributed to our inability to run the ball and stop the run. If you can't run the ball or stop the run, you cannot be a good football team; it is a football maxim that has been proven time and time again.

Coach Sherman on the transition:

"I think it all starts, more than anything, when you have transition, it's always tough. Last season was no exception to that. You know, right or wrong, we come in with our coach or how we do things and are pretty demanding about doing it a certain way. It's awful tough on a group of seniors maybe that you didn't recruit. So we had some transitional issues. But as far as this upcoming season is concerned, I feel like we've had a very profitable off-season. Are we where we need to be? Probably not in the mind of Aggies everywhere, but at this point we're working to get there.

 

"I feel like last season, during the season, which was very difficult, was very trying, and a lot of adversity every single week, I thought it brought the team closer together. And I believe when we met in January and discussed the upcoming season and what it would take to compete in the Big 12 South, they embraced that challenge, and they've done what I've asked them to do. It hasn't been perfect, hasn't always been clean. Not exactly how you like it. But they've given the effort that I needed out of them. I thought last year I was very critical of them just being competitive at practice on a daily basis. I felt like this off-season was extremely competitive, as has been the spring and summer.

One of the things I was watching for closely last season was signs of the team buying into what Coach Sherman was teaching, or conversely, signs that the team wasn't buying in and was resisting the coaching staff. What I saw last season was Coach Sherman doing everything he could to coach the talent he had to wins, and the team trying to work with him. While there were players who didn't seem to buy into what Sherman was trying to do, overall it seemed the vast majority of the players bought into Sherman and his system and were ready to win. I like everything I've heard so far this off-season, and am excited about seeing a young team take the field for the Aggies this Fall as we continue the process of getting the Aggies back to where they should be.