Coach Sherman made several comments which I thought were interesting during his time at the podium yesterday, particularly when talking about the defense. When he arrived after the 2007 season, Sherman wanted to implement the 3-4 defense, and hired Reggie Herring from Arkansas for that purpose.

You know, when I first took the job at A&M, I had hired Reggie Herring, who was at Arkansas at the time, to come
in and put the three-four defense in. Reggie, before spring ball, went to the Dallas Cowboys as their linebacker coach. The best coach I could find at that time -- and one of the best coaches, assistant coordinators in college football is Joe Kines. He has a golden reputation.
He came in here, and we asked him to do some things that were really magical because we didn't have linebackers, and we had a defensive lineman playing one linebacker, former receiver playing linebacker. We were trying to mix and match things. God bless Joe. He did a great job for us, did everything he could.

Given that Sherman originally had a vision of how he wanted the program to look, and he wasn't able to completely implement that vision on the defensive side of the ball, because Herring took the Cowboys' job, I think he handled things remarkably well the last two years. He brought in Joe Kines, who has an impeccable reputation as a defensive coordinator, and let Kines run the show. I think Kines tried to implement his scheme just as had at Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, and other programs, but following the Franchione debacle, we didn't have players on the defensive side of the ball who were physically fast enough to make the scheme work. We end up using a lot of true freshmen and going with a youth movement on defense, which costs us in terms of experience and depth, and end up going through growing pains because of that. To the everlasting credit of Kines, he never made an excuse, just kept trying to coach'em up, and took the blame when things went wrong. I'm not so sure most coaches would have been as generous when taking the blame.

The biggest concern on our team going into the season is the defense, and the biggest concern I have is depth on the defensive line. Sherman is just concerned with getting production from our interior five on our defense.

The biggest challenge I think we have defensively is going to be the inside five, how quickly those inside five are going to grow up and adapt to our scheme. I thought Garrick Williams from DeSoto High School had a great spring. Mike Hodges had a very good spring. Mangan is coming back as well. We have some pieces there, but we
haven't seen it all together just yet. I'm anxious to see that happen. We have to sort out the front guys. We have a lot of numbers there, but we have to find the best quality guys who will play this defense.

I am less concerned with our ILBs, because I think Williams, Hodges, and Mangan will be fine, I am worried about our defensive line depth. Our biggest problem may be at the two defensive end spots. Right now, we have Spencer Nealy being backed up by Stephen Barrera at the weak DE spot, and Tony Jerod-Eddie being backed up by Kirby Ennis at the strong DE spot. We have to hope that juco transfer Jonathan Mathis comes in ready to provide quality depth, and we may need Brandon Jackson or Ivan Robinson to play as true freshmen. One of the advantages of the 3-4 is that you don't need as many stud defensive linemen to make it work, but with the loss of Adren Dorsey and Rod Davis, we're looking at some possible depth issues at the DE position.

I love Coach Sherman's attitude about the offense, telling them last year was last year, and they have accomplished anything yet.

I told the offense in the spring, hey, you all probably read the stats more than I do, but regardless of what we did last year, it means nothing. You have to go back and do it again. There are no guarantees that you can have success one year and it just automatically carries over because everybody is coming back on the skill positions. So you have to work twice as hard. People are going to be twice as ready to defend you this year than they were a year ago, and it's not going to be easy. So you have to elevate your game.

One of the things I felt we struggled with last year was moving on and playing the next play. There were times early on the season, especially against Arkansas and Kansas State, where we let the failure of one play linger, and effect how we did on the next play after that and after that and after that. We didn't move on after a bad play, and just play the next play, we dwelled on what had already happened, and let it continue to effect us. I think this was partly an issue of inexperience and youth, but it is something we need to get past. Michael Shumard used to drive me crazy as an offensive tackle because his mental make-up was so poor; if he gave up a sack, he'd beat himself up for it, and it would effect his pass protection on the next play. He couldn't move on, which can be a fatal flaw for an offensive linemen. You have to be able to move on and keep playing. The same is true for every position on the team. No one is perfect, you're going to make mistakes, but you keep playing and keep competing, because you want to win the next play. You miss a block, you don't make a tackle, you get burned, just keep playing, because the game is longer than just one play. Against Arkansas and Kansas State, I felt like we forgot that at times. I'm hoping with more experience and maturity this year, we'll be able to avoid that problem.

Coach Sherman has said that they're slogan for this season is "Take The Next Step". Part of that next step is maturing as a team, and taking the season one play at a time, and one game at a time. The season is a marathon, not a sprint, and we need to learn to enjoy the scenery as we progress in the race.