Aggie football press conference quotes

DeWayne Walker, Aggie head coach
On team's attitude following Louisiana Tech game
I think the guys were very disappointed, embarrassed to a certain degree. I know we’ve raised the expectations. You’re 3-3 and 1-1 and you’re looking good, facing La. Tech. You want to see how you’re gonna fare against one of the better teams and we didn’t get it done. (The coaches) spent a lot of time on Sunday trying to figure out what happened. I’ve been in games like that before. It seems like every year I’m involved in a game like that defensively. It’s part of the deal. This is something we’ll have to overcome and deal with. When you’re trying to build a program and doing things right, I think you feel bad about it. But you’ve got to go back to work and have a better showing next week.

Did he take anything away from the film
I’ve been on teams where you get your butt kicked like that and you don’t even watch the tape. You just move on to the next team. We’re not at that level yet. We watched the tape and on both sides of the ball there were some glaring things that were very disappointing. We just have to man up and correct it and get ready for a good Fresno State team.

Any changes to the lineup?
At this stage of it, no. We haven’t really identified any lineup changes. Some things could occur throughout the week, obviously. But at this stage, it’s just business as usual.

On team’s Sunday strength and conditioning workout
They were just lifting and running. I know after we beat Utah State, I felt like we were a little beat up and I did give them that Sunday off. After a loss like (Louisiana Tech), no days off. We came back and our strength coach is very happy with how they worked.

On approaching Fresno State’s offense after the Aggies’ defensive performance last Saturday
It’s always a challenge. BYU put up 59 on us last year when I was at UCLA. I’m used to having to fight back from a game like that. I’ve experienced it at least once or twice a season. You figure 13 games, if you give up that amount of points once or twice, it’s not the end of the world. Definitely, we don’t want to give up that much this week and (Fresno State’s) capable of doing it, no doubt about it.

On Fresno State running back Ryan Matthews
He’s a heck of a player. When I was at UCLA, he ended up getting hurt in the game. But, I’ll tell you what, he gave us headaches when we played against him. He’s a guy we definitely respect. He’s an NFL-type player. We’re gonna have our hands full trying to contain him.

On stressing ball control
That’s something we didn’t do a good job of this past week. We’ve got to. Playing a potent offense like this, we’re going to stress keeping (the defense) off the field as much as possible. Offensively, we’ve got to do a better job, even if it’s not scoring points, of keeping (the defense) off the field as much as possible. Because (Fresno State) doesn’t have just one running back, they have three running backs. They don’t have just one receiver, they have three receivers. Coach Hill’s done a great job putting together a pretty good looking football team.

On it being homecoming and is their pressure?
I think you have to look at it that way because you’re going to have a lot of people coming back and it’s gonna be on TV. We don’t want to embarrass ourselves and the university. I think the players, they’re embarrassed enough and they know what’s at stake this week. I think they’ll have a different approach getting ready for this game.

Is the preparation any different for a late start
Our Friday schedule we’ll probably keep it the same. We’ll probably let them get a little more sleep Saturday morning. It changes a little bit because you let them hang around the hotel the whole day. We’ll try to kick some things back a little bit so they’re not sitting around all day.

Trevor Walls, Aggie quarterback
On offenses performance against La. Tech
We didn’t get the job done across the board. We came out lackadaisical. The opening play, we jumped offsides. That’s not the way we want to start a game. Warm ups were bad. It was just a pretty bad day.

Was he surprised about getting benched for the second half
No. Obviously I wasn’t getting the job done and we needed a change. Bringing Jeff in, you gotta do what you gotta do.

What did coach tell you after the game?
He said to keep my head up. We got another week and it’s not the end of the world. We gotta keep fighting, keep getting better.

On strategy this week against Fresno State
I haven’t really talked about it yet with coach. I’ve just been watching film of Fresno State, watching their defense. I’m not sure what exactly the gameplan is just yet.

What is the Fresno State defense all about?
They disguise coverages pretty well. They move around a lot. They seem to bring more pressure than La. Tech did. But it’s the same type of defense, basically.

Do they play a lot of man coverage?
They play some. They mix it up pretty well.

On pressure of playing on homecoming
I don’t think about it much. I try to approach it like it’s any other game. Of course it’s a big game. It’s Fresno State, they’re gonna be a great opponent.

On back-and-fort nature of Aggies, with win-loss, win-loss pattern
I hope it continues for this week and then we change it for the week after.

Being on national TV doesn’t mean anything to him?
Not really. I try not to focus on it.

On finding an offensive rhythm
I just try to focus on what coach is calling and why he’s calling it. He’s calling it for a reason. Take it play by play.

Mike Grady, offensive lineman
Performance of offensive line against Louisiana Tech
Not good. We couldn’t seem to get a rhythm going and get things moving in the right direction. We had a lot of mental errors and a lot of missed assignments. All together, not good.

How much of it was their defense?
They had a good and talented defense. But it wasn’t anything we couldn’t handle. We gotta get our stuff together.

On bouncing back from contest
Like coach was saying, we’ve gotta start over. We’ve got six more games. We need to find a rhythm and get rolling. Can’t think about last week. We gotta move on.

Incentive for playing well on national television
It should be the same no matter where we’re playing, who we’re playing, what it’s for. We need to go out there and execute, know what we have to do and get a ‘W.’

On Fresno State
They’re a good defense. They’re a lot like La. Tech’s. Almost exactly the same. They move around real good. They’re fast. Good speed and good size.

On controlling the ball and the clock
It seems like every week we go in it’s going to be on the O-line. If we don’t start it, it’s going to be hard to win games. We gotta have a good week of practice, execute and control the ball.

Alphonso Powell, safety
Importance of scoring defensive touchdown last week
The defense likes to get plays, always. I wouldn’t say it made the score look better. But it made it show that we were still fighting.

On Fresno’s offense
They’ll be a good offense. Physical, just like La. Tech. We just gotta execute this time. When we played La. Tech, we didn’t make the plays. We gotta execute this time and be ready.

On running back Ryan Matthews
He’s real good. He’s shifty, he’s explosive. We gotta make sure we cage him in and tackle him.

On creating turnovers
Takeaways are going to be real important. The game is going to be about ball control. Whoever has the ball the most usually does well on offense. If we can get off the field and keep our offense on the field, we’ll do good. Hopefully, we can get some takeaways this week.

On Fresno State’s offensive personnel
They have a lot of weapons. We’ve gotta make sure we prepare for all of them.

On the remainder of season and bouncing back from La. Tech loss
It was a tough loss. There’s more games to be played in the season. We gotta worry about this next game. It’s our most important game. We put away the film and now we’re looking toward Fresno. We gotta keep going and get on with our season.