Key quotes from Tuesday’s NMSU football press conference

Aggie head coach DeWayne Walker did not sound satisfied at his weekly press conference when talking about last weekend’s 45-34 loss at Hawaii.

“Not good enough. When you play against good football teams your margin for error is so close. Yeah, we played them hard, we played them better and all that. But to win a game against a good football team, we'll have to play better probably as a team.”

“Are we improved? Sure we are. But I'm not so flattered with that, we've got to win football games.”

“Defensively, we forced the oponent to punt three or four times in a row but, are we forcing them to punt when we need to get the ball back?”

“Obviously special teams, if they can just keep us out of harms way. And offense and defense, if they can just play a little better off each other, than I think we're going to start beating good football teams. That's what I'm hoping we can get done this week.”

On this weekend’s opponent, Nevada
“When you look at them in terms of what we've seen the last couple years — they're not as good as they've been. When you lose guys like Kaepernick and some of these guys that are in the NFL...I think one of the things that's impressive about coach Ault is that his teams, they do the things that we try to get our team to do. They don't make mistakes in critical situations and when one side of the ball needs to make a play, they do. That's why they have a good football team.”

“I think for us to play at a certain level — they're beatable. They are beatable this year. But, at the same token, if we don't play at their level, we're not going to put ourselves in a position to win the game.”

On preparing for Nevada coming off a game against Hawaii
“They're a running offense. When you play against Hawaii, they throw the ball all the time. This week it's a little different. Our focus is going to be on stopping the run. Therefore, when they do pass, they really take advantage of the opponent because there is an emphasis on stopping the run. It's a different style of offense. We do have to control their run game but at the same time we cannot let them hit us with explosive passes.”

“Coach Ault is a no-nonsense head coach and that's the type of team he has. We're going to have to match all of that.”

On special teams
“We gotta get better. In two weeks, they've contributed to 28 points. That is not acceptable.”

On the health of the Aggie quarterbacks
“Matt, we just have to put some Krazy Glue and Band-Aids on him and — lets go. Travaughn, he could be a day-to-day thing. He probably won't practice today. We're just wait and see where he's at by the end of the week.”

Walker also added that tight end Trevor Walls will continue to get snaps as an emergency quarterback and that middle linebacker Alexander LaVoy could return this week after suffering a broken foot four weeks ago at San Jose State.

“Oh yeah. Big-time possibility,” he said of LaVoy.

Now, some interesting stuff from quarterback Matt Christian

On wide receiver Todd Lee’s first quarter touchdown throw vs. Hawaii
“He said he had it and I just sort of trusted him. I told him not to mess it up. If he messed it up, it would ruin our passing stats as a team.”

On why he played better in second half of Hawaii game
“I really don't know. I had a rough start to the game, the humidity was tough....I don't know what happened to tell you the truth, sometimes you're just not on your A-game and I had a real rough start to the game. Your right, when I came back in I did play better.”

On how injured left shoulder affects his performance
“The hardest thing is the brace I have to wear now just because it's a real restrictive brace. It was the first time I had to play with it in my life so that was tough. I practiced with it but — practice and games are different and it's the same thing when you wear the brace....No excuses.”

Does it affect his accuracy or arm strength?
“Accuracy more so than anything.”

On if he thinks about it when he’s scrambling
“I try not to. One of the worst ones was when I slid and a guy fell on top of me.”

On if shoulder affects him on option run or on a high snap when in shotgun formation
“I can pitch with my left hand. If I get a high snap, I've got a really, really good right hand....We ran option a couple times left, it's not that big of a deal. I mean, I it's a little different but I can make the pitch no problem. And I told (center Mike Grady) not to snap it high and left, so I'm not worried about that.”

On trying to protect himself as a runner
“They've encouraged me to slide more and get out of bounds more. Not really fight for that yard like I used to....We're thin at the position. I definitely have to be intelligent about what I do with it.”

On sideline activity when he re-entered the game for the injured Colwell
“At halftime I was shut down. I was wrapped up. It was kind of a makeshift sling just because of the pads, the hassle. They kind of wrapped me up and said ‘we need to shut it down, you're shoulder is hurting.’ It was pretty bad. When Tra went down, we thought at first it was (a) broken (foot) just off of what he had said — which ended up not being true....But when he said it was broken — before anyone said anything I told the trainers ‘go get my helmet out of the locker room.’ By the time they got back Tra had gone back to the locker room, we had the ball so there wasn't a whole lot of options there.”

On if his shoulder can get any worse
“I have not idea, to tell you the truth. The extent of damage to me is really kind of unknown. Even for the doctors — it's tough to do an MRI with all the metal in there. That's something I'll worry about after the season. Senior year, I just kind of deal with it, really. It's one of those things, I think the team benefits with me being on the field. So I'm going to be on the field, you know?”