Texas A&M Football National Signing Day Press Conference Quotes

Texas A&M head coach Kevin Sumlin breaks down his 2012 signing class

Reporter: Texas A&M Sports Information

Courtesy of KBTX

Wednesday, February 1, 2012 – College Station, Texas

HEAD COACH KEVIN SUMLIN
It’s been a long day for everyone here, and a short night. A lot of things go into a signing day, things that people don’t ever get to know; phone calls in the wee hours of the night into the morning, decisions being made. In the short time we have had as a coaching staff, much of that time was the dead period. We had one week to finalize things and the dead week stayed until January. And by now, this is a very different class. When I look at this today, to sign 19 guys and be ranked in the Top-15 in the country, I think that’s pretty impressive in the short time we’ve had together as a coaching staff.

We were able to keep some of the players who were committed, but not all of them. We had to sit down and make a choice about things. When you look at those 19 commitments, 8 of them are guys who this staff actively went out and sought. For those guys to come in with only a couple of weeks for our guys to do that, that’s a testament to our staff. From my standpoint., it’s a very successful day and we’re looking forward to getting on now with installation and with Spring football.
On addressing the needs of the defensive front
It’s a big area of need. I think people, when looking for defensive tackles, there’s two theories. Big guys like that are hard to get, you either get junior college or you grow your own. We have some guys in there with big size, and we’re going to recruit defensive ends like that. For us it’s an area of need and I think we were successful in addressing. Any time when you’re building a championships team, you have to be strong and have some depth in the front. In a short period of time, I think we were able to answer some of those questions.
On Edmond Ray, what did you see in him?
What everyone saw, the video. A 280 pound guy who can run. He was committed to Missouri out of St. Louis and gave us an opportunity to get in and compete with him. We kind of kept it quiet and snuck him in under the radar on an official visit. Really I thought there was no problem at first, and about Monday or Tuesday, his mom got a little worried about him being gone and being away from St. Louis. I think it hit her that he was going to be coming to Texas A&M and not Missouri. But we got it worked out and got him committed.
Physically, he’s able to help us just from a size standpoint right now. He’s a guy that’s going to be able to help us if not next year, certainly in the future.
How has the SEC been an advertising point during this process?
There’s a certain level of player that have embraced the SEC. Texas A&M is a very special place; tremendous tradition and pageantry at football games, but a tremendous amount of pride of fans and parents also. Particularly at game day. And we’ve done a good job last year and got them here at game day and given them a chance. Now with the game day experience, the academics and now moving into the SEC, that game day experience is every day. There have been a lot of players who have embraced that and want to be a part of it.
On emphasizing defense in recruiting and Sumlin’s offensive philosophy
I better have a philosophy that’s going to work going into the SEC. From the depth standpoint, changing from 3-4 to 4-3, we could’ve signed a couple of more guys, but I wanted to hold off. Certainly, we needed to do something in the front from a defensive line standpoint, that made sense with moving into the SEC.
How much of the process was from the staff before you, how much was from your database of recruiting?
We never looked at the existing database, we brought our own evaluation. The guys who were committed here when we got here, we spoke with them about where we were, where they were, and it was not just athletic, but academic evaluation. Knowing that the numbers were inflated by a number of those guys that were committed, and a number of them did not sign today. With the new SEC recruiting rules , you can only sign 25 guys. You can’t oversign. The risk academically to get to that number was greater than the possible reward. We had to evaluate there and go out and still try to find more.
How many of these players will get playing time?
I don’t know. I don’t think there’s anyone in this room who knows. We wouldn’t have signed them if we didn’t think they can play here. We don’t’ sign guys to redshirt. I’ve never gone into a home and said we’re signing you so you can sit on the bench. We get guys in here that want to compete to play. When they come in to compete, they make our guys better. They understand that coming in here, either to push the guys to make them play better or go right by them and get on the field. I don’t know who that’s going to be. If we didn’t think they could play for us early, we won’t recruit them.
On the offensive players A&M has recruited this year
They’re guys that understand what we do, what we have done in different places. Matt (Davis) is here, a lot of these guys we tried to recruit in Houston and they either threw our mail away or didn’t return our calls. We got here, and now they’re answering all of a sudden. They’re exceptional guys. Trey is as good as advertised. He’s not a very big guy, very quick very elusive, and surprisingly strong. Thomas is one of, if not the, best receiver in the state. Fast, quick, 6-foot, hands, strong guy. Here’s a guy who can play all four receiver spots. We can move him around, great feet, he’s an explosive player. I’m very excited about that because of the opening back up what is one of the great programs in Skyline high school, they have guys every year who can play for us. The rest of the guys, we wouldn’t have recruited them if we didn’t think they could play.
On some of the defensive recruits being recruited for the 3-4 defense before you got here.
If you look at Tyrone Taylor, he’s 6-3, 210, he’s more of a linebacker type anyway. I think he’s more suited to play in a 4-3. You have to take a look at what it is. In a 3-4 you have bigger defensive lineman, I don’t know that that’s the case. There’s plenty of guys in the 4-3 that have played with that size. I wouldn’t categorize anyone like that. Size ,may be a factor, but you can play in any league, even in the SEC with the 4-3, if you’re quick enough, If you have power.
On the range of emotions during this process
It’s interesting, we’ve been running around like crazy. My family hasn’t moved, we have 4 kids, didn’t want to take them out of the school. It’s a little different being an hour and a half from them here in College Station. But in the last two weeks, I haven’t been anywhere near College Station or Houston. We’ve been all over the place for recruiting and on the weekends, we’ve had official visit weekends. It’s been difficult, and that’s part of , but we’ll take a deep breath now, give these guys a couple of days off, let them get back to their families. We’ll hit the ground next week and installation wise, we’ll implement our plans and get ready for Spring football.
On improvements in the offensive line
Germain (Ifedi) is very talented. He’s huge, talented, gifted, smart, athletic. He’s a guy where we’ll get him in here. Mike (Matthews) is one of the best centers in the state, you know the bloodlines. We were talking on the official visit with Bruce (Matthews), I lived close to him in Houston, less than a couple miles, and we were talking about our long snapper deep snapper. I said there’s a possibility with Mike coming in, if he’s a deep snapper, a long snapper, we could use him. He said coach, he’ll start snapping tomorrow. That’s their attitude. He’d rather get on the bus and snap. That’s pretty important. He’s smart, he’s strong, those two guys will come in and the closer you get to football, the harder it is to play. Mike has the size and Germain has the size. He’s 300+ pounds, but he can move very well and we’re real pleased with those two guys.
On the quarterback starting position being wide-open
There’s no doubt that it’s wide open. All four of those guys that are here, all five of them, what we’ve got is four guys and Matt Davis. We sat down and talked the week I left this press conference, the last time I was here, I jumped in a car and saw Matt Davis that night. I sat down and explained, here’s where we are with Joeckel and Showers and Manziel; I just really wanted to see where everyone was. We went through the depth chart and explained that we’re happy with his progress. He said ‘I’m graduating now so I can be there and compete for the starting position.’ I like the fact that we get all these freshman in here and the redshirt sophomore, I think every one of him is in the mix.
On the addition of Brandon Williams and Trey Williams and getting two backs of that caliber in the same year
In my experience, what happens is, really good players don’t really care who’s there. At Oklahoma, if there’s Adrian Peterson, I guarantee you that DeMarco Murray could care less. He understood that he’s pretty good too, and in order for us win, we have to play with a few running backs. You’re not going to make 14 games running the same guy 30 times in the SEC. Running backs understand that, and if they don’t, their Mommas do. Brandon is a very talented player. Between him and Trey, I think it gives us an instant shot in the arm. It’s very difficult to find a guy to have that kind of talent. He’s got three years of eligibility to play. These are two of the better running backs in the country the last two years.