bleedCrimson.net will be conducting weekly interviews with Aggie head football coach Hal Mumme throughout the 2008 season. This week Coach Mumme checks in and shares his thoughts on spring game, the receivers and running backs and what the schedule for the kids will be heading into August's training camp.
bleedCrimson.net: Talk a little bit about the spring game on Saturday.
Hal Mumme: The best thing is we didn't get anybody hurt. I thought our defense the last two workouts including Saturday night really started to come together. Joe Lee had to teach a new system, he's moved guys around, he's probably still not through doing that. The last two workouts they really started looking like Joe Lee Dunn defenses.
bc.net: One of the biggest things that's evident after seeing the spring game is that this year you have a lot of receivers that are quick. Can you talk about what adding receivers that at any point in time can take those short passes and turn it into a touchdown?
HM: Yeah, we have speed this year. For instance, Marcus Anderson can do all the stuff that Derek Dubois could do that last two years except he [Marcus] runs a 4.4 instead of a 4.6. LaVorick Williams, Matt Walter our strength coach tells me that another year in the weight room, LaVorick will be faster than Chris Williams and Julius Fleming is right there in that mix also. We've got three guys at wideout that can run with Chris whereas in the past we had no one that could run with Chris.
At running back I think Seth Smith had a good outing the other night and he's had a real quality spring. I really like the way he runs, I think him, Tonny Glynn and Brandon Perez give us a good change of pace and a good mix there at running back. When we couple those guys with Todd Lee, Marquell Colston and Donovan Roberts in the fall I think we'll finally have some depth at running back that are really quality backs.
We're a lot quicker, no question. Same in the secondary. For instance, Brennan Baiamonte has really had a terrific spring and has probably been the biggest recipient of the new defense in terms of somebody that's getting playing time.
bc.net: Talk a little bit about J.J. McDermott, how much progress has he made from the end of last season to the end of this spring.
HM: I think J.J.'s made a terrific amount of progress. If you think about it, if you look at Chase Holbrook, he's kind of the polished product, the end result. But three years ago when I got here Chase Holbrook was still at SE Louisiana just going to school waiting to transfer and so if you kind of project that onto J.J. and he's gotten all these reps in the spring and he got to play last year, started a game against La. Tech and had a great outing and look at the progress Chase has made, I think you can see the same thing happening with J.J. over a couple of seasons.
bc.net: What will the rest of the spring and summer schedule be heading into the August camp?
HM: Well right now they're just getting ready for exams, I think they finish up somewhere around the 10th of May. Summer school starts May 29th and that's when we'll start our eight week period of training. They've got about a week off around July 4th and then they've got about a week or so off before we start camp in August. Right now between the end of the spring game they've got roughly a month where they get to take care of their grades and rest up a little bit and then Matt Walters gets ahold of them and works them really hard again. They got a little down time but not a whole bunch.
