bleedCrimson.net will be conducting weekly interviews with Aggie head football coach Hal Mumme during the 2007 season. This week Coach Mumme talks about the importance of winning last week's game against Idaho, Davon House's two interceptions and the upcoming game against Hawai'i.
bleedCrimson.net: Can you talk about the game and what getting a win after back to back tough losses in terms of regaining confidence or did the team ever lose any confidence?
Hal Mumme: Losing always hurts a team's confidence, regardless of the circumstances. It's always good to get a win. Everyone knew with the injuries that we were not operating on full tank, it's tough to take on Boise State, Ruston is tough even with everyone healthy, a bunch of teams have found that out. I think it helped them keep their spirits up. Getting a win was important, there are not any excuses to replace winning.
bc.net: Davon House had two interceptions in the first half, one which was a 106 yard return for a touchdown and one more right before the half that could have been a touchdown but it looked like he slipped making a cut. Can you talk about his overall play?
Hal Mumme: If he had cut to right he could have scored, he couldn't see it though. He was actually trying to pitch the ball, he had a lane and everyone in the stands could see it but he just couldn't see it from where he was.
Both interceptions were really good plays, we need more of those.
He and Chuck Taylor are the only two freshmen that came in and contributed. Chuck had the advantage of being in prep school and being here in the spring. He's really stepped up and played well. I think part of that is that the team is getting more mature and there's not a lot of chances for freshmen to play.
bc.net: Davon's interception for a touchdown really seemed to turn the momentum of the game into the Aggies' favor, what are your thoughts?
HM: Definitely. It was a service break and a half for the defense.
bc.net: Can you talk about the play of the offensive line? I think they only gave up one sack and kept Chase's uniform pretty clean on Saturday.
HM: The offensive line gave up zero sacks. That sack was on Tonny Glynn and he took a pretty thorough chewing coming back to the sideline because we had been perfect to that point.
bc.net: The Vandals had two big kickoff returns on squib kickoffs in the first half, what was happening on the kick coverage that allowed that to happen?
HM: It wasn't the coverage. The kicks were bad. The very first one we kicked deep, he kicked it flat, it looked like it was about 20 feet off ground all the way down there, it was a line drive which is hard to cover. We missed tackle, Cole Marton got out of his lane and didn't do what he was supposed to do.
The others were really just poor kicks, we didn't have chance to get on top of them.
One of the kicks was supposed to be hard line drive and it turned out to be more like onside kick and #51 for Idaho jumped on it.
bc.net: When Idaho scored what turned out to be their final touchdown midway through the 4th quarter, the margin was 14 points, then they recovered the onside kick, was there any lingering memories from last week's game creeping into the heads of the players?
HM: It's like I told the kids after the game, we're NMSU, there's always lingering memories, we've gotta overcome that. We overcame it we did what we were supposed to do.
bc.net: Are injuries contagious or does it just seem that way? Is there any expanation why the injury bug has hit the Aggies this season?
HM: Well I can tell you they're not getting hurt in practice. La'Auli Fonoti is the only guy who's gotten hurt in practice, every other one has happened in a game. It's just one of those deals, injuries are streaky.
bc.net: How much of an effect does the Aggies' travel schedule going from Auburn, then having Pine Bluff, then going to Boise on a Sunday, then heading to Louisiana Tech on Saturday, then coming back home, then heading to Hawai'i the following week? Does that have an effect on the ability of the team to stay healthy or hinder the healing process at all?
HM: Our trainers do a good job, it really doesn't hinder healing process. If you look at the injuries we've had most of those injuries have been ankle injuries. There's not really common thread, Nick Cleaver got fallen on on a quarterback sneak at Auburn, A.J. took that huge hit at auburn we're lucky didn't break his neck, Jamar Cotton took similar hit at Boise State, Chris Nwoko got fallen on in pile. It's just been different things and there's not any way to look at causes like maybe if we do these things better or maybe if we don't do this. It's just a part of football. Our trainers do good as job as they can, it's hard to train on the road, but there's not anything else they're [trainers] going to be doing out there.
bc.net: With Chris out, you lose about 30% of your receiving yards and almost 60% of your touchdown production, how much does his injury affect your game plan, is there a player or a couple of players that you think can step in and fill the role? Obviously you can't ever completely replace a guy like that.
HM: No you can't replace a guy like Chris, but everyone else has to step up. Really part of the reason he's got 30% of the receiving yards is that all the other guys have been hurt, and his role became greater. Now we've got the other guys back and we don't have Chris so the roles are reversed.
bc.net: With all the injuries to the receivers this season and the playing time that the other receivers have gotten because of that, do you feel more comfortable now with your depth than you did coming into the season?
HM: Yeah, there are some we feel better about and others we know we gotta go out and recruit more players.
bc.net: Can you talk about the upcoming game against Hawai'i? Everyone knows about Colt Brennan, they've also got four really good receivers who each have over 500 yards receiving and at least 5 tds each. How do you defend such a balanced attack when you can't really focus on one receiver?
HM: It's very difficult. It's going to be a big challenge, nobody's stopped them yet. We'll just do the best we can and try to break serve at the right time.
bc.net: Colt Brennan has scored six rushing touchdowns this season do you see his running game as a threat as well?
HM: He's not a guy who wants to do that, they'll run an option play on goal line, they've done that a bit this year. Most of those are like Chase's, just short runs, quarterback sneaks stuff like that.
bc.net: What else can you tell us about them?
HM: They're tough to beat at home, they play great at home. It's going to be a big chore we have to handle the trip and play our best game. If we do that we hope we can get into the 4th quarter with a chance to win.
We had a couple of questions from our readers,
bc.net: It seems like UH and NMSU players have a lot of respect for each other. Is this true or just perception?
HM: I think of all the teams in the conference, they're the ones that are closest to us. We do a lot of similar things. Our coaching staffs are good friends as well as adversaries. June Jones [head coach] worked on the same staff on the Detroit Lions as Woody Widenhoffer. Greg McMakin was a defensive coordinator for Mike Leach at Texas Tech, before that Jerry Glanville and Mouse Davis were old friends, it's a lot of mutual coaching fraternity type stuff there. Then you've got the polynesian factor. Mike Fanoga is from over there, Mike spends a lot of time over there.
bc.net: How much of a factor is the 4 hour time difference?
HM: It's tough, that's why we go on Thursday morning instead of Friday. You try to overcome that by friday, Friday is a groggy day and by Saturday you're ready to play. If you go on Friday then Saturday becomes a groggy day. It's probably a bigger factor coming back on a short week. We play Nevada on Friday, we're losing two days against Nevada it'll be tougher playing them on a short week.
bc.net: What's the injury status for the players who have been out?
HM: We don't really know, I'm getting ready to head practice, this is the first day we've practiced this week. Hopefully Chris Nwoko and La'Auli Fonoti will practice, Jamar Cotton is out, Vince Butler we'll find out today about. Receiver wise, we're as good as we've been this season.
