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 travel troubles, the impact of the kickoff rule and containing Utah State's option attack.
bleedCrimson.net: The team didn't get into San Jose until 9:30 and then had to turn around and play a 1:00 game, what happened with that and how much of an effect did that have on the team? You had something similar happen with the trip to Idaho last year.
Hal Mumme: Last year was a lot worse. We came out ready to play, we had the opening stand on defense and forced a punt. Offensively we took it 70 yards and didn't get in end zone. Unfortunately Brandon Allen came down at 9 yard line so we had 1st and goal at 9. On the next play we lost 3 yards on a pitch to Jeremiah Williams. He just didn't make good cut. They've [SJSU] got great defensive backs and squeezed us in the endzone. Paul [Young] came in and kicked a nice field goal.
That wasn't it. It was a pain. The plane that was supposed to carry us over had mechanical difficulties on flight coming over to pick up us up. They had to turn it back and find a plane for us. We were supposed to leave at 11 a.m. we left at 6 p.m. We had dinner at around 10:00 our time.
bc.net: Tommy Tuberville told the CBS guys before their game against Auburn that he was worried about his team going into Georgia because they had played 11 straight weeks, they ended up losing by a pretty wide margin. Is that something that has had an effect on the Aggies, having played 10 consecutive weeks without a break and also not having two consecutive home games in that stretch when everyone else in the WAC has had either a bye or back to back home games?*
*WAC teams and consecutive home games on their schedules: Boise State 4, Fresno State 3, Hawai'i - 2 (twice), Idaho - 2 in middle of season and a bye this week, La. Tech - 2 (twice) with a bye between the last two games of their season, Nevada - 3 and bye before last three games, San Jose State - 3 and a bye before their final four games, Utah State - 2 in the middle of season with bye on 10/13.
HM: Our schedule is tough, the Hawai'i trip was tough, to come back with one day's practice and play Nevada on Friday night. We had two straight road trips, Boise State and Louisiana Tech, those two are always hard. It's tough on everyone, it's the WAC, but it certainly could have been better for us. I think our injuries are well documented, there's nothing you can do about losing 10.3 sprinters.
Defensively, we played four games without starters. When they're not playing, they're not practicing either. What a lot of people don't understand is that they just can't get well on Thursday and come in and play on Saturday at their highest level. They've got to get reps in practice.
bc.net: How much of an effect does not having Chris in those short field situations affect the playcalling?
HM: He scored 11 touchdowns in six games, it's had a tremendous effect. We missed Tonny Glynn in this game. Tonny has had pretty sudden touchdowns for us too. He can make a cut and go 20 or 30 yards, we lack that without those two.
bc.net: There were a couple of plays in the game that were kind of indicative of how conference play has gone for you this year, the San Jose State punt at the end of the first half where Wes Neiman slipped on the turf as he was backing up to receive the punt and instead of getting the ball around the 40 yard line, the ball ends up going about 20 yards further back and then the touchdown pass with about two minutes left in the first half where Chris Woods made a play on the ball and tipped it but it falls right into the hands of Kevin Jurovich and he runs it in for a touchdown.
HM: On that play we should have had Alex Bernard over the top. Chris was in underneath coverage, Alex Bernard should have been there for the easy interception, that was a busted coverage. On the punt, that field was really bad for Hawai'i, it was better than we thought it'd be. They play soccer on it, there are spots on the field it's pretty tough. The field has long grass like us, there are uneven spots where they play soccer.
bc.net: There were two outstanding catches by Brandon Allen on the first drive and Nick Cleaver in the second quarter can you talk about those two plays?
HM: Both those guys are seniors and they play their hearts out. I feel disappointed that they won't play in bowl. They're both seniors and I think they'll both get looks in next level at the H back or slot receiver position.
Brandon has record for consecutive games with a catch. Nick's had a disappointing season. Nick hasn't been able to get over that high ankle sprain he suffered against Auburn but he cowboys up and plays hard. That catch was indicative of his ability. He's at about 80% speed wise. There's no getting around that.
bc.net: You've got two more games left and you can still get to six wins which considering the injuries to key players on offense and defense would you consider that to be a minor victory for the coaching staff and players.
HM: I would. We gotta get there first, take one game at a time, let's get to five first, then we'll start talking about six. It's been really tough, we've had three games that slipped away, Nevada, Louisiana Tech and UNM, two of those were on the road and and were really tough environment. We had to play La. Tech without Chase and about five or six other starters. Injuries, there's no way you can talk about the season without mentioning that. We haven't been here long enough to recruit enough guys to overcome those type of injuries.
bc.net: A lot has been made of the kickoffs this season but the Aggies are 3rd or 4th in the country in kickoff return yardage defense and the average starting field position is only five yards worse than the national average, is that yardage making that big a difference?
HM: I think it is for everyone. The score got out of hand in our game this past week but if you look at scores nationally, look at Nebraska, they gave up 70 to Kansas and then laid 70 on Kansas State. Nationwide with new kickoff rule, that's why you're having 50 and 60 and 70 point games. People are playing on half of the field.
If you have any kind of return guy at all, ours got hurt, when we had Chris and Derek Dubois back there, there wasn't any way to kick away from us. The oppsoing teams, they ended up squibbing and pooching just like us. We recruited Kyle Hughes because of his strong leg and then he doesn't make grades. He's redshirting this year and hopefully we'll have him next year. He'd make a difference in those five yards. That being said, in the whole NFL, there are 32 great kickers, the best kickers in the world and most of them can't kick it into the endzone.
They [NCAA] made this rule when they changed the rules in the offseason, everyone is still adjusting. We're doing the best we can with two walk-on kickers. When we had injuries to our defensive guys, the guys running down on special teams,
bc.net: The national average for starting field position off of kickoffs is around the 31 yard line and the Aggies' opponents average starting position is somewhere around the 36.
HM: That avg has BCS schools who have all the good kickers, if you did the average for the non-BCS, it'd be even more like we our average. SJSU has a great kicker, he was All-Conference last year and was up for All-American and he was kicking it deep against us. But if we had Chris Williams, he wouldn't have or couldn't have done that. We're just at the point injury wise, we got 4.7 guys returning ball so teams know they can kick deep. We tried to kick it deep on them early in the season. The last two weeks we haven't.
The next two games, the Utah State and Fresno State games, they've got a couple of really good returners, if you kick it deep they're run it back on you. Every single kickoff we ask ourselves do we want to play defense from 35 or kick it deep. You're probably not going to pin them on 25, that's best you can really hope for. You're also taking a chance. We kicked it deep once against UTEP and Demps brought it back to our 15 or 20 yard line. We can't get enough height on ball to cover it well enough. What the average fan doesn't know is that if you've got 7 of 11 guys running down that are 4.5 guys and you line drive ball, you're gonna give up long return and we don't have seven 4.5 guys to run down. We've got a lot 4.5 guys but they are red-shirted receivers. A lot are defensive guys. When you've got a lot of young guys, you play a mind game. I hope we'll get better at it, I'm sure everyone will figure out a way to adjust, but right now it's a national trend.
bc.net: Up next you've got Utah State who's had a pretty tough season but has been competitive in most of their games. Their senior quarterback Leon Jackson is also their leading rusher, what else can you tell us about their team and how do you contain Jackson?
HM: The scary thing about them they hired Darrell Dickey to be their offensive coordinator. They're a lot better on offense than last year. They're an option team, that's why their leading rusher is their quarterback. They've got a kid Preston Robinson on kickoffs you've gotta really watch. He makes a lot of plays on kick and punt returns. We've got to keep those two guys contained and not let them beat us. They're probably gonna get points and they're probably gonna get yards but if we can make right plays right time we'll be in pretty good shape, that's a real big thing we'll be working on this week.
bc.net: Justine Buries looked like he re-injured the leg he injured against Nevada, what's his status for the game?
HM: He's been battling muscle injuries for a couple weeks, he missed most of 3rd quarter. With no Tonny Glynn, our offensive line did a great job run blocking, I would have liked to run it more, Justine would run twice and had to come out, we couldn't keep him on the field.
What a lot of fans don't know, Justine has done a tremendous job, it's tough to come back from an ACL injury. He had it in the second game last year, and he's playing less than 12 months after the injury. That's a difficult thing to do. I think the wear and tear of the season is catching up with him. It was not as noticeable with Tonny Glynn in there.
bc.net: What's Derek Dubois' status for the game on Saturday?
HM: He may be done for season with his knee injury.
bc.net: With all the injuries that you've had, are there any kids you haven't played yet that you'll be giving looks to and evaluating in the next couple of games?
HM: Actually, we have a couple guys who played sparingly. Chris West is a good receiver but hasn't been able to break lineup. With the injury to Dererk Dubois we'll bring him up and give him some reps. Our other young guys have already played, Chris Buckner and Kyle Nelson and Jordan Fry, all those guys have gotten reps at receiver. They just haven't had the chemistry with Chase like Cleaver, Dubois and Chris Williams.
