bleedCrimson.net will be conducting weekly interviews with Aggie head football coach Hal Mumme during the 2007 season. This week Coach Mumme talks about this past weekend's game against Utah State, Wes Neiman and the bye week.
bleedCrimson.net Can you talk a little bit about the game?
Hal Mumme: I was disappointed in the way we came out on defense. Offensively I was disappointed in the two turnovers, we didn't play like we need to play. Utah State played better than us. I don't have any excuses, we were outplayed, hats off to their coaching staff.
bc.net: The defense did a good job of containing Leon Jackson, you were able to sack him three times and limit his rushing to 33 yards. Was there anything different that you were able to do to contain him after facing Idaho and Nevada games?
HM: It's really two different types of deals. I was surprised they didn't run that much option. They hurt us on the zone and faking zone and throwing deep. We gave up points and yards. We did a good job with the option but we didn't do good job with zone.
bc.net: Wes Neiman had a really good day, catching 10 passes for 106 yards and a touchdown and has really stepped up his production with the injuries to the receiver corps, he's a redshirt freshman, what kind of things can we expect out of him in the future?
HM: Wes came here as a walk-on, on an academic scholarship.
Right now Wes is the fastest receiver on the field. He's deceptively fast, he ran a 10.5 100 meters. He'll continue to grow, he reminds of Derek Dubois as a sophomore. He makes great plays one play and he'll turn around and make bonehead plays. He's really learning and growing, the experience has been good for him.
With the injuries to Nick Cleaver and Derek Dubois, Wes has stepped up and really shown he's a good player.
bc.net: Chase took a pretty good shot on a run there in the first half, did that affect him at all during the rest of the game?
HM: He's fine, it's a weird deal, he's had two strange deals this year. That one, when he scrambled, the guy hit his sciatic nerve and it made his leg numb. For the remainder of the game he had to have the trainers stretch it, he didn't have feeling in his leg.
bc.net: Obviously it's been a difficult past four weeks football-wise for the team, how do you as a coach and your staff keep the guys up for games when it seems like you're not catching any breaks with injuries and tipped passes that get intercepted or calls that get overturned?
HM: It's difficult. We haven't done good job, particularly on defense. Our offense is fun to play in, the kids love coming to practice. We have so many guys who are playmakers hurt. They [offense] know that. The guys are out there playing hard. A.J. Harris caught 12 balls but only had 70 yards. Utah State was sitting back in zones and breaking up. diff. to shake look.
Defensively, mentally we've gone in the tank too much. Hopefully having an open date before Fresno State will help us with that. It's been a tough 12 weeks. We off started good, everyone was optimistic, we played hard then we started to get hurt, and it seems like we haven't been able to catch much of a break since. We have to work at it. We had a little scrimmage on Monday before the Thanksgiving holiday. We'll come back Sunday and get ready .
bc.net: Utah State was 8/14 on third downs in the game, there's been a big difference in opponent third down conversion %, how much of that has to do with injuries to the defense, how much has been teams doing different things on third down against your defense or just gaining more on first and second down?
HM: I think it's all of the above, after season is over I'll sit down and try to put a finger on all that stuff, I can't do that at this moment. But it's a bit of all of that.
bc.net: This weekend you have a bye week and it's also Thanksgiving, what's the schedule for the coaches and players?
The coaches are working through tomorrow, working on some recruiting. We'll take Thanksgiving and Friday off. The players come back on Sunday, we'll practice on Monday. We practiced yesterday. When they get back we'll practice Sunday night since we've got a Friday night game.
