G Guerrieri joins TexAgs Live during A&M's first day of fall practice

With the first day of fall practice underway, head soccer coach G Guerrieri joined us in the studio for Tuesday's edition of TexAgs Live to provide an overview of the team's new additions and preparations as the Aggies enter their 16-day preseason with two exhibition games.

Key notes from G Guerrieri interview

• It's not terribly hot. We started with our fitness test this morning, which is different every year. We thought this year was important because we weren't quite as fit going into last season. Pay off is good, but six times as many players killed it. From there, we went through some technical testing. The cool thing is it's a happy team, that's the great side.
   
• I think old school 70s/80s people would show up to get in shape pre-season. With soccer, it's a 16-day preseason, and you can't do that. It's much easier to keep your fitness from getting to zero than to get fully fit.
   
• We set those standards of what we wanted in the spring. The thing with this team is we have 10 transfers on a 27-roster. We have five new freshmen, and for 15 of the 27, it’s their first time and season in College Station. Most of them were here in January. All five of the freshmen graduated from high school early to come in and did great. We got seven out of the portal in January.
   
• We started putting this team in. Tim Strader, our new coach, came in and was given a chance to start from ground zero with the defense and how we wanted to play. As we went through the spring season to play good teams out of the conference, we only gave up one goal in the last five games, ending on a real high. Where we ended is where we want to start. From there, the fitness standards we had at the end we pumped up. Gerald Peña is our strength coach and has a great rapport with the players. The communication between him, our coaches and myself is to have a better aerobic base to win games. Late in the season, there was more of an emphasis on the sweat and the sweat equity compared to the things done in the last couple of years. We can check that box as something we want to improve on. Is it where we want to be? No, but it’s report card day on the first day. We'll have a solid day of training and an exhibition game against Rice. We’ll pump it in during the last exhibition, which is a week from Saturday.
   
• It's the last year that this type of schedule will be possible in women's soccer. We've been trying for 10 years with the NCAA to give us a longer runway in preseason. Something we learned from the COVID-19 year was a longer runway because they didn't know what to do. We got it through with legislation and help from the SEC and friends around the country. In 2026, we will go from a 16-day preseason to a 28-day preseason. The idea is to reduce the chance of injury in players. They need to show up fit, but can we? And do we have what it takes to play in an intense college season?
   
• The thing about the transfer portal is that we have players coming from being the best in their league. They now have the opportunity to come and level up at Texas A&M, to play in front of the best crowds. It is a real opportunity. We've got a lot of smiles and intense focus looks. It's a really happy team filled with great people. Our grades dipped a lot. We went down to 3.5, jokingly, and they are clearly spending time only on one class. We'll take these little steps and get ourselves ready. We go from 7:30 in the morning and 6:30 in the evening, but we want to get as many chances to each and get them on the field to represent.
   
• We have some players who are back, like Ella Goodwin. We got newness and returned our two goalkeepers in Maysen Veronda and Sydney Fuller, who had a run with the national team camp this summer. Our back line is very different and very new in Isabella Yakel, who comes in from Portland. Her little sister made her professional debut at 14. Yakel is our center on defense. Riley Crooks is one of our outstanding student-athletes in all sports from Southern California. We brought on the best player on defense from the portal, Mia Scranton, who won the conference championship and almost beat UCLA in the NCAAs. Hattie Patterson, who's a transfer and was a starter at Ole Miss, is from Texas and comes back to the state. There are four new names competing for spots. Trinity Buchanan, who was the High School Player of the Year in Nevada and transferred in from UNLV, is a big-time player in the middle of the field. Kat Campbell is back.
   
• We brought in a lot of firepower in the end. We had a resume last year to be a seeded team, but our goals dried up at the end of the season. We needed one more goal. Of the nine games we didn't win, eight of those we outshot every one of those opponents, but we didn't win. We want to retrigger the attitude and abilities upfront. Kaylee Noble is one of our newest players, who's a newcomer of the year in the Big Best Conference. She's a big, strong, fast striker. We got Savannah Hutchins from NC State. We got players from Kansas to come in. Leah Diaz was the leading scorer at Tulsa. A lot of people who have been here for a while know their way around town and aren't getting lost. The cool thing is the level of gratitude and the level of thankfulness for what they are getting instead of just expecting things to happen. These players show we are ready to grind, and that is what we are looking for.
   
• Our first exhibition game is a week from today. The first regular-season game is against Baylor on Thursday, Aug. 14. Six of our first seven are home. Aug. 17 is against Lamar with our former assistant coach. We play Texas State, which is expected to win the Sun Belt, then Connecticut. Right off the get, to go in August before the rest of the athletic calendar is going on at A&M, we'll be running out at Ellis Field.
   
• The exhibition games are free. The matches on Aug. 5 and Aug. 9 are free games, and everyone should come out and get a feel for this team.