Elko's unbeaten Aggies continue to impress ESPN's Marty Smith

Key notes from Marty Smith Q&A

• I was thoroughly impressed with coach Eli Drinkwitz and the team he has built at Missouri. If the safety doesn’t get hit with targeting, which was a vicious hit, who knows what happens? Alabama continues to impress me.
   
• Texas A&M is a very complete football team. Very impressive team. Marcel Reed continues to improve. I just think he is one of the more impressive players in the country. So much comes at you so often. Defensively, they are nasty. They run to the football. Mike Elko has done a tremendous job. This is the first time an A&M coach has gone 3-0 to start SEC play.
   
• I would be beaming. I feel like this is a really complete team right now. There is NFL talent all over the place. On top of that, there is an obvious culture that has been built. Self-accountability and accountability to your brother. There is a violence that this team plays with. This is a violent game, and that is what you want.
   
• This league is very hard. I’d be surprised if anybody emerges without a blemish. Any given Saturday in this league, you can lose if you are not on your A game. The floor of this league is so much higher than it's ever been. I don’t know what else you would want if you are a college football fan, to be undefeated after six games of the season, to defend your home the way A&M has. To be explosive offensively, to be so fast to the football defensively. I just don’t know what else you can dream of in the most competitive era of the sport you could ever know.
   
• Seven or eight programs have already fired their coaches because those wheels fell off the bus. If you’d told me that James Franklin would be unemployed, the standards with all the money we are talking about, it has gotten so high that you have to win. If I were you guys and your fan base, I’d be thanking my lucky stars because Elko has got it rolling.
   
• When you look at the list of fired coaches, Brent Pry at Virginia Tech. He fit the culture. He is a Frank Beamer disciple, a great man, but he didn’t win, though. James Franklin, Mike Gundy, Mr. Oklahoma State Cowboy. Sam Pittman, the perfect guy for the culture of Arkansas. Bill Belichick, arguably the greatest coach of all time, is struggling. The Carolina Panthers have won their last two games. Rico Dowdle went off against his old team, but all anybody can talk about is Belichick’s struggles. The demand that comes with the money is a win-or-you're-gone prospect.
   
• I’ve defended Billy Napier. I still do. I think he’s a good football coach. Yes, their schedule is very difficult. Incredible win against Texas, but you've got to win. There is a fever pitch in Gainesville. It’s a very demanding conference for all teams, so the job is to win games. It's as simple as that.
   
• I think we knew about Oklahoma before John Mateer got hurt. I think he really gutted that thing out. He was bleeding. It was a whole thing. The Texas defense that got pushed around by Florida, and the Gators ran the football well, which opened up the passing game. Dallas Wilson was incredible. A lot went right with Florida that day, and Texas was not impressive. Then, against Oklahoma, we saw what we thought the Texas defense was. They were flying around, and they made Mateer’s life a hell. Texas did a great job in the back end as well. They got turnovers, and they ran the football. Quintrevion Wisner's return was big for Texas.
   
• When you can run the football, the SEC’s like the NFL, you've got to run the ball. Texas was able to do that with Wisner and establish the line of scrimmage. And Arch Manning looked good, too.
   
• That was more of what we expected from Texas. I think it is fair, based on potential, that they were the No. 1 team coming into the season. They took some lumps, but they looked great in the Red River Rivalry. It was a big win for Steve Sarkisian and for Manning with the whole narrative around him, whether he was capable of the potential we feel that he has. It takes a special young man to know all that is out there, and Sarkisian’s main message to Manning is plug your ears. Good or bad news. Someone else’s opinion is none of your business, to quote Coach Prime. To have that fortitude and produce and be a leader, to me, I don’t know a lot of twenty-year-olds who are wired like that.
   
• As long as A&M comes out with the urgency with which they’ve played this year, I think they will be OK. I said on my show that even though Pittman is gone and Bobby Petrino is the head coach, what really changes? I know Petrino fired some defensive staff, but they were already scoring points. Taylen Green is so dynamic. Petrino was calling the plays. The defense was struggling to stop others. I don’t see a change coming there. I do think the players were playing hard for Pittman, so fundamentally, I am not expecting a significant difference with Arkansas. If A&M continues to play with urgency, they are better, deeper, more talented, so on paper, I think they’ll win the game.