Press Conference: No. 3 A&M returns to Kyle to host South Carolina

The following are live, paraphrased notes from the Monday afternoon media availability:

Mike Elko

• Just want to start this way: We just started the Aggies CAN food drive. It’s the largest student-run canned food drive. They will have a tent in the fan zone. If you’re coming out Saturday, if you could chip in, that would be great. It supports the Brazos Valley Food Bank.
   
• Our players of the week: Dametrious Crownover and Trey Zuhn III (offensive line). Zuhn had to flip in and play center, and it was great to see Reuben Fatheree II chip in. Tyler Onyedim (defensive line). KC Concepcion (offense). The touchdown on the screen was huge. He’s electric. Cashius Howell is the SEC Defensive Lineman of the Week, and Daymion Sanford is the SEC’s co-Defensive Player of the Week. Internally, we went with Tyreek Chappell as our defensive player of the week. On special teams, we went with Albert Regis and Dalton Brooks.
   
• We turn our attention to a really challenging South Carolina team. This will be their fifth straight game vs. a top-12 team or higher. Not sure what they did to the scheduling gods. They’re extremely talented and much better than their record indicates. They’re coming off a bye week. We’ll have a tremendous Saturday and will have to play our best football to win.
   
• It starts with the work that we do with Tommy Moffitt and the strength staff. Our players have the maturity to understand the need to rise in the fourth quarter. They know what it takes to elevate their game at the end.
   
• On the fake punt, with most things like that, there is a mechanic to check it off if you don’t feel good about your ability to hit it. There was a little bit of an on-field debate, and they ultimately kept it on. It worked.
   
• I see the same big, physical, athletic kid who ran and threw all over us last year. LaNorris Sellers absolutely lit us up last year. If we want to have any success on Saturday, we better understand the challenge this year.
   
• On Scooby Williams: He’s doing good. We’ll see how this week goes.
   
• Ar’maj Reed-Adams was out in the second half, and that’s part of why we shift things around and rotate things. We do those things because, at some point in a game, something is going to happen, and you’ll need the group to play a certain way to win the game. Imagine if we hadn’t played Zuhn at center at all? We think about these things from a big-picture standpoint. You can’t let one injury rock your world. Reed-Adams couldn’t keep going, so we went with the group that we felt would give us the best chance moving forward.
   
• Reed-Adams is fine.
   
• Last year was such a learning moment for us. Nobody appreciated the challenge that was being in that position for the first time. We learned a lot about what would come with it and how to handle it. We’ve handled it the right way for nine games, but there are still three more that we have to handle one at a time.
   
• It’s funny. I stood on the podium after the Florida game and said that we’d hopefully return to Kyle Field with a lot on the line. We’ll have a lot on the line, and hopefully the 12th Man will show up on Saturday for a big game vs. a really, really talented football team.
   
• Look me in the eye and honestly tell me you thought we’d go 3-0 vs. three straight SEC road games. I’m not sure I would if I had looked in the mirror. It’s a testament to the kids. To do it three straight weeks is extremely impressive.
   
• It would be great for Cashius Howell to have a year like Myles Garrett or pass him on a list. He has really helped him by coming back this year. To see those guys develop their bodies and have a significantly better season, you can’t put into words how much that means for our program. I’d certainly like to see him end with the single-season sack record and with national awards.
   
• Dalton Brooks should’ve scored on both of them. He’s a talented kid. That’s a game you dream of as a safety. Two huge plays for us.
   
• The biggest thing is that we’re not taking this all in. The thing we talk about the most is blocking out all of the noise. Last year, there had been so much negativity that the group had to deal with that coming out of the LSU win was the first time they had to deal with not being called a bad football team. This group is more versed in the swings and the pendulum with what all that noise means. Now they can lock in, week in and week out, to have the level of success that we want to.
   
• Two separate conversations. The way the third quarter played out at LSU, it went a certain way, but we didn’t have any intention of not throwing the ball. It just got out of hand quick, and when you get those leads and play to win, you want to be smart with how you close the game out. If you want to be on a team that pads stats in the fourth quarter, this is not it. We didn’t want their defensive line to impact the game last week, so if we could get the ball out to our skill kids on the perimeter, we felt we’d have an advantage. We were able to run the ball when we needed it.
   
• I don’t know anything about what Missouri’s Cayden Green said.
   
• I hoped our defense would get to this point this year. People asked me enough about fixing the pass defense this offseason. Through nine games, we’ve been better, and now we need to figure out how to stop the run a little bit better than we have been. It has been better. We’re in a really good place with the guys we have and their ability to cover.
   
• The emphasis on playcalling with Jay Bateman wasn’t that big as a staff. It was more coming together as a staff and tightening things up. Last year, you had a group of guys who had never worked together. We weren’t familiar with each other, with a hodgepodge group of DBs. We had to patch it together as best we could, as fast as we could. It’s more about the group being together longer and on the same page more than it is the playcalling.
   
• It’s an awesome story for EJ Smith, this program and for who he is and what his family is. To come back for your last year of football and not knowing if you’d get many carries, but you’ve made the most of your opportunities in a crowded room. He’s still showing up week in and week out, making critical plays that are helping us win football games. People inside the building understand what championship football looks like, and that’s what it looks like. It’s about going out there on third-and-2, lowering your shoulder and getting the yards. Stuff like that is a big reason why we’re 9-0. Those things matter to why we’re having success and winning at the level we’re winning at right now.
   
• Marcel Reed has made a lot of growth. When we talked in the offseason about what it would take for him to be an SEC quarterback, the first thing that goes into it is talent. After that, they figure out why presnap reads and getting into the right play matters. That was the learning curve that we went through on a really high level last year. His eyes were opened as to what it took work-wise, and then he elevated his game.
   
• Turnovers are a massive emphasis. It’s a big part of what we need to do to be the defense we want to be. To have two strip sacks, one of which we recovered and set up a critical touchdown, is a big part of being an elite defense. It’s starting to come around more week in and week out.
   
• Zuhn is a veteran player. His knowledge of college football and playing offensive line means a lot. He’s a phenomenal kid, so whatever you throw at him, he’ll attack as aggressively as he can. He’s unique. Since Adam Cushing and I have been together, guys playing different spots isn’t as rare for us as it is for others. In the NFL, they carry seven or eight offensive linemen. If you’re not an All-Pro, you'd better be more versatile to avoid being on the chopping block. Zuhn is going to have tremendous value. He’s an SEC tackle and an SEC center. That’s only going to help him as he moves to the next level.
   
• South Carolina’s talent and young kids that are coming along at the receiver position, and they’ll have some creative ways to get the ball out coming off the bye week. You don’t get weeks off. All you have are teams that were able to find ways to win games and teams that weren’t. Every Saturday, you’re at risk. You have to go play a really talented football team, and it’s the same one that beat us by 25 points and embarrassed us up and down the field last year.
   
• It wasn’t the first fake punt we’ve called here. We’ve called a few of them, but haven’t gotten any of them run yet. You feel good about the game and the momentum. There are times to steal momentum, and it’s always important. It’s the same thought process when you’re going for it on fourth down.
   
• With Amari Daniels, it was a little bit of pecking order. We still have confidence in him, and we’ll see more of him. It was more of just how the game played out.
   
• I don’t take carries away. We have to be better. Are we capable? Yes. We’re not stopping the run at the level we need to. We’re not going to completely sell out or take away our pass rush to do it. At the end of the day, what matters is total yards and points. There are certainly ways we can improve.
   
• South Carolina’s new playcaller is really challenging. It’s a blank slate with the time they’ve had to prepare for us and our defense. They can’t change too much because 11 kids have been playing the same system. They can make tweaks and change a lot in two weeks. It’ll be a whirlwind in the early parts of the game to figure out where it’s going and find ways to stem that tide a little bit.