Coachspeak
Here’s what Texas A&M coach Mike Elko had to say about the Florida Gators and what Florida coach Billy Napier said about the Aggies before the two teams clash at Kyle Field Saturday:
Billy Napier
On facing the Aggies at Kyle Field
Great opportunity in front of our team. Obviously, great venue, one of the awesome places in college football, College Station and Kyle Field. Just the pageantry around A&M I think is impressive. Good football team, coach Elko is a heck of a coach and he’s got explosive players in all three parts of the team. So, this is going to be a great challenge, and then you’ve got to go in there at night and play on the road. In this league, we all know the challenges that come with that.
On the A&M offense:
“They’ve got a big, long, tall, long, heavy, powerful offensive line, the tight ends are blue collar and do a nice job on the edges of the formations. And then the two backs, not just [Le’Veon] Moss, but [Rueben] Owens, both those two guys. I mean, I had those two guys at the top of our [recruiting] board here. We know who they are. They were two of the best backs in the country. So you pair that with a quarterback [Marcel Reed] being able to run, and the two receivers [KC Concepcion and Mario Craver] from the portal. You know, they got a great combination of weapons here. It’s definitely a challenge to defend this group.”
Mike Elko
Florida overview
“We have an enormous challenge this week with Florida coming in. I think Florida’s by far and away the most talented team that we’ve played this year. They’ve got an excellent group of players. They’ve played a very competitive schedule. They’ve played in two top-10 road environments already, so they’re going to be well-versed in what this is like and what it’s going to be like coming into Kyle Field. Coming off of a huge top-10 win last weekend, so they’ll be full of confidence and certainly very excited to come in here and give us their best shot.”
On DJ Lagway
“DJ’s obviously a kid that we’ve known. Tried very hard to get him here. An extremely talented quarterback. I think, again, media narratives to me are so funny. I think he’s playing so much better. I think he’s made a lot of growth and taken a lot of strides. You see him very, very comfortable back there. And so, yeah, I think he’s playing at a really, really high level. He’s a really talented kid.”
On the Florida offense
“I think they’re really physical. I think they have really talented pieces on the outside. They create a lot of stress on you in terms of how you commit numbers to the run versus commit numbers to coverage. And they’re able to kind of take advantage of you in a lot of different ways. So I would say they just present a lot of challenges to you in terms of defending them.”
Specifically, the Florida offensive line
“They’ve got four of five starters back from last year. They’re a really talented group. They were a really talented group last year. They’ve got multiple NFL draft prospects on the line. I think their left tackle is probably one of, if not, the best tackles in the conference. So they’re a really, really talented group.”
