Sumlin prepares for road hazards
Ags thrive away from Kyle due to buildup of energy
STARKVILLE, Miss. — Texas A&M’s players and coaches used the phrase “create our own energy” so many times this week to describe the Aggies’ approach on the road by Saturday the expression had created its own energy.
Whatever they’re doing or creating on the road under coach Kevin Sumlin, it’s working. The No. 4 Aggies are 21-8 in games away from Kyle Field in Sumlin’s five seasons and are expected to add to the left side of the ledger as a heavy favorite over Mississippi State starting at
11 a.m. Saturday at Davis Wade Stadium.
“You wake up Saturday, and get ready to go play football,” A&M defensive coordinator John Chavis said of A&M’s straightforward approach to life away from College Station.
Sumlin long ago passed on the notion of a team walk-through at the opposing stadium the day before a game for a multitude of reasons.
“I don’t want to practice at their place and have people watching what’s going on,” Sumlin said, smiling
and adding sardonically, “Even though I know people don’t have (their) people out watching practice at their stadium. … (Look), coaches are paranoid by nature.”
Sumlin added that team buses arriving at a stadium on a Saturday for the first time that weekend also gives his players some extra juice on game day.
“There’s a little added excitement of pulling up there, for some guys who’ve never been in those situations,” he said. “Sure, you might get some guys who are rattled a little bit. But that whole attitude of practicing (in College Station) and not worrying about what’s happening until you get to the stadium is part of how we do things.”
Kyle good preparation
Chavis pointed out that Kyle Field holds more than 102,000 fans and is considered one of the nation’s most intimidating venues, thanks in part to its enclosed seating on all four sides.
“Our kids play in this stadium,” Chavis said, pointing toward Kyle. “They’re not going to be overwhelmed when they walk in anywhere else. And I don’t mean that as negative toward anybody else. That (stadium walk-hrough) is overrated, and it always has been.”
Mississippi State is down this year, and the Aggies won’t be walking into the same situation they did two years ago, when the Bulldogs were ranked 12th and whipped up on No. 6 A&M 48-31.
But the Aggies have to deal with cowbells, Mississippi State fans’ means of trying to rattle opposing teams.
A&M safety Justin Evans, a Mississippi native, said the cowbells rank “probably No. 1” on his list of most annoying aspects of an SEC road trip.
“I’ve been in the stands with the cowbells,” Evans said of visiting Davis Wade as a high school recruit. “It can get really loud.”
Alabama, A&M and LSU are the SEC’s lone programs with winning road records since 2012, the
Aggies’ first season in the league after exiting the Big 12. Nine of A&M’s victims away from Kyle Field in that span have been ranked in the Top 25, including No. 1 Alabama (2012) and No. 3 Auburn (2014).
Plenty of playmakers
“It’s a team that has playmakers all over the field,” Bulldogs coach Dan Mullen said of the Aggies. “(Sumlin) is not afraid to tweak and change around the players that he has. That’s the sign of a good coach. You have a system, but your system is going to be able to adapt to the personnel you have from year to year, and he’s always been able to do that.”
The Aggies play away from Kyle Field for the last time this season, save for a postseason game or games.
A&M plays Mississippi, UTSA and LSU at Kyle
Field, where they’re 22-9 under Sumlin, to wrap up the regular season.
As for that final road trip before what’s expected to be a boisterous crowd, thanks in part to those maddening cowbells? Sumlin compared the Aggies’ methods to that of basketball coach Norman Dale in the 1980s movie “Hoosiers,” starring Gene Hackman as Dale.
In it, the coach measures the basketball rim at the site of the state tournament and lets his players know it’s 10 feet high, just like the rim in their home gym.
“Whether there are 100 people in the stadium or 100,000 people in the stadium,” Sumlin said, “the football field is still 100 yards long and 531⁄3 yards wide.”