bleedCrimson.net: You had a bye week this past week. Last week you said that you would practice and prepare as if you had a game on Saturday. You wanted to see that intensity and focus. What are your feelings on the team's week of preparation last week?
DeWayne Walker: I thought they did a pretty good job. We got after them pretty good. The sense of urgency was just getting as much out of them as we needed to. We had an early morning practice on Thursday. We had them out there about 6:15 on Thursday morning and they were rolling and ready to go. I was happy with the practices last week and we've got to get to our serious game mode this week.

bc.net: With a little bit of time off for the players have you seen a refreshed group come back to the field this week?
DW: No question. We did a little bit with them yesterday with just helmets and you could just tell that they were fresh and I was talking to a couple of them afterwards about how they felt and they looked energized for sure.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Obviously it's important when you're playing a team that's down to get out to a fast start and keep them down and not let them or the fans get into the game and obviously you did that quite well.
DeWayne Walker: Yeah that was something I know we needed to do, we needed to get to a fast start to try to take the will out of them. I was a little worried if we would match touchdown for touchdown that it was going to go down to the wire. I was really impressed with our offense coming out and putting it on them and our defense playing well enough to get the score to a point to where it was almost going to take a miracle for them to come back and win the game. Our special teams played better, we still need them to continue to improve but I thought they played well enough not to put us in a position to have to fight an uphill battle.

bc.net: Matt Christian had a career day with four touchdown passes and a touchdown run. In the first quarter on the second touchdown drive the ball he threw to Austin Franklin on the far sideline and then the touchdown pass to Franklin were maybe the two best passes that he's thrown not just this season but all of last season as well.
DW: He's really improved. Coach Martin has done a good job working with his mechanics and he's taken it upon himself to step his game up. It's kind of what you expect out of a guy that's started some games and a guy that's a senior. As far as I'm concerned I expect that out of him.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: The San Jose State game was a tough loss. Matt Christian's first start of the season. Outside of the one interception he really stepped in and played well.
DeWayne Walker: Yeah, I thought he played well enough for us to win. That interception did hurt, it kind of changed the momentum. The game was tied and it gave them a short field and defensively we couldn't stop them, especially the third quarter. That was a little bit discouraging. We've got to be able to play off of each other. The defense needs to stop them in those situations and offensively we need to be able to go down and score in that situation but all-in-all I thought he played pretty good.

bc.net: Offensively the team has shown the ability to score, particularly in situations when the opposing team has gone down and gotten a score, the Aggies have been able to come back and match scores with teams whereas the first couple of seasons if you've fallen behind it's been really difficult for the team to come back and get back into a game.
DW: I think it showed more probably in this game. You look at the UTEP game, boy we sure could have used a touchdown in that game even though I know the fake punt really hurt us in that one. But we do have weapons to be able to match scores and we just probably need to do that a little bit more often. But again I think the offense put us in position last week to win and we just fell short.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Obviously Saturday's loss to UTEP was a disappointing one but what did the team learn from the game?
DeWayne Walker: The first thing is how do you respond after a big win? I thought the defense responded but I didn't think the offense or special teams responded the way that I would have liked them to after a big win. That's something, for me, when that [big win] happens again and hopefully that will happen again this year, how do you respond and what's the team approach that you need to take? I thought we had a good week of practice, I thought our coaches really got after the kids after the Minnesota win but you've gotta do that as a team and that's how we're going to have to win. Those three areas. I thought we played well enough in one to win the game.

bc.net: How much did the fumble on the goal line in the first quarter change things going forward?
DW: I don't think you can put too much on it. It was unfortunate, it was something that can't happen but it was so early in the game. As a team you have to be able to overcome. That's something that happens all the time and you just need to be able to overcome adversity that early in the game.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your team was able to overcome some mistakes during win against Minnesota and didn't allow some bad breaks and mistakes to compound on each other.
DeWayne Walker: It's just been a continual preaching to them about playing off of each other. Teams aren't going to be perfect on offense, defense and special teams but that's why they call it teams. If there's some mistakes on one side of the ball then the other two phases need to pick up the slack until that side gets their rhythm going. That's why I'm going to continue to preach to these guys that we will win as a team, offense, defense and special teams. As long as we can play off of each other and as long as these guys understand that, we'll be able to overcome adversity.

bc.net: One of the things that really stood out in the game was that your team, both offensively and defensively, was very physical with Minnesota. This wasn't a case where you're trying to beat them with smoke and mirrors, you really out-physicalled Minnesota.
DW: Yeah, that's something that we talked about all of last week especially with the offensive line. I know that Coach Martin and Coach Lenzmeier and everybody, we were disappointed. I stressed that even with the run defense and we practiced a little physical last week and we'll continue to do that just to bring that physicality to the game because I think that physicality can bring teams down if they're not prepared for it.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the opening loss to Ohio?
DeWayne Walker: It's just unfortunate that we couldn't get off to a faster start. That's kind of been our achilles heel for the last couple years. I thought once we got going we started looking like a football team. The offense started moving the ball and we got some pretty good stops in the second half to at least try to make it more interesting. I just think that against a good football team like Ohio, you can't get yourself in a hole, you can't snap balls over quarterbacks heads, you can't blow coverages, you just can't do those types of things against good football teams.

bc.net: Some of the issues that the team had in the game, were they more the type of things that you can fix versus in the past couple years just not having the right personnel?
DW: Yeah, I think it's all fixable. I think offensively when we could get ourselves rolling on all cylinders, if we get our run game going, that's probably the biggest thing on offense, when we can get in unison I think our offense will ignite our whole football team. I really do think our offense has to be the energy bunny.

Defensively we're going, our front four, we're not the biggest so we're going to have to be a team defense type of unit. We're going to really have to rally around each other and play good team defense. I think we're capable of complementing the offense and we've got to play better on special teams, our coverage teams, especially on punts. We've got to do a way better job. There are some concerns there that Coach Murph is going to have to get fixed. But again, if we can improve some of these areas that we lacked in this past week's game, I think we've got a chance to be pretty competitive as we get through some of our other non-conference games and our conference games.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Who are some of the kids who have really stood out in fall camp?
DeWayne Walker: I've kind of stayed away from individualizing anybody. I would say our receivers had a pretty good camp, obviously our quarterbacks have done well. I think collectively every position on offense has had some pretty good days and not so good days but overall you could see the improvement. I thought defensively, they probably improved the most in the last week or so in camp. Some of these young guys like Mark Brown, he's a freshman defensive tackle, he's really shown up. Jeremy Harris, one of the JC corners, he's done a good job. Alexander LaVoy has kind of been hit and miss but as the 'mike' linebacker we've thrown quite a bit of stuff at him but he's had some bright spots. I thought Pierre Fils, David Nuimatalolo and David Mahoney have really done some good things. I just think collectively by position, one day the offense will have a better day and then the defense will come back and have a better day. The one thing I like about our in-camp competition is that they would go back and forth which gives you a decent sign that you have a chance to have a good football team because one side of the ball really isn't dominating the other side of the ball on a continued basis.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the spring game?
DeWayne Walker: I thought it went pretty well. I thought the offense made the most strides because Doug was putting in a new offense and really simplified it for our kids to really jump all over it. With our quarterback play, I think our quarterback is going to make us better. Moving some guys around, moving Kenny Turner to slot receiver and Robert Clay being the lead back. I really believe we have some pretty good experience coming back on the offensive line. I think Taveon Rogers is probably the most valuable player on the offensive side of the ball. I think we're really headed in the right direction offensively.

We've got a couple more players coming in, Jeremy Morrison at running back. We'll have at least five offensive linemen back including [Mike] Grady who didn't participate in spring ball. We've got some young tight ends and a couple more receivers coming in. There's help on the way.

Defensively I thought we started off a little slow. Coach Lindsey is implementing a new defense for the most part. We're still going to play some of the same schemes but we wanted to experiment with some other schemes. By the end of spring I thought we started to create an identity defensively. I thought our defensive line was probably the most valuable group on defense which we need them to be the strength. Secondary-wise this is probably going to be the first year that we're going to have quality depth. Linebacker-wise, hopefully with Boyblue and B.J. Adolpho, they'll continue to improve.

We're going to have two defensive tackles coming in in July, one of them being Tommy Stuart because he didn't play in spring because of injury and then Sean Brown, another defensive end. [Alexander] LaVoy, we're hoping he can push for a starting position at linebacker. Then we have two JC corners that we think are going to come in and push for playing time.

We feel good in terms of where we are. We have a long way to go and obviously we really want to turn the corner this year. We're pretty excited about this season and hopefully when we put the whole team together we'll have a more competitive football team.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your overall thoughts on the class?
DeWayne Walker: Offensively we went heavy wide receiver and offensive line. We just needed to continue to get more depth on the offensive line. We had some injuries last year that kind of hurt us that we weren't quite prepared for. So we wanted to focus on that piece of it. Wide receiver, we need more playmakers. We basically have to reboot the wide receiver position just to give us a chance to score some points and to be more versatile. I would say offensively those were the two positions we wanted to address.

Defensively, secondary-wise I felt we needed to get more bodies in the secondary. We had a couple injuries there last year, we were thin back there toward the end of the year. We definitely got some guys to provide more competition and depth at that position.

We wanted to get one more linebacker. We may sign another linebacker here after today but the one we did get, Alexander Lavoy, we think he's gonna be a really good player for us and we're expecting him to come in and be a contributor right away and try to help upgrade our linebacker position.

We signed a couple defensive ends to try to get a little bit more pass rush outside. There's a chance we make take another defensive tackle if we can find one down the road.

We just felt like there were quite a bit of needs. It's tough to try to get all of them at the same time but we tried to be very strategic with who we went after and who we could get and we tried to mix not with only our needs but also players that can come in and make us more competitive.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: How would you evaluate this past season? Some fans and media feel that the team wasn't competitive this season but in reality you faced the top three teams in the WAC at the point when they were arguably playing their best football.
DeWayne Walker: Yeah, I'm a little disappointed in this year. I felt like we would have a better season to be honest with you. I knew going into it, especially the offenses, this was a senior quarterback year where really all the good teams in our conference were seniors with the exception of Boise State's quarterback but he's been a senior all his career. It was unfortunate that this was the year that we really had to take more lumps this year than we did in the first year. At the same token we were playing against some teams that were pretty stocked offensively with a lot of proven quarterbacks and a lot of seniors period.

We have both of our quarterbacks back and a lot of these teams will be playing without their quarterbacks so hopefully that'll give us a little bit of hope to be able to do defend these offenses a little better than we did this past season and hopefully our offense will take a couple steps forward just because have a few returners coming back on that side of the ball

bc.net: How important offensively is the continuity, you mentioned having all these players coming back but you also have your offensive coordinator coming back?
DW: I think it's critical to be able to have your whole staff back. I know head coaches fire assistant coaches every year, that's just the nature of our business. To a certain degree because of our record this year I could have done the same and let some coaches go but I just think that heading into this season that the continuity is more important to give everybody the chance to get together. I know from a coaching standpoint I did hire these guys and it's my obligation to improve them and it's their obligation to improve their players. I just felt like that at the end of the season after I thought about the direction that we should go, I thought the continuity was probably more important than getting rid of coaches.  Continue Reading This Post >>