Robby Ashford, Derick Hall: Cadillac Williams doing 'great job' with the Auburn players

After Coach Carnell Williams finished talking with Andy Burcham and Brad Law, Auburn senior edge Derick Hall and freshman quarterback Robby Ashford joined the show to talk about the matchup with Texas A&M.

Here is every quote from that sit down.

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Not much has changed

Brad Law: Last week you get the news that catches everybody by surprise and everything is kind of thrown into a blender. This week versus last week?

Derick Hall: I don’t think anything is different. The preparation is the same. Once we found out the news, you just have to move forward when you hear things like that. Coach Lac, he’s doing a great job with us and this program. Like I said, I don’t think anything has changed. He came up with three things: Serve, Discipline, and Believe. That’s huge for us right now, we try to do that day in and day out and try to help each other. Robby helps me, I help him. Iron sharpens iron, and you have to come to work every day and put our best foot forward for Texas A&M.

Robby Ashford: Just going off of what Derick said it’s kind of that next man up mentality. We know we had the game, we had to play State that week and just because our head coach got fired doesn’t mean the game is off. Like you said, Coach Lac has done a great job with us and I mean nothing but the utmost respect to him. He just believes in me as a quarterback and letting me know, hey this is your team. Just to hear that from him means the world. I’d run through a wall for Coach Lac.

Defense gives the quarterback confidence

Andy Burcham: From the offensive perspective and the defensive perspective last week, what was the key to the momentum change?

Derick Hall: Coming in we knew that they were going to do a lot of dink and dunk things, just to try to get the ball moving. We got them in the third and long situations. They eventually had to drop back and hold the ball and give us a chance to get home. I think we did that really well. Guys in coverage played tremendous, gave us the opportunity for him to hold the ball and for us to get home and for us to get home on the pass. That was the key for us, just continue to fight. He said fight or quit and I believe we continued to fight every step of the way.

Robby Ashford: You know we started slow and just couldn’t get things going that first half. When we had the opportunity we kind of just shot ourselves in the foot. Mental mistakes, things we know we can control. We came into halftime, everybody just kind of took a deep breath and relaxed and we knew our defense had us. Shout out to our defense. They played great. They gave us every opportunity to win. When you go out there with the defense we have, that gives you the utmost confidence as a quarterback. It was good for us to bring it back to a ball game, take the lead. To know we can go out there and do that being down 24-3 shows the heart of this team and the resiliency.

Offensive line down hill and physical

Brad Law: Robby, that offensive team has lost guys to injuries, back and forth. The last three games, the running game, you guys have done a lot of damage on the ground. Talk about those guys up front and their ability to withstand that adversity.

Robby Ashford: Those guys up front, those are the big boys. They don’t get as much love as they should. They come out every single day to work. On the offensive side of the ball, they’re probably the hardest workers without a doubt. I love those guys to death. Every single day. When they get going on the ground, we know we’re in a good spot because it gives them confidence and gives us confidence to know we can go out there and run the ball and pound the rock and take the shots when we need to. It’s Auburn football. First is a down hill physical run game. These past three games our O-line has shown they can be down hill and physical with everybody.

Colby Wooden is a great player

Andy Burcham: Derick you’re always a presence off that edge, when you lost Eku Leota, that was a big loss. Talk about the versatility of a Colby Wooden and what he means to you guys up front.

Derick Hall: Colby is very versatile in his approach to the game. He’s a guy that helps us a lot. He knows more positions, he’s smart enough to be able to get down and inside and move outside. He’s retained all the information within a week-to-week basis. To have a guy that’s smart enough to retain all the information and to go out and be able to play on the edge or move inside, that’s tremendous. Colby is a great player and obviously that’s my guy.

Texas A&M huge up front

Brad Law: Texas A&M offensively, particularly their offensive line, what do you see out of that group?

Derick Hall: To start out with, they’re huge. The tackles are really big, just across the whole front. When they walk out the locker room you just say gosh. They’re physical, they like to move, they have a pro-style offense. That tight end is good, he’s physical. Overall, the guy on that team is their running back. He’s the one that gets those guys going. he’s very versatile, he can catch the ball out of the backfield and do a lot of different things. So it will be huge for us this weekend to keep him contained and try to get them in 3rd and long situations where we can have a chance to rush the passer.

Andy Burcham: What do you see when you look at the A&M defense on film?

Robby Ashford: Just an A&M defense normally they come out and are just a good overall team. They’re going to be big up front, they have some young guys, but theyre really good, guys that can really impact the game up front. So, get it to Tank, stay on our blocks. Linebackers are really good, 45 is a really good player. Their secondary is really good. Some of them are young, they’ve got some older guys. Like I say to anybody, the SEC is the hardest conference in the country. The SEC is a dog fight every week, so you can’t look at that 3-6 record and think they’re nothing.

Brad Law: What does it mean that we’ve got a sold out crowd waiting, excited, and ready to be loud for you Saturday night?

Derick Hall: I think that’s amazing. Like I said last week, Auburn travels well. Fans are going to travel and we’re all we got and we’re all we need. I think they’re going to show up and be amazing. We have the best atmosphere in college football and definitely going to show it Saturday night.

Robby Ashford: With me transferring in from a place like Oregon, I knew how big family was at Auburn but I didn’t notice how big it was until I actually got here and played in my first game. Seeing the support throughout the season even though it hasn’t been how we wanted it to be. It just speaks volumes to how the Auburn people are. Nothing but the best. I wouldn’t trade my decision for anything. I made the best decision in the world coming to Auburn and I appreciate the Auburn family taking me in.