What Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher, Aggies said about Saturday's game at No. 19 Tennessee

Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher and Aggie players met with reporters on Monday in College Station, previewing the trip to face No. 19 Tennessee on Saturday (3:30 p.m. Eastern Time, CBS) at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville:

Texas A&M Head Coach Jimbo Fisher

Opening statement, preparing for Tennessee

“They’re a very good team. Offensively they’re a three-back system — 0 (Jaylen Wright), 2 (Jabari Small) and 6 (Dylan Sampson). The running backs can all have juice. They’re strong and you think fast, but they’re 210, 215 pounds. Those guys are all really good players up there. The receiver, 10 (Squirrel White), man, he’s got juice. Squirrel is like, I mean, he is like a squirrel, man, trying to get ahold of that guy. But he plays physical for a guy that’s 165, 170 pounds, man. He can run. The receivers outside are tall. (Joe) Milton, he’s hard to get on the ground. Remember him from high school. He was a Florida kid in Orlando when he came out. Big and strong.

“What you’ll see when he throws deep balls, he’ll throw them. Our DB’s gonna have to pay attention because it’s balls that you usually don’t see thrown that far. They’re in the air 60 yards, sometimes 70 yards, and you’re not used to ever playing a ball that far in the air. They do a really good job that way and he can run, he’s strong. Offensive line, very good in what they’re doing. They’re running the ball and got good bounce. Tight ends, good players. Defensively they got rush guys on the edge and 27 (James Pearce Jr.) and 30 (Roman Harrison) can bring it. ‘Backer, 6 (Aaron Beasley) is all over, can make plays. They rush. They’re physical up front. Inside guys, 21 (Omari Thomas), those guys are big. Secondary, 5 (Kamal Hadden) and 1 (Gabriel Jeudy-Lally) at corner are good. And the safety’s tackle well. They do a good job — 12 (Tamarion McDonald) — and those guys at nickel. They’ve got a really good team.

“Their punter (Jackson Ross) can kick it right footed or left footed. I think he’s only had two balls returned all year. It’s all rugby stuff and he can roll to the right and kick it or roll to the left and kick it, which is a problem. Field goal kicker (Charles Campbell), 7 of 8. They’re good in the field. Our guy is an Aussie but can’t kick it right and left. But they kick it right and left and do a good job. And their special teams and their returners are good. They’re a good football team. Offensively, like I say, they run and pass and the quarterback’s hard to get on the on the ground. He’s big, like KJ (Jefferson). He’s a big physical guy.”

What has gone wrong on the road during Texas A&M’s losing streak in true road games

“I don’t think you change how you approach. I mean, what do you go to the hotel this day, that time? How you approach it is your maturity, how you play, how you practice. We’ll do things different. We’ll crank up maybe more crowd noises, we’ll crank up more situations. That constantly does change and usually on the road what happens, mature teams play well on the road. Mature teams that are confident and trusting things and believe in themselves. It’s hard. But I mean, you just saw Alabama, what’d they have? Eight false starts. They had 11 penalties or 10. They had eight false starts in a group of guys. On the road in this league, it’s hard. Tennessee’s one of those hard places (to play). But hopefully your maturity and your leadership, and we’re a little bit older this year,  hopefully those things will help.”

How Texas A&M can bounce back from the Alabama loss last week

“You just tell them what we did wrong. You saw a hurt locker room, you saw a disappointed locker room. You didn’t see it dejected or a quitting locker room. Our kids have character, they have heart. I think they’re gonna play their tails off. They know it. And like I say, I go back in that (Alabama) game, you gotta do ordinary things in games. And that’s what it gets down to. And a lot of our critical things, we gotta do a better job of coaching those ordinary things. The guys gotta execute them just a little bit better in critical moments. But they see it. There’s no rift. We’re not blaming them. We don’t blame (the players). I blame myself. For what? We gotta prepare them better, get them ready to play better. And you know what’s funny? I have kids call me coach. It’s my fault. It’s not gonna happen again. I mean, no, it’s not your fault. You tried. I mean, God, there’s caring in there. As long as there’s caring and there’s love for each other, you’re gonna go back and play hard and do what you gotta do.”

Senior Offensive Lineman Layden Robinson

How to respond after the Alabama loss

“You flip the page. It’s about getting back to work the next week. It is a tough loss, especially after you’ve been working hard all week mentally and physically preparing for a great team like that. Two great teams going to battle and you lose a tough one like that, especially in front of your home crowd that’s been out there for two weeks straight. And just all that extra momentum. That’s always gonna be a tough loss. But at the end of the day is we’re at the ‘what now?’ Stage. What are we gonna do now? We’re not going to hold our heads like our heads down and just pity, self-pity. No, we got another great team that we’re about to go into their home and play them. And that’s a great atmosphere to play in and I’m excited to play in that atmosphere too. And I know that’s gonna be a great team and I know that they’re gonna be ready to play, so we gotta do our job and move on to the next week and we have to get ready to play and that’s what we’re gonna do starting the day.”

Why Texas A&M has struggled in true road games the last two years

“It’s just that we have to make sure that we zone out our focus on the road and zone out everything else and just play our game. And make sure that we have the communication. That’s a really big part on the road, especially where the fans are going be rowdy, they’re going to be excited too. And especially when we get in the red zone, they gonna be trying to give even louder so that we can’t communicate. So the big thing about this week is just keeping our poise and making sure that we listen — that we listen to our quarterback, we listen to the calls, we listen to anything checked. That’s very vital this week. Keep our poise and just focus and make sure we stay focused, uh, during every asset of this game.”

Playing Tennessee on the road at Neyland Stadium, after Texas A&M played in front of 25 percent capacity in Knoxville during the COVID season in 2020

“I am excited because like you mentioned, the last time we went there was during COVID and it wasn’t at full capacity. So now we get to play there when it’s at full capacity and playing college football, big-time college football, you dream of having moments like this, where you’re playing in atmospheres like that. Just to have that experience and just do all that you can do to come out on top and stuff like that.”

Junior Defensive Lineman Fadil Diggs

The Aggies putting the Alabama loss behind them

“We got a 24-hour rule. Win or lose, 24 hours. You gotta get over that because we got another tough opponent coming up this week. And we just have to have a great mindset going into the game. So we just make sure we get together as a team and make sure everybody gets over the 24-hour rule and we just be prepare for Tennessee.”

Texas A&M’s losing streak in true road games

“It’s always gonna be a tough crowd. We’re just gonna have to play as a team and make sure we’re all on the same page. And we can’t let the road affect us at all because like it’s just another game.”

Facing Tennessee’s uptempo offense

“They do a lot of tempo, so they’re gonna try to catch us off guard with the tempo. We’re just going to play our game that we’ve been doing the last couple weeks. We play physical up front and we’re just gonna keep doing that for the rest of the year.”

Tennessee quarterback Joe Milton’s ability to run

“He can run. He can run very well. I think he had a big run a couple weeks ago (against UTSA). So we take it into consideration, like he’s a mobile quarterback and we have to keep him contained in the pocket. Do our best to keep him from running and also affect him a lot.”

The biggest challenge in facing a tempo offense like Tennessee has

“Just getting lined up, just making sure we communicate the right way. And we’ve been doing well with that, so that’s really not a thing. I would think we worry about this week coming up because we communicate well on defense and we make sure everybody is on the same page.”