Postgame Wrap: Aggies hang on against Colorado, 10-7

DENVER (Talk1370.com/Texas A&M Athletics) -- Zach Calzada connected with Isaiah Spiller for an 18-yard touchdown pass with 2:41 left to play as the No. 5 Texas A&M Aggies (2-0) triumphed over the Colorado Buffaloes (1-1), 10-7, inside Empower Field at Mile High Saturday afternoon.

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No. 5 Texas A&M escapes with 10-7 win over Colorado

The Aggies are back at Kyle Field Saturday morning for an early kickoff against New Meixco - pregame at 10am, kickoff at 11am on Austin's Aggie Home... Talk 1370!

Postgame Quotes: Jimbo Fisher

First and foremost, Colorado played a heck of a football game. They've got a very good football team. They were a lot of the reasons why we had issues today. I mean, we can sit here and say we blame it on ourselves, but they did a really, really good job physically and schematically, doing a really good job of playing and coaching and played hard. And they played a heck of a game. And we were very fortunate to come out of that one. At the same time, our kids, I give them credit for one thing. We didn't always play well, but we played hard. We played tough. We stayed together. We never gave up, kept making the plays you had to do. You've got to learn to do those things. You have to learn to fight through on days like today. I always say I measure people on their bad days, not the good days. And that team kept fighting, scratching and clawing even after we went down and had a chance to score. And then had a fumble on just an effort play, you don't need to reach it out. But at the same time, I mean, I understand why you're trying to do that, but then to come back and have the poise to do it again. But plenty of mistakes. I think we were 1 of our first 10 on third down and then 7 of our last 10. So, I mean, we flipped that around. But we’ve got to find ways to run the ball better. They did some good things there, just got out of rhythm, missed passes, missed protections, I mean, different things.

Defensively, I thought we were outstanding in the game. Early, they had a nice drive and they had a little place in there for about a quarter, quarter and a half, where they moved the ball pretty good. They missed a field goal. And then they got down there on the five. I think they had a third and two on the six and a fourth and one on the five, was probably less than that. And that was huge in the game. That kept it to a one score game.

Then we’re able to come back and get a field goal two minutes before the half. You get to a 7-3 game and got it to one possession. Then it became a dogfight back and forth. You know, they couldn't move it and we would get it moving. And they had one big play there. We had a penalty, a holding play. I think we had a chance on the drive there. And the other drive we get down to score a touchdown and have a fumble. Then we come back and do it again.

So, I mean, listen here. Here's the thing. You're glad you get out of these things by winning, but at the same time you can’t help but realize everything is not OK. There's a lot of issues we've got to fix. We got to get the offensive line, got to get the quarterbacks, got to get the backs, got to get the receivers. Even in the secondary, got to get the defensive line, keep getting better. The kicking game issues. I mean, we’ve got to dot I’s and cross T's and understand the urgency. Because listen, everybody's trying to make a name off us. You get up here and you get ranked, which I hate. I mean, all that ranking stuff don't mean diddly to me. But we are supposed to be a good football team. So people are going to mark ‘em. And you’ve got to understand the burden that carries, and how you prepare, and how you play, and how you compete each and every week. And you're gonna get everyone's ‘A’ game right down to the end. And we have to do a better job and I have to do a better job coaching. At the end of the day, they're a product of how you coach. And we’ve got to do a better job with myself to get these guys ready to play. But we'll do that and hopefully move on.

We're still waiting. There's not a final analysis yet.

Oh, to have the character to do that, and make the plays, the scrambling, start moving his legs. You know, and sometimes you get thrown in there, things get going too fast. I mean, he has guys open and he missed them. I call it flash read. I've been there man, I played quarterback. It’s what I call flash reading. You see it, but you're going through it too quick. You know what I'm saying? And then finally, the more reps, it slows down and I think, you know, he realized he had to do it. And there's something to that, when you realize you’ve got to do it. You're able to put two drives together and scramble, make throws and plays when you had to. That throw he made to Spiller was a great play at the end, a great throw in a scramble to a third receiver on that route. That was the number three receiver.

Oh, very encouraged. I mean, you're concerned and encouraged. You’re both because you’ve got to fix things. But same time to be able to make plays, when you’ve got to make plays, you can play great. I've had guys play great. But then there's certain times in the game you’ve got to go make plays, can't make them. And grade out tremendously. They have other guys, man, and can just find a way to make those plays when it matters. And the one thing you can say, he made the plays in those drives when it mattered, right there at the end, on both drives. So, you know, we'll build on that and we'll fix the other things and move on.

And we’ve got to play better around him. Now, the thing is, you have young quarterback, had a freshman quarterback right there and you got another young quarterback, it's not his job. His job is for the guys around him to take care of him while he grows in what he has to do. Now, he'll do his job, but they’ve got to grow and we got to play really well around him.

I mean, just heart and guts and soul. That's culture. That's the culture of an organization. And hopefully we can build on that.

They were outstanding, man. I mean, they couldn't breathe. And I tell you everything we did a great job of, We condensed our rush lanes, did not give them scrambles. That guy's really athletic in the runs. And how about, what we bat, six, seven, eight balls? There were two or three on the last drive, I can think of about six off the top of my head. And there's other ways to affect a quarterback besides sacking him and running up the field and creating those lanes. I mean, they were outstanding today. The second half was, it was perfect. It’s what we needed, because it was the only way we could win the game.

I think at the end the day, we were able to make one more play than they did. And we kept believing we could do that. Our kids on the sideline, we realized no matter what, we kept going and that no matter what, you got to play the next play. I talk about it all the time. You're measured on your bad days. Who are you? I told our guys, today's judgment day. I wasn't happy with us last year. Who we're going to be, what we're going to be…now we found out that we have fight and heart, but now we’ve got to find out if we can have execution and precision. And we’ve got to understand that how to do it coming out of the bat and practice that way, but we did find out who we were as far as a competitor.

Oh, they kept us in the game. Yeah. I mean, like I say, you win games…you're going to win games on offense. We're going to win games defensively. This game was a defensive game. They hung us in there and we were able score two times. And I use it for an example. I mean, like Florida last year, we never got a stop. Offensively, we scored every time. It's what teams do. And you know what is funny? Our guys never pointed fingers. The defensive guys were coming over encouraging Zach. ‘Hey, it's all right. It's one drive. We're going to hold them. You make us one drive.’ They came over, Leal and those guys came over and said, ‘Don't worry about it. We're going to hold ‘em, you give us one drive. That's all we need. I loved the interaction of our football team today toward each other, instead of saying, hey, offense, defense…it wasn’t nothing like that. It was we're in this together. I know it's new. It's hard on you. It’s tough. You guys are having a tough day. We're going to hold them. You guys go make one drive, and we'll be all right. I loved that interaction, that leadership from the defense…and the offense was great today, too.

How’d that feel?It was good. It felt good, you know, just being able to, as a defense stand up, stand tall and have our offense’s backs all game. We practice things like this, in situations like this. So just being able to apply what we practice during practice and bring it to the game, it was amazing.

Yes, ma'am. You know, having a big fourth down stop, that's crucial. And it's very momentum changing.

We did. We came together and we talked to each other. We encouraged each other. We knew exactly what we had to do. We know our assignments, our alignment, and we just knew that we had to play our technique and get after it.

You know, I wouldn't say it was frustrating. I know that it's tempting to get frustrated in situations like that. But like Coach Fisher said, like we came together, we encouraged each other, defense encouraging offense, offense encouraging defense. So we knew what type of day it was, you know, coming out in the second half. And we just knew we had to get after it.

Oh, yes sir, I did. I just told him, you've been waiting three years for this. It’s your time. Go ball.

Yes, ma'am.

Yes, ma'am.

Like I said, we came together. You know, we preach, you know, love, one love. And we came together because we knew that as a whole, we can get the job done. And if we are separate, if one side's frustrated, the other side’s, you know, just having an off day, it wasn't going to happen. So we came together during halftime. We talked it out. We figure it all out, offense and defense. We just knew that we had a plan and we were going to do it.

It’s a big win. It showed a lot. You know even though it wasn't the game that we expected, we came out on top and we came out on top together.

Yes sir. I love the 12th Man. Got to love ‘em. They came out all the way to Colorado and just, you know, they did what they do. It doesn’t matter if it's home or away, the Aggies…we gonna come.

How big a win was this for you guys? It was a big win on the road. Any win is a great win. 1-0 every week is our main mindset.

No, it doesn't give us any question how good this team is. It is showing us how bad we want to win this game. We came out second half, wanted to win this game. We talked the locker room, said, hey, guys, we got to pick it up. And we did what we did on the defensive end and the offensive end.

Of course. We had teammates on the sideline hyping him up each time he got on the field. So it boosted his confidence up.

All I can do is just clap them up. I got to control what I can control, and that's all. Stopping the run and stopping the pass.

ON HIS CATCHES: “On the 3rd and 8, linebackers were playing over top so I had to sit it down and I had to make the catch. it was third down. No other way around, and also put in the touchdown. I had to make the catch. That’s my job, just doing my job, going out there every day, doing the right things, and you'll see the results.”

ON ZACH CALZADA: “He was positive, we all kept a positive vibe. Nobody was pointing fingers because we don't do that. It's not the standard, and we all just wanted to win. Zach still showed that. Zach got comfortable towards me in the game. Zach’s going to be really good for us down the line. You don't get more comfortable, more practice time so you're going to be ready.”

ON QB THROWS: “Yeah, that was a great pass, I had to do nothing but hold the breadbasket and I’m so grateful for that I'm grateful for him. You just got to hone in your eyes, you know, hone in your eyes so, you know, you got to catch everything.”

“Nah, no I was really just kind of focusing on winning and finishing the game. After the game I definitely talked to him.”

“I think that's just coach Jimbo instilled in us. Just our pride, our grit, the will to not give up, and that's what he has come in and done to this program, and we are just enforcing it, so you know I'm glad that we got the dub and we're going to be better next week for sure.”

“Oh yes for sure he got way more comfortable. He was very confident in his ability. Yeah, I definitely got way more comfortable too.”

“It’s definitely significant. It gives us an identity. It's kind of challenged us our first adversity game. So, I guess it was a great challenge for us. We made a lot of mistakes, but I'm going to clean it up really quick and we'll be back next week.”

“They play great. Best defense in the league in my opinion, they scored one time they didn’t score the rest of the game so grateful for them guys. They did so good.”

“That was crazy. Yeah, it was crazy man. I mean, all the A&M fans came out, shout out to 12th Man love y'all man, we got the Dub.”

“Oh, it was crazy. The emotions, all the emotions going to the game. Hanes getting hurt at the beginning and kind of shifting our momentum. So we couldn’t get a 1st down for a minute. So I feel like that fourth down really just the defense, getting the stop on that really just give us a relief and you can move on next week.”

“Oh, yeah, we stayed positive during that Nobody got down on each other. Throughout the whole game nobody got down on Zach. We understand the circumstances, and we understand the situation. And that's just raises our player skill.”