After spending two weeks preparing for a game that has now been postponed, Texas A&M has turned the page and its attention to Florida.
With the Aggies’ new season opener scheduled for Sept. 8 at Kyle Field after the original opener against Louisiana Tech, scheduled for Thursday, was postponed to Aug. 13 because of Hurricane Isaac, they closed the book on the Bulldogs and began preparing on Wednesday for the Gators.
“Today we moved on, we moved on to Florida,” Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin said Wednesday during the SEC coaches’ weekly teleconference. “And I think that obviously, our preparation has changed with the postponement of the game and the move of the game back to Oct. 13. So for our guys, it was kind of a bittersweet kind of situation. Guys were ready to play somebody else, they were down a little bit (Tuesday), but as we talked to them about where we are right now, finishing up our preparation for Louisiana Tech yesterday and really moving on to Florida. That’s where our focus is right now.”
According to new Texas A&M athletic director Eric Hyman, who met with reporters at Reed Arena on Wednesday, moving the game to Oct. 13 — which was each team’s open date — was not what either team wanted to do.
“There’s a lot of things that we looked at, the possibilities,” Hyman said. “Our least desirable (option) from the get-go, from their perspective and our perspective was playing the game on Oct. 13.
“We based the decision on the facts that we knew at that time. (Tuesday) morning, it looked good. And then it changed. What it is today? I don’t know. We tried to do what was the right thing to do based on the facts we had at that point in time. We looked at a lot of different possibilities, a lot of different options and none of them came (to fruition).”
Sumlin said he could sense a little bit of a letdown with his team when they got the news on Tuesday.
“I could sense a little bit of letdown (Tuesday) at practice,” Sumlin said. “As I told the coaches, just looking at the coaching staff yesterday, because of all the effort and time you put into something, you kind of build emotionally to play a game. And when you get within 24 hours of leaving to go to play a game, it’s a little bit of a letdown. read more…
