Texas A&M Football head coach Jimbo Fisher took the podium at approximately 11:30 AM Central time on Thursday during the last day of SEC media days, answering a flurry of questions from reporters, ranging from his personal outlook on the 2022 season, the ensuing quarterback battle, NIL, Conference realignment, and of course, the status of his relationship with Alabama head coach Nick Saban after their widely publicized war of words between the two on May 19th.
As the questions began focusing on the upcoming season and Texas A&M’s roster, and the quarterback battle, a reporter asked, With all three quarterbacks on campus since January, how has that competition evolved in having them together? Jimbo responded,
Very well. I think they’re learning off each other. I think they’re doing a great job of watching each other and being very competitive with each other. But also helping each other.
I mean, very pleased. Finally, as I say, at the end of spring, you finally saw Max starting to grasp what we were trying to do. You saw Haynes’ health come in. Really in the last month, I’ve seen his feet, the way he’s throwing the ball, he’s really jumped out at me. Connor, so natural and effortless. As he grasps what’s going on… It’s going to be a fun battle. Last year we needed three. You saw Zach in the Alabama game. As I said before, he took – he had a knee hit, came back from that. In the Auburn game he actually popped his shoulder back in place, and the doc said he could play, so he played. You really need a third guy. Having three guys, that’s rare in today’s time. But I think we got three outstanding guys. I’m very excited to work with them.
One of the most important and underappreciated position groups, the offensive line is seen as a “strength” for the Aggies in 2022 according to Jimbo Fisher when he was asked, What are some of the strengths of your offensive line? Fisher answered,
Like I said, last year we had to play a true center, a true freshman center, that only had half a camp and never played center because we had an injury to a guy, and we had a right tackle who had to play as a freshman. That was tough times last year.
Being able to have that now I think has really turned into a strength. I think it’s going to be a strength of our football team, one of them. I’m very excited about our offensive line. Coach Addazio has done a tremendous job. But he and Layden and Bryce and Trey Zuhn now playing at left tackle along with some of those other guys and the battles that are going to be had, size, athleticism, I think Steve has done a great job. What we struggled with early last year, I think it’s going to be a really big strength of our team.
Turnovers and big plays determine the outcomes of games more than anything, and you got to have them. But in this league, if you look in the history of it, the guys who can play in the trenches on the offensive/defensive lines have always had tremendous success.
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