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Texas A&M
The Battalion Sports
January 25, 1983 Page 11
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Kubiak sees success ahead for Aggies
by Joe Tindel Jr.
^ , £ i Battalion Staff
flu 1979 a scrappy young
meetingi quarterback from Houston St.
le inieroitspius High School joined the
ranks of an Aggie football team
er e le (1 j ( in [transition. Having set the
tieetiiic school passing record,
Garv Kubiak seemed a logical
:hiice to break in the airborn
he '< ittlck.
il interested pBut change was slow. With a
ing team-fl se egg in his passing yards
contatt lL; 0 Lmn in 1979, Kubiak looked
'i:i-151i forward to a year off— being
redshirted — and a chance to
;:mber\ v »vork on things,
to havetliesBut the beginning of confer
ence play his sophomore year
oringaC * avv him c N a T 1,ed to d ) u y a S a ^ s Q t
Houston. No year off. Only 322
d Thursc> ar( ‘ s P assin S-
Conferee, , 1 he numbers tell the story of
he next two years. 1 he ramihar-
tylof Kubiak’s name rose as
nany times as his passing stats.
! He did become that transition
1 blOMABL — y, e an[ j a newcomer
ntest ant ia|ied Jackie Sherrill,
p.m. in 12, Hwith 1,808 yards by air his
uinor year, 1,948 this past fall
mualtrip ml smash performances in the
Feb. 9. F ilue-Gray game and Hula Bowl,
iubiak has proven he’s worthy
o be watched by the pros,
iINFERS fl^nd Tuesday after the Hula
tcussediniP 0 "!- his last college game,
<ubiak sat down and reflected
mmis career at Texas A&M and
M-.Spriii,> a y e f orecas t f' or Sherrill’s
In g at trogram.
Q. You’ve been around a few
earn crises over the past four
sionofst tears. There were some disci-
beheldiin ilmary problems during your
Building iophomore season and your
lead coach was under fire your
n cs will he UI, i or year. And there were the
H| I nunire tears that the team supposedly
lad the talent but fell short.
How can you have gone
nigh all that without it tes
ting your enthusiasm for the
Gary Kubiak, who passed for over 4,000 yards as an
Aggie quarterback during the past three seasons, lets
a pass fly in a game during his junior season.
A. I think every program has
controversy. I think A&M gets
pinpointed because of the great
institution that it is. A&M ex
pects a lot out of their athletics
just like they do their students or
anybody else, so when things go
wrong, it really gets a lot of
attention.
Things have been tough the
last four years, but it’s never
been any problem for me be
cause I love A&M and I always
will. Whether we were 0-8, and I
stepped on the field the next
Saturday for number nine, I was
ready to compete. I don’t look
back at the negative stuff. The
only things that enter my mind
are the positive things, and there
were many of them.
I’ll continue to support A&M,
and I know they’re headed in
the right direction. Next to a
of litCKcl
ving than ill
interparts,
hose
colleague! j
icteristicsofl
cting exteBl
he patienOf
> with lie del
n ter views'
dates.
) denying^
:1 to minin|
celt said,
ssal of feat*]
id by ash™
lismissal.W
l themselves|
possessing *
5 to be a 51*1
ie denier ij
las a
r to stress]
ipact.
i Mon-
O 00 first
should!
couple of schools, probably the
most stable situation in college
football right now is right here at
A&M, with Coach Sherrill, the
staff he’s assembled and the di
rection they’re heading.
Q. You had to be really thril
led last winter to hear that
Coach Sherrill was coming to
Texas A&M. Did he meet your
expectations of him?
A. I think as far as us as a
football team, he definitely met
every bit of ours. Now if you talk
to anybody who just looks at our
record, sure, they say ‘Well,
what happened? Y’all had
Coach Sherrill. Why didn’t you
win?’ I think if we were expected
to be a 12-0 football team this
year, they never would have
brought him down here.
We had a lot of holes to fill, we
had a lot of young people play
ing and when you lose two start
ing backs and a tight end in tne
first ball game, it makes it kind
of tough. But that’s an excuse,
and everybody has them, so you
can’t really go with that.
With the direction that Coach
Sherrill is heading and the posi
tive aspects surrounding the
program right now, once he gets
the guys to think positive ...
things will start to go their way.
I think that’s been one of the
biggest problems around here.
Once things got going bad ev
erybody thought negative, and
whenever a game got tight it
seemed like everything went
against us. I think that’ll come
from a guy like Coach Sherrill
installing confidence and get
ting a positive feeling in all these
guys. Things will start to go their
way.
You take a school like Penn
State and people like that. They
stay up there for a long period of
time. I think that’s the direction
MSG
that Coach Sherrill’s heading,
and I wish I could be a part of it.
I think it’ll happen within the
next couple of years.
He’s (Sherrill) not going to
press himself. He’s going to go
with the plan he has set. He’s not
going to get in any hurry to turn
around and try to win it all this
year by disrupting the type of
plan he has for this program.
Q. There was a period of
transition for you between your
sophomore and junior years
when you almost immediately
changed from a relatively jit
tery back-up to a solid starter
who took charge on the field.
How did you gain your confi
dence so quickly, and when was
the turning point?
A. Now that I look back, when
I came here as a freshman, I had
really good three-a-days and
two-a-days and got a chance to
play against Penn State early. I
think it was the third game of the
season. We went down there,
and I started and had a lot of
confidence. I felt like that was
my chance. I broke my arm on
the first play. I was down at that
point, but I hadn’t given up or
anything.
My sophomore year, they told
me they wanted to redshirt me,
and Gary Kubiak didn’t prepare
for a football season because I
felt like I was going to sit out. I
wasn’t ready to play my sopho
more year and ... after the Hous
ton game I think I was putting
the blame on other people, but I
was more disappointed in my
self. I went home, and I almost
gave up football, to be truthful. I
got a call from (quarterback)
coach (Greg) Davis, and he
asked me, ‘Are you coming
back?’ And I said, ‘Well, I don’t
See Kubiak page 13
“I don’t look back at the negative stuff. The only
things that enter my mind are the positive things.”
“With the direction that Coach Sherrill is heading
and the positive aspects surrounding the program
right now ... things will start to go their way.”
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