Texas A&M linebacker Sean Porter told me he wasn’t so much nervous about adjusting to the Aggies' coaching staff as he was curious.

“It’s always fun to see what guys want, what different ways each coach coaches you,” the senior said. “I even like to observe other teams, to see what that guy is like.”

Porter likes that new strength coach Larry Jackson doesn’t tell the players how many cross-field runs they will have to do. Jackson’s only rule is that you run fast. The theory is that no player knows when or how often in a game he will be called on to sprint. But that player better be ready to go full-speed.

Porter said head coach Kevin Sumlin’s emphasis on body language is important for a team that lost its mojo during last season, when it led 12 games in the second half and finished 7-6.

“Your posture can show how confident you are,” Porter said. “A man who stands straight up is more confident than a man who slouches and looks down when he talks to people. ... The more that we can improve that kind of stuff, the body language, the better we will play.”

His interest in how a coach coaches is such that Porter, a sociology major, sounds as if coaching is in his future. He said he is thinking about it.

“I coach a sixth-grade team now,” Porter said.

So how do you reach a sixth-grader?

“You can’t really,” Porter said, laughing. “You just do your best with them. They’re fun. You have to keep them from looking at the kites being flown, looking at the bugs. You’ll be all right.”

Porter is part of a big senior class. How quickly the older players buy into a new coach’s program often determines the success of the coach’s first season. Porter’s reasoning has less to do with Sumlin than it does with logic.

“This is my senior year,” he said. “I can’t mess it up. I can’t afford to have a bad season individually or as a team. I don’t want a bad memory to be my last year in college. You only get to go to college one time. No matter what goes on around me, it needs to be a good year.”