R.C. Slocum once famously said that half the teams in college football lose every week. That comment infuriated me at the time but now in Year 6 of Jimbo Fisher I realize how prophetic R.C. was.

The Aggies are just going to lose important games here and there. Stop thinking things are going to change.

Silly me. Here I was thinking yet again that things would FINALLY change with Aggie Football. In Week 2 of Jimbo Fisher’s sixth season, we all got a dose of reality. Some of the names associated with Jimbo’s time in Aggieland may change but the results are going to continue.

I mean, half the teams in college football lose every week. Sometimes it’s going to be the Aggies.

As for the game itself, I don’t know where to start.

I’ll start with the fact if you told me the Aggies would score 33 points while limiting Miami to under 100 yards rushing with no rushing touchdowns I would have been certain the Aggies won. I wouldn’t have even questioned it.

That’s what happened and somehow the Aggies lost.

I’m not going to do my usual breakdown of groups on both sides of the ball because the issue on Saturday afternoon was coaching. Sure, there were certainly miscues by players at times but by and large coaching lost the game on Saturday.

HC Jimbo didn’t do anything different than OC Jimbo. Jimbo didn’t see what Miami was doing and made enough adjustments on both sides of the ball. We’ve seen this same movie several times now. It just has a different title and names from time to time.

Miami did two things on Saturday that Jimbo and his staff refused to address during the game:
1) Apply pressure off the edges on defense.
2) Attack the Aggie defense through the air.

Miami’s Defensive Pressure:

Miami did an obvious job of watching film from last year and even last week. The Aggies are susceptible to pressure from the edge. It was the Achilles Heel last season and even against New Mexico, we struggled to pick up pressure via the blitz.

The Miami staff likely realized they have much better athletes than New Mexico and they could apply pressure. They were right. Time and time again Miami brought pressure from the edge where Conner could never get comfortable.

I thought Conner played a decent enough game but he was barely a 60% passer. He could have been a much more effective passer if the coaching staff had addressed the pressure off the edges.

Most importantly, the backside pressure that Miami applied all night long. There were several times we let a Miami defender run untouched from the left side of our line. We weren’t even chipping him with our running back. The running back was flaring out into the flat as a safety valve but Conner never hit him.

I don’t know why Conner never hit the running back right out of the backfield to see if they could slow down that backside pressure. It seemed obvious when that pressure was coming and that defender was allowed to run free. We never took advantage of the space they were leaving even though it seemed obvious they were coming. We hit that back flaring out a couple of times for decent gains and that pressure likely goes away. At least slow it down some.

I was also hoping Conner would have stared that pressure down giving him a juke to buy more time. He never did that. I think Conner can juke a blitzer and buy more time but for some reason, he never tried it.
Instead, all he did was let that pressure dictate how quickly he got rid of the ball. That edge pressure never let our offense settle in and make the plays we wanted. We simply passed the ball sooner than we wanted to.

At least that’s what it looked like. Way too many Miami defenders running untouched and unaccounted for in the backfield.

Some of why Conner went from an 80% passer to a 60% passer in one week is because of the Miami athletes but a big part of it was Miami’s scheme. The Miami defense simply did what other defenses did against us last year. Make the Aggie quarterback throw before they want to.

Jimbo and Petrino have to address this pressure off the edges and cause teams to stop doing it. That happens through scheme and coaching.

Lack of Aggie Defensive Pressure:

Conversely, because A&M under D.J. Durkin rarely blitzes or applies pressure the Miami coaching staff smartly realized they could attack downfield because Van Dyke would have more time.

The ironic thing about all of this is Miami is a running team at heart. Durkin got ripped last season for not stopping the run. The Aggie team did a REMARKABLE job of stopping the run against Miami.
It was clear the Aggie defense was committed to not letting Miami run the ball. They succeeded in doing that.

The problem is Miami adapted by attacking the Aggie defense through the air. Jimbo and Durkin never adapted to that threat.

The Aggies had two sacks but had exactly ZERO quarterback hurries. Not a single one. At least according to the stat sheet on the A&M website.

Van Dyke attempted 30 passes and wasn’t hurried on a single one.

Durkin was so focused on stopping the run he had NOTHING in his arsenal to apply pressure or confuse the Miami offense to make mistakes in the passing game. A lot of that is on Durkin but at some point, Jimbo needs to ask on the headset if Durkin has any unique blitzes he can call.

Don’t forget Durkin works for Jimbo and Jimbo needs to be held accountable for what happens on defense as well. Jimbo has a set of eyes and can question the in-game planning.

All the Aggie defense did was send their four down linemen upfield while the linebackers waited to see where the ball was going. I feel like we sent a linebacker a time or two but we sure as hell didn’t disguise anything with our secondary at the line of scrimmage to make it look like we might blitz.

We just had our four down linemen and two linebackers in position all game long while the secondary stood back waiting to see what happened. We did nothing to confuse or pressure the Miami passing attack.

We have a TON of defensive line talent and I thought Cooper and York were fine at linebacker on Saturday. However, you have to scheme against good teams to give them looks they’re not prepared for. I didn’t see any of that on Saturday.

I simply saw a defense that thought they could be very basic and out talent the opponent. It didn’t work. Miami has enough talent to overcome a basic defensive plan.

Coaching Mattered:

Miami did the exact opposite of Jimbo and his staff by scheming and adjusting during the game. Cristobal got the best of Jimbo.

I know that’s not a lot of analysis on the game but if you watched the game it was the Same Old Jimbo that’s stubborn as hell at in-game adjustments. I don’t know if he can’t see it or just isn’t prepared for it.

I’ll give Jimbo and his staff credit the original game plan worked. We moved the ball for a quarter and a half and shut down the Miami run. The problem is Miami realized that and adjusted.

It’s like Jimbo walks into a game with a set plan and if it’s not working or stops working then he’ll be damned because he’s going to force it to work. Yet time and time again it doesn’t.

Saturday was no different. There are now at least 10 games in the last three seasons where Jimbo could have made a few adjustments to win a game but he didn’t. He just comes in with a plan and keeps repeating it hoping it’ll work rather than adjust it.

Meanwhile, the coaching staff on the other side of the field is making adjustments to their plan of attack.
It’s getting really old.

Looking Forward:

I had this Aggie team at 9-3 in 2023. I think that’s a little ambitious at this point. There are probably three to four more losses based on what we saw on Saturday. That will put us at 7-5 or 8-4. It’ll be better than last year but it’ll still be a VERY frustrating season.

The good news is the SEC and especially the SEC West looks down this season. The Aggies have the talent to run the table. I’m not kidding. This team has enough talent and there’s not a team the Aggies can’t beat.

I said earlier this year that until we were done with Tennessee we won’t truly know what we have for the 2023 season. I still feel that way but what I saw on Saturday doesn’t make me feel any better.

Jimbo and his crew will decide how many games the Aggies win for the rest of the year.

This is still a VERY talented team. Talent isn’t the issue at all. It’s all coaching and it starts with the man with the title of Head Coach.

It’s up to you, Jimbo. Aggie fans will just be here sitting on our hands hoping you can figure out something that’s different than the last two seasons and what we saw on Saturday.

A few names have changed on your staff but the product on the field hasn’t changed much.
It’s getting old, buddy.

Just Win, Jimbo.