Texas Aggie Football

Thoughts from the Notre Dame Game

Hello darkness, our old Aggie friend
I’m writing another blog about disappointment yet again

I hate to say I saw this loss coming, but if you read my pre-season ramblings, I certainly knew it was possible.

You can read those here – https://rcwouldhavegonefor2.com/2024/08/28/ramblings-and-musings-for-the-2024-aggies/

This wasn’t a horrible loss by any stretch, but to say it was disappointing is an understatement.

The Aggie football team had most of college football watching to see if they could make a statement. Aggie fans everywhere were full of hope, hoping to see a sign that things would be different.

There was no statement and indeed no sign. This was just another Aggie team with a chance to take a massive leap in the hierarchy of college football. But like so many times before, that step simply slipped away.

Same thing, different season. Great seasons appear to be an anomaly and not a standard.

A fan base that yearns for more respect in college football with a football program that rarely delivers. Expectations and reality are completely out of whack.

Sure, the Aggies can still salvage this season, but what was on display on Saturday night suggests that this team will struggle to reach eight wins.

Notre Dame is a really good football team, but it’s not elite. It’s a storied program with a schedule that only tests them in 2-3 games. The rest of the way, Florida State and USC are their only ranked opponents. They likely punched their ticket to the College Football Playoff with that win last night because they’re probably going 10-2 this season, and they’re Notre Dame.

Even though they’re likely headed to the CFP, they were totally beatable. There will be some talk that might be the best defense A&M plays all season. That may be, but the Aggie offense was utterly inept against it.

I’m not even sure that’ll be one of the best three defenses we face all year. It’s certainly a defense that’s been elevated by its schedule.

I think the lack of offense was more due to the Aggie offense being completely inept than the Notre Dame defense being stifling. That’s a good Notre Dame defense, but that Aggie offense was MISERABLE.

I will put more structure into this blog rather than my ramblings and musings like last time.

Coaching:

I don’t hate the Elko hire, but I’ve always questioned if Mike Elko is an elite head coach.

What he did at Duke was impressive as he certainly elevated their football program, but it’s not like he put Duke football on a different level. They were 8-4 and 7-5 in his two seasons.

He had some nice wins over those two years, but he also had some disappointing losses they could have won, most notably Notre Dame and North Carolina last season.

What would Aggie fans have thought of the hire if he hadn’t been the Aggie defensive coordinator?

We love hiring coaches that “get A&M,” but I don’t know if that’s the best criteria.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t have hired Elko and I’m certainly not saying he should be fired. It’s not even close to that at all. We need to simply look at Mike Elko for what games he’s been a head coach and what they have shown us.

Mike Elko will be our head coach for a few seasons, but nothing in his sample set shows he’s an elite-level head coach. Elite-level head coaching was not on display on Saturday night.

I hope I’m wrong, but I can only go on actual results. Those results aren’t elite right now.

I think most people have seen the video clip of Elko waving the white flag on the final drive and yelling at whoever was on the head set with Colin Klein to run the ball. He was more spirited than that, but Elko was not happy with Klein’s play-calling.

I’m not worried about the emotion. I love the emotion.

I’m worried about our head coach and offensive coordinator not being on the same page even if it appeared to be a meaningless drive.

Throughout the game, Elko was on the sidelines with a headset. I assume he has direct contact with his offensive coordinator. I hope he has regular conversations with his offensive coordinator during the game.

We can argue about Elko waving the white flag on the final drive, but at that moment, why did the offensive coordinator not know what his head coach wanted to do? Or was Klein acting in defiance of what his head coach wanted to do?

Maybe it was just a misunderstanding, but it’s a flag to me about how Elko handles the offensive side of the ball. I know Elko is a defensive coach, and I don’t want him calling the offensive plays. I ABSOLUTELY want him to give feedback and guidance to his offensive coordinator throughout the game, though.

That’s his job as head coach and should make the offensive coordinator’s job easier. This way, Klien can focus more on calling plays rather than spending time thinking through what direction he wants to call plays.

An elite-level head coach offers his coordinators guidance. His job is to watch the entire game, offer feedback on what’s happening, and give guidance on where to go.

I’ll get to the offense in a bit, but I hope what happened at the end was a misunderstanding and not a sign that Klein is operating the offense in a complete vacuum.

Mike Elko had a chance to make a statement on Saturday night and he didn’t. We knew the game was likely going to be an ugly offensive game. The Aggies as a whole looked really unprepared for that game. Especially on offense

I get that the coaching staff and a large part of the roster are new, but they’ve had plenty of time to prepare and look more crisp.

We certainly didn’t see elite coaching on Saturday night.

I suppose we can only go up from here, but we need to get there quickly. Mike Elko furthered the perception that the Texas A&M football team is not prepared to take that next step and make a statement. It looks like more of the same.

That will hurt our recruiting in a horrible way if it doesn’t turn around.

Mike Elko needs to win now in a huge way. sooner than later.

Offense:

Play calling:

Before I get to the obvious concern about the offense, I have to talk about the play calling.

This looked like a Jimbo Fisher called offense but with new and improved motion! Like when a crappy beer updates its can. It’s the same crappy beer, but there’s new vibrant colors on the can!

In all seriousness, there did not appear to be a comprehensive plan for this offense. It looked like a random selection of plays based on the play before it. Nothing was being set up, and it didn’t seem like this offense had any real idea of how to attack Notre Dame’s defense.

This offense looked slow, plodding, and not crisp at all. It looked like the last six years of Aggie Football.

I saw ZERO wrinkles that surprised Notre Dame. It was a straightforward offense that Notre Dame could defend.

To be fair, the quarterback play was not helping at all, but there didn’t appear to be any adapting to how the quarterback was playing.

It was like, “Oh shit. That play didn’t work. Try this one. Dang. That didn’t work either. Try this one. Crap. Okay, punt the ball, and we’ll see if we can figure out something for the next series.”

Just a bunch of haphazard plays that had no apparent rhyme or reason. If Jimbo Fisher was watching this game, he was nodding in agreement at the futility of this offense.

Just like he would have called, but with new and improved motion!

Quarterback:

First off, I don’t care that Conner threw up during the game. Sure, it’s not ideal your starting quarterback threw up during a big game. However, he’s not the first player to throw up during a game, and he won’t be the last.

I saw Elko say it was a puke and rally. That’s exactly right. It’s no big deal he threw up. I don’t really care about it.

I do care about Conner’s total lack of accuracy. He threw some really bad passes all night.

Completing 12 of 30 passes for 100 yards with two interceptions with no touchdowns shows an issue with accuracy. Visually, some of his misses were really bad.

He looked like a pitcher who couldn’t throw strikes with his fastball. Instead of trying different pitches for strikes, he just kept humming fastballs, hoping the accuracy would find its way. It never did.

Early in the game, he made two throws to the running backs, but he just gunned the ball too far in front of them. Neither running back had a chance to catch the ball. Those should be pretty high-percentage completions.

On one of his interceptions, he completely missed Noah Thomas high, which wound up in the hands of the defense back. Noah had no chance at catching the ball even though he launched himself into the air. The ball still sailed over his hands. Conner completely missed him.

Conner didn’t have a super clean pocket, but it wasn’t like he was super pressured all night long, running for his life. He had time.

He was also staring down receivers like he’d already decided where the ball was going before the snap. Primarily to Cyrus Allen on quick throws.

That’s okay to do from time to time but it looked more like he couldn’t process the defense in real time. He was just going to a guy he hoped would be open based on pre-snap reads.

I have no idea what the issue was on Saturday night, but a game from his past has scared me.

Last week, I wrote that Conner played four full games against a Power 5 opponent. In those four games, he either threw for over 300 yards or under 200.

I was looking at those games as half-full glasses. The two games in which he threw for over 300 yards were the reality, not the games in which he threw for under 200 yards.

The game that scared me the most, which I didn’t talk about, is the 2022 Auburn game.

In that game, the Aggie offense had to punt on its first 10 possessions. We never even got into field goal range on our first 10 possessions. Ten possessions and 10 punts to start the game—that’s the definition of inept.

Auburn had a decent defense, but it wasn’t super elite. However, the Aggie offense was so inept that it couldn’t move the ball inside field goal range on 10 straight possessions to open the game.

That’s the famous game where Moose was suspended for wanting to wear sleeves.

We finally got a field goal attempt on our 11th possession, but that was because of a defensive interception in Auburn territory. On that 11th possession, we didn’t even get a first down. The offense went three and out, only kicking a field goal thanks to the field position the defense secured.

The definition of inept.

In that game, Conner was 14 of 36 for 121 yards. That’s less than a 40% completion rate.

After that game, I remember thinking, “A great quarterback somehow finds ways to make plays.” Conner certainly didn’t make plays that game, but I chalked it up to stupid Jimbo because of the Moose suspension. It seemed like the perfect comedy of ineptness Jimbo was proving to be good at.

I never put any of it at Conner’s feet. Maybe I should have. Maybe Conner struggles against better defenses.

Ironically, the next season, he got hurt against Auburn on the last offensive play of the first half. In that game, he was 8 of 14 for 70 yards. I remember watching that game and thinking he was struggling. Then he got hurt, and I just chalked it up to not getting a chance to play a full game. He would have lit it up in the second half.

It’s crazy to think the game against Notre Dame is a definitive game. However, if you look at his five and a half games against Power 5 opponents, the glass is definitely half empty. There might even be a leak.

He’s undoubtedly feast or famine at this point.

I’m not giving up on Conner, but he’s no longer getting a blind pass when the Aggie passing game struggles. The data suggests there’s a good chance he’s part of the problem.

I hope he turns it around, but the trend right now is a massive red flag.

Insane to think the guy everyone assumed would be the savior of Aggie football isn’t that savior.

Welcome to Aggie football.

Offensive Line:

The offensive line has been everyone’s biggest concern coming into this season.

However, most folks blamed it on Steve Addazio; everything would be fine.

Welp, Steve Addazio was nowhere near Kyle Field on Saturday night, and the offensive line still struggled.

Last week, I discussed the shuffling as a specific concern. Well, that happened on Saturday night. Some of it was due to Mark Nabou’s apparent injury, but even before he got hurt, they were shuffling people.

You can’t do that. As a coaching staff, you must decide on the five guys you think are the best unit and let it roll.

That’s apparently what Notre Dame did. I wasn’t explicitly watching their line, but they appear to have stuck with the five guys they deemed the starters for the last two weeks. They were young and inexperienced, but they were more effective than the Aggie offensive line.

The Aggie offensive line wasn’t horrible on Saturday night, but it seemed like a microcosm of the entire Aggie offense philosophy, which has no clear plan or identity.

Sometimes, they looked okay, and other times, they struggled to pass protect or blow Notre Dame off the ball. They certainly did not have an identity of what they wanted to do to the Notre Dame defense, which caused a lot of confusion and uncertainty at times.

I believe that’s mostly tied to confusion and uncertainty about who’s playing where.

Head Coach Mike Elko needs to instruct his offensive coordinator and offensive line coach to pick the best five guys for what they want to do and stick with them. There should be no more mixing and matching.

Not during the game and not during practice.

These are the starting five for at least the next four games. Let’s see if we can finally build cohesion on the offensive line.

Running Back:

Running back was exactly what I thought it would be. Decent enough, but nothing spectacular. Moss led the way with 20 carries for 72 yards and a touchdown.

My biggest beef with Moss was that midway through the fourth quarter, we had a third-and-9. Conner hit him on a short pass out of the backfield, and Moss stepped out one yard shy of the stick. He didn’t even fight for the extra yard to get the first down.

This is your feature back?

Middle of the 4th quarter in a tie game where conversions and possession matter and your lead back isn’t fighting for a first down?

In my mind, that’s more about coaching than Moss. He needs to be aware of what’s on the line and fight for it.

It’s more of an example of an offensive that has no clue about its identity. And that’s on coaching.

Daniels showed he still has his burst, and E.J. Smith looks like a nice change of pace.

I’ve said this unit won’t carry the team, and I still believe it. They do look serviceable, but the offensive line needs to be identified to help these guys.

Wide Receiver:

I was concerned about this unit coming into the season, but I saw nothing from them. I know Notre Dame has a good defense, and Conner struggled with his accuracy, but these guys did nothing to get open.

We had 12 completions for 100 yards. Our longest completion was for 18 yards to a tight end.

Remember when I said I’m tired of tight ends leading any portion of our receiving unit? Well, I’m still tired of it.

We never once tried a deep ball in a man-coverage situation. Motion is supposed to expose the defensive coverage, and we never once went for a big play.

We never tested the safeties and linebackers on seam routes down the middle of the field.

Is that a mark on the players or is it a lack of confidence by the offensive coaching staff with their personnel? I know Conner was bad but he never had a truly wide-open receiver down the field he completely whiffed on.

All of Conner’s misses were in traffic. Our receivers were not getting open either due to a lack of talent or poorly designed routes. Maybe both.

Like the running backs, I don’t expect much from this unit, but I was hoping for something different beyond their pre-snap motion.

Noah Thomas was in the slot most of the night. Maybe my assessment is wrong, but I feel he’s our most talented receiver. He needs to be on the outside looking for man coverage down the field. We need to see if he can be a guy that defenses have to account for on the outside.

We can put to bed whatever hope we had of Moose turning into a player under a different coaching staff.

New coaching staff and the same missing Moose.

Let’s move on.

Moose ain’t ever getting loose.

Defense:

Defensive Line:

The defensive line was expected to be the best unit of this Aggie team, and they certainly lived up to those expectations.

They were, far and away, the best unit of the Aggies on Saturday night.

They didn’t register any sacks, but that’s because Notre Dame smartly used the run and quick passes, so we never had a chance to tee off on Riley Leonard. They certainly applied pressure on passing plays.

The only thing I can say about this unit is a concern for defending the run. It’s not a massive knock but I think they’re so focused on just being disruptive they lose gap integrity on obvious running situations.

Notre Dame rolled up 214 yards on 34 carries. That’s an almost 6 yard per carry average. That was the difference in the game. There were two big touchdown runs but those tend to happen when a team is committed to leaning on the defensive line for much of the game.

I’m curious if better offensive lines will have even more success running the ball against this defense. Obviously, our inept offense allowed Notre Dame to stay committed to the run, but if there’s an apparent weakness on this defensive line, it’s defending the run.

One of the night’s biggest surprises for me was the play of Cashius Howell and Rylan Kennedy. I thought they looked outstanding in the snaps they got.

We knew our starters would be good, but it’s nice to see some apparent depth and talent to give those starters a break.

Linebacker:

I thought our linebackers were okay but not dominant. I know York blames himself for the missed tackle on the long touchdown run, but there were a lot of missed tackles on that run.

We rotated a lot of guys at the linebacker position all night so it was kind of tough for me to judge how they all performed.

I’m against mixing and matching the offensive line, but I’m okay with mixing and matching the linebackers based on what we expect the opponent to do coming into the game and what we see during the game.

Other than York, we’ve got three guys whose in-game ability we’re not really sure about, so it may take a little time to develop.

I think this unit’s whole existence this season will be spent cleaning up what the defensive line misses.

So, no matter who and how they play, they have to get better at tackling and staying in position.

Secondary:

This unit didn’t get tested thanks to A&M’s inept offense and Notre Dame’s smart offensive plan.

Notre Dame threw for 158 yards on 18 completions with a long pass of 20 yards.

I don’t think we can really judge this unit from this game.

Like I’m curious what an experienced offensive line that’s committed to the run will do against our defensive line, I’m also curious what a pass-happy offense will do against this secondary.

I still fear our corners are a liability, and an effective pass-happy team can light this secondary up.

I hope I’m wrong, but Notre Dame was definitely not an effective pass-happy team that put this secondary to the test.

Looking Forward:

I have no idea if A&M will rebound from this loss. I’d like to think we will, but I have no clue.

I know the 2012 team lost to Florida in their first game, but that loss felt different, and that team was totally different. It had loads of talent on offense and a ton of seniors on defense.

I remember seeing some flashes from Johnny that game. We certainly didn’t see flashes from Conner on Saturday night. I honestly don’t know how a quarterback can have that bad of a game and completely turn it around. It’s possible, but it’s going to be a massive concern right now.

I know the 2020 team struggled in its first game against Vandy, got soundly beaten by Bama, and then turned it around against Florida, never losing the rest of the way.

That team was also different in its third year with Jimbo. It had a senior offensive line with an experienced senior quarterback. It also had two really good running backs, Isiah Spiller and some guy named Devon Achane.

This 2024 team looks more like the other years that aren’t 2012 and 2020.

We’ll learn more about this team in two weeks against a very beatable Florida team. But it’s an SEC game on the road, which I don’t need to tell you about our current losing streak in those games.

I’m also slightly concerned about facing an actual Bobby Petrino offense in Arlington. We’ll learn more about them this week as they take on Oklahoma State, but Arkansas may not be an obvious win.

We have four games before Missouri comes to town, and that will be a much tougher game than people expect.

While Notre Dame might be one of the best defenses we face all season, I also think their offense will be one of the worst we see all season—at least of the SEC teams left on our schedule.

Our defense is going to face much bigger tests.

I still contend this feels like an 8-4 season. With the loss, we skew to the 6-6 side, not the 10-2 side.

We had an amazing night. Kyle Field was flat out rocking, and we could have made a statement. We did what Aggie Football has done in forever: We stubbed our toe.

It doesn’t mean our season is lost, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be concerned.

We just have to wait until September 14th to see another data point for this team.

A Month of Mike Elko

In my initial analysis of Mike Elko after his firing, I stated I felt the Aggies finally got the hire right. This was after four failed attempts with Fran, Sherman, Sumlin, and Jimbo. I’m going to retract the statement I think we finally hired the right guy.

I’m not retracting my statement because Elko was a bad hire. I’m retracting my statement because I have no idea if Mike Elko will be successful at Texas A&M. We all HOPE Elko was the right hire, but nobody has any real clue if he was the right hire or not at this point. Everybody is just guessing.

We all know Mike Elko appears to be a tried and true football coach. He doesn’t seem to be some slick salesman or some dude who has ridden a hot hand he didn’t have much to do with.

Mike Elko has got to where he is because he’s a tried and true football coach. He’s a football coach above everything else. That I don’t question.

I believe Mike Elko can succeed at Texas A&M, but I wonder if he will be. I’m looking at Mike Elko with a more objective lens than I did with the previous coaches. I drank the Maroon Kool-Aid way too early with Fran, Sumlin, and Jimbo.

What’s the saying? Fool me once; shame on me. Fool me three times; shame on you, Aggie Football head coach, hiring decision-makers.

Like the coaches before him, Mike Elko will be judged on the 12-game schedule and whatever bowl games he attends. The offseason matters, but it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme. The off-season, including signings and practices, is fodder until the games are played.

What matters for Mike Elko is how many wins and losses he’ll have over the next few years. That’s impossible to predict right now.

The biggest epiphany in changing my mind about how I see Elko came the night of the Texas Bowl. Many folks will say it’s a meaningless bowl game, but I’m afraid I have to disagree after watching it.

My greatest takeaway in watching that game was the massive talent deficiency of the Aggies. It was MASSIVE.

Sure, the excuse is there were quite a few injuries, opt-outs, and folks entering the transfer portal. That’s right, but most folks are missing the point – This is the base from which Elko has to work. We lost to a pretty bad Oklahoma State team that night. We lost because we had a severe talent deficiency.

I know we lost our third-string quarterback on the first play, but our cornerbacks got worked by a pedestrian set of receivers and quarterback. Our defensive line and linebackers got very little pressure. We did an excellent job of slowing Oklahoma State’s running game, but the pass defense is a massive concern for me going into 2024.

Offensively, we did decent passing the ball but struggled to establish the running game. Our running backs combined for 15 carries and 47 yards. That’s slightly better than three yards per carry. That’s not a great Oklahoma State defense, and we couldn’t establish the run.

We were down most of the game, so we had no choice but to make up ground through the air. I still would have liked to have seen us establish the run. We abandoned it too soon, but what little we did run could have been more impressive, so that could be a reason.

While 372 yards of passing isn’t terrible, I’d like to present two stats: 1) No passing touchdowns and 2) Max Wright had the longest pass completion of 40 yards.

That isn’t a knock on Max Wright. He’s a good football player who embodies what a Fightin’ Texas Aggie should be. The problem is Max Wright is a tight end and not what one would call a passing threat. This is the second game in a row where he’s had the longest pass completion.

That’s a massive concern for me regarding our receiving corps. It needs to be discussed because there are some plays where these guys flash, but this receiving corps, as it stands right now, is pedestrian. I’m serious. We continue to need more elite-level receivers.

Ainias Smith is the lone exception to the receivers in the six years Jimbo was at the helm. I don’t see that changing anytime soon. You must have receivers who can take on the best secondaries to excel in college football. The Aggies still need to be elite through the air right now.

We can move the ball at times, but for the most part, we can’t routinely press secondaries with our receiving corps. That has got to change and change quickly. I don’t see it happening, though.

Coming out of the Texas Bowl against a VERY beatable Oklahoma State, I have these concerns:
1) An inability to bring pressure by the defensive front.
2) Can’t cover at all.
3) Can’t establish the running game.
4) Receivers can’t consistently dominate.

Other than that, it wasn’t all that bad…

That was not a meaningless bowl game. It was an eye-opener to where things stand with the Aggie football program. It’s not good.

Many of you think Elko will fix it with the transfer portal. While I will give Elko credit, he’s doing everything he can via the transfer portal. However, I equate it to an NFL expansion team trying to bolster its roster via the expansion draft. It really is.

Mike Elko is going to sign roughly 20 guys from the transfer portal. 25% of his scholarship roster will be guys from the transfer portal.

These aren’t SEC starters are even SEC two deep guys he’s signing. Most of these guys are coming from non-Power 5 conferences. They have yet to face elite talent like they’ll be facing in the SEC. They’re all going to go through a massive learning curve if they actually survive the learning curve.

One guy can be an immediate contributor, and that’s the defensive end from Purdue, who led the Big 10 in sacks last season. He looks like the real deal and an excellent get from the transfer portal.
Other than him, these guys have yet to produce much in a major conference.

I like the corner from Kansas State, but we’ll see if his skills transfer to a more physical league with better overall talent.

The rest of these transfers? There are a couple of guys with promise, but I have a question on whether they’re that much better than the guys they will try to replace.

Why does this worry me? The top teams in college football don’t have to load up in the transfer portal. The argument will be they don’t have to because they’re a good football team. That is precisely my argument. They’re not coming off a 5-7 and 7-6 season. Texas A&M has a losing record over the last two seasons.

A&M has received a bad rap related to the transfer portal over the last two years, but you can’t objectively deny that flipping over a roster every year is not the recipe for success. You should use the transfer portal to add talent in critical areas. You shouldn’t use the transfer portal to replace 25% of your roster in one season.

That’s where Texas A&M is right now. Our depth and a few critically talented individuals have left the program. Elko is forced to fill the roster with people from the transfer portal.

I’m sorry. That’s just not ideal.

I fully get the argument Elko is trying to mold the roster with “his guys.” The problem is we are still determining if Elko can truly identify and develop talent. We don’t know that, as there’s no track record of him doing it.

We have two seasons of Mike Elko at Duke, where he went 8-4 and 7-5. That’s pretty decent for Duke, but he also coached in what could be the worst Power 5 conference. I know he lost his quarterback for parts of this season, but didn’t Jimbo lose his quarterback as well?

Why do we give Elko the benefit of the doubt in losing his quarterback but not Jimbo? I’m not defending Jimbo. I just want a head coach where we don’t have to routinely defend the loss of our starting quarterback for the win-loss record.

What Elko did at Duke is impressive, but it’s not like he won the ACC or even a division. His time at Duke is promising, but it’s certainly not definitive for having success at Texas A&M.

As for the 2024 schedule, it is easier because Alabama isn’t on it. However, the Saban news changes that. The 2024 schedule is still a big challenge for a team with around 40% of its scholarships filled with guys who have never taken a snap for the Aggies. I’m including the high school signees and the transfer portal guys in that number.

FORTY PERCENT OF THE ROSTER WILL HAVE NEVER TAKEN A SNAP IN AN AGGIE UNIFORM.

I’m sorry. That’s not ideal.

Elko is bringing in a ton of guys, hoping and praying they can fill half a dozen starting spots if not more. That’s roughly 25% of the starting spots. He needs transfer players to win the job and then play at a high level to win ten games.

I don’t see that happening in Mike Elko’s first year. That doesn’t mean he can’t be successful long term, but it’s much easier to be successful in college football with some early excitement from a coaching staff that wins football games.

This will be more of an 8-4 team in 2024.

When we fired Jimbo, I thought the right coach could come in and win right away with our roster. Mike Elko has decided to take a different approach and turn this into a 2-3 year build. If that pays off, I’m good with it, but I have massive questions right now.

While the transfer portal is new, Mike Elko is attempting to do something that nobody else is doing. I don’t know of any other team overhauling 40% of their roster in a single season. It’s a bold move, for sure.

Once the final roster is set with transfer portal players and the final signing class is done, I’ll look at how the team shapes up.

I believe we’ll be worse off going into the 2024 season than in 2023. I hope I’m wrong, but after watching the Texas Bowl and realizing what Elko is doing with the roster, I have some concerns about what Aggie Football is capable of in 2024.

The Aggies have to compete with all of college football, and if you accurately compare where things stand right now, it could be better. In a vacuum, it seems exciting to get all new players. There are concerns when you compare it to the rest of college football.

Only time will tell if those concerns are real.

We Finally Got Our Guy

The Aggies hired Mike Elko on Monday, November 27, 2023, but not without a major fiasco.

We’ll get to Mike Elko in a bit, but let’s first go through the fiasco that was the hiring process.

All reports led into last weekend that Texas A&M was finally conducting an actual hiring process for their head coach. For the first time since Jackie Sherrill, the powers that be appeared to be considering a lot of potential coaches rather than starting with the end already known.

In my last blog post, I mentioned how every hire since Jackie Sherrill resulted in the most obvious hire with no apparent due diligence into that coach and any other candidates.

In Monday’s press conference after introducing Mike Elko, Ross Bjork indicated at least 30 potential coaches had been considered in some form, shape, or fashion. That doesn’t mean they interviewed or talked to 30 coaches; it just means many coaches were considered.

That sounds like a wonderful coaching search.

The rumored plan headed into the last regular season of college football was there were some key targets, and Saturday’s games needed to be played to see if that changed any interest in coaches on the coach’s side or A&M’s side.

Once again, this is a wonderful plan for a coaching search. We’ve got a little time, so let’s wait one more weekend to see if someone has a different level of interest once their season ends and they have no shot at the College Football Playoff. Or at least a minimal shot after losing in a rival game.

It seemed that the Aggies would make a very well-thought-out and intelligent hire.

Wellllllllllllllllllllll, on Saturday night around 8:48 p.m., the wheels didn’t just fall off the coaching search wagon; they blew up like a 90s-era Ford Explorer and turned the coaching search wagon completely upside down.

Reports started flowing out that the Aggies and Mark Stoops agreed for him to become the new Aggie head coach. His name surfaced late Friday night on the Internet and Saturday morning during the pre-game shows, but nobody thought it was real.

Based on what I can tell, Billy Liucci with TexAgs was the first to say anything at 8:48 p.m. He posted this on his premium forum, so it wasn’t technically public knowledge. I’m not a premium subscriber, so I didn’t see it, but I was sent what was posted. Liucci never publicly Tweeted anything, but when he breaks something that big in his premium forum, it’s basically public information.

Mark Passwaters, another well-connected reporter following Aggie sports, publicly Tweeted at 8:51 that Mark Stoops looked like the next Aggie head coach “barring a last-minute collapse.” By this time, every national reporter was also Tweeting that Mark Stoops was all but officially the next head football coach at Texas A&M.

The Mark Stoops to Aggieland train was running full steam down the tracks.

Social media lit up with Aggies everywhere, including players, ridiculing the hire. I mean, it just absolutely blew up. This is the first time I’ve seen something like it where there wasn’t an Aggie to be found that was supportive of the hire.

Many sports reporters were questioning the hire, but Aggies everywhere were lambasting the hire. And for good reason.

My cell phone blew up from friends, but I found it hard to believe. Surely, the powers that be weren’t that stupid. I’ll get to why hiring Mark Stoops made no sense later, but I couldn’t believe we would fire Jimbo Fisher to hire Mark Stoops.

It seemed real, but it also seemed odd.

I was pretty tired from a full day of watching college football, so I went to bed around 10:30, assuming/hoping I would wake up to different news. Luckily, that was the case, but let me finish how the night played out.

At 10:48 p.m., Brent Zwerneman of the Houston Chronicle Tweeted, “Any reports that say Mark Stoops to Texas A&M is a done deal are premature and inaccurate.”

Precisely two hours after Billy Liucci posted it looked like Mark Stoops would be the next head coach; a very well-connected Brent Zwerneman said reports of Mark Stoops were inaccurate. Now, mind you, Brent jumped on the Stoops to Aggieland train an hour before, saying it was also a done deal.

Somewhere along the way, I feel like there were reports that Mike Elko had told the Duke administration he would be staying at Duke. All signs pointed to Mark Stoops getting the Aggie gig.

What happened in that hour that Brent posted Stoops was coming, and then he wasn’t, I have no idea. Brent changed course quickly.

Brent has a connection at the highest level of Texas A&M. I don’t have proof of it, but Brent has broken some pretty big news related to Texas A&M. He would also officially announce the hire of Mike Elko the next day before anyone else.

Brent is connected.

When Brent Tweeted out the news it was premature, I believe it slowed down the train, but you don’t stop trains. They have to roll to a stop over a pretty good distance. The Mark Stoops train kept moving, and people’s fury had not fully calmed down.

At 11:16 p.m., a Kentucky reporter tweeted that Mark Stoops was staying in Kentucky. At 11:20 p.m., Billy Liucci confirmed that report. It looked like the Mark Stoops train to A&M was stopped and not going anywhere.

At 12:02 a.m., Mark Stoops tweeted that he had listened to a potential opportunity but would stay at Kentucky. He never denied the reports or consideration. That’s key, which I’ll get to later.

If you still couldn’t believe the reporters, the man himself had spoken, he wouldn’t be the next Aggie head coach. He never stated the specific school, but what he talked about was obvious.

What a WILD 3 hours that was. The Mark Stoops era at Texas A&M will be any Aggie head coach’s shortest but most exciting tenure. Maybe he wasn’t officially the head coach, but three very well-connected reporters all reported it was all but a done deal waiting on official approval.

So What the Hell Happened?:

Only a few people know what happened, but it’s possible to piece together what likely happened.
I do not know Ross Bjork led this, but Ross Bjork has never denied that Mark Stoops was a finalist. In his press conference on Monday, Ross Bjork stated he didn’t know how the reports got out and that the list of finalists and the finalist was “fluid.”

He never mentioned Mark Stoops by name, but he also never denied that final terms were being discussed with Mark Stoops. He also never said Mike Elko was the clear finalist heading into Saturday evening. He simply said everything on Saturday evening was “fluid.” That’s a non-denial if I’ve ever heard one.

So, the rest of what you’re about to read is all speculation on my part, but I have a solid basis for my speculation.

Ross Bjork seemed to be working independently or with a few people and had decided on Mark Stoops as the next Aggie head coach.

The problem appears to be that Bjork hadn’t informed enough of the folks who would make the final approval to see their thoughts. In the couple of hours of this going public, final approvers made their intentions known internally that they would disapprove of Mark Stoops as the head coach of Texas A&M.

I don’t specifically know who those people are, but it’s safe to assume those people have some combination of money and power. Certainly more than Ross Bjork.

Some of it might have been the public sentiment in those couple of hours, but if the news of Mark Stoops being the finalist had not been made public, I still don’t think it would have been approved. It was unanimous and widespread amongst Aggies that Mark Stoops was not the answer to the current issues with Aggie Football.

The exact time of death is up for debate, but the death of the Mark Stoops era at Texas A&M was between 10:48 p.m. on November 25, 2023, and 12:02 a.m. on November 26, 2023.

Like a rocket headed out of the Earth’s atmosphere, it didn’t last long, but it was full of energy. That was the Mark Stoops era at Texas A&M.

It’ll go down in Aggie legend.

Like most things on social media, the good news is that it’s all but gone and forgotten now. Sure, it’ll get brought back up occasionally, but it was so short and chaotic, along with nailing the Elko hire shortly after that, that it’s a mere blip.

It was an embarrassing blip by certain Aggie leaders, but it’s still a blip.

The future of Aggie Football lies with Mike Elko and his ability to win football games.

What the Hell Was Bjork Thinking?:

Nobody knows, including Ross Bjork. Whatever happened on Saturday night, Bjork dropped Mark Stoops like a hot potato. Stoops may say he declined, but final approval for him to decline was never coming. It could be an exercise in semantics that he removed his name from consideration before the final decision was made. Still, Mark Stoops never got an official offer to come to Aggieland.

The Mark Stoops to Aggieland train only has Bjork and I’m guessing, a couple of other ill-informed folks. I don’t know how many, but I don’t think Bjork had decided and started negotiating with Stoops in a vacuum. If that’s true, it’s even scarier Bjork thought he had that level of autonomy in this search.
I wonder how Bjork could conclude that Mark Stoops was the best candidate for Texas A&M.

I get guys like Dan Lanning, Ryan Day, and Kalen DeBoer weren’t coming to Aggieland. You do your due diligence and ensure there’s no possibility first. You start with the most proven and successful, even if their tenure as head coach is short. They’ve all accomplished more than Mark Stoops has, as they’ve all made it to conference championship games or better.

There’s a LONG list of coaches between those three guys and Mark Stoops.

Mike Elko, Elijah Robinson, and Jed Fischer were all rumored to be under strong consideration. Those guys are light years ahead of Mark Stoops for the Aggie job.

If Bjork wanted a sitting SEC head coach, the obvious hire was Lane Kiffin. I know people don’t like Lane Kiffin, but the dude would have won football games at Texas A&M. Winning cures everything, so Aggie fans would have gotten over Kiffin as their coach in short order. Kiffin would have taken the job as well.

In addition to Kiffin, Eli Drinkwitz should have been considered before Mark Stoops. I think Drinkwitz would have considered leaving Missouri for A&M. Those SEC head coaches are infinitely more qualified for the Aggie job than Mark Stoops.

How Bjork settled on Mark Stoops is beyond me and everyone I’ve read or talked to. Stoops has done well at Kentucky, but he hasn’t exactly killed it in Lexington. He has a losing record in the SEC and has spent 12 seasons in the SEC East, a much weaker division than the West. He should have a winning record in the SEC East, even at Kentucky, if he’s a great coach.

He’s never taken Kentucky to Atlanta for the SEC Championship or played in a New Year’s Six bowl game. He’s made Kentucky relevant and competitive in football, but he’s not excelled as their head coach.

The only thing I can think that swayed Bjork to settle on Stoops is that he’s a sitting SEC head coach. That does look like a strong move, but we saw what happened with Dan Mullen going from Mississippi State to Florida. That only sometimes works out.

If you want to play conspiracy, Bjork and Stoops briefly crossed paths in Miami in 2003. They may have made a personal connection there. Sports is a ton about personal relationships when it comes to hiring.

Maybe Bjork, like Scott Woodward before him, who hired his buddy, Jimbo, wanted to hire someone he knew well. He wouldn’t be the first, and he wouldn’t be the last.

If you want to go further down the conspiracy hole, both Bjork and Stoops are repped by Jimmy Sexton. Jimmy Sexton represents some of the top names in college football, so that he may have offered advice in Bjork’s ear.

I’ve tried to figure out what Bjork was thinking, but I can’t. I think Bjork is just an idiot.

Sure, he comes across looking and talking the part, but remember he was the Athletic Director at Ole Miss when all the Hugh Freeze stuff went down. He and the Ole Miss administration completely botched that. They had to fire Hugh Freeze because a lawsuit they created produced records showing Freeze had called an escort service from a University phone.

Bjork has gotten his head coach (Freeze) fired, thanks to a decision he was part of. He can add Mark Stoops to a head coach decision that was blown up when he brought it for final approval. Bjork’s track record could be better.

Once again, this is all speculation on my part with Bjork’s involvement, but it seems like he was leading the Mark Stoops decision with little feedback.

There’s nothing “fluid” about a list of finalists in a coaching search like this. Sure, there’s a little uncertainty, but at some point, you nail down your finalist and get them. It seems apparent that Stoops was Bjork’s finalist, but he quickly learned nobody else felt the same.

We’ll likely find out in the next 12-24 months if this is the case. If this wasn’t Bjork’s doing, he’ll remain the Aggie AD for a good period. The sports that matter are in good hands with good coaches. We need deep post-season runs by those sports other than one season for baseball, but the Aggie athletic department is humming along thanks to ticket sales and large donations.

I believe we’ll see Bjork move on within the next 12 months and Justin Moore promoted to Athletic Director. At this point, Bjork has lost all faith with the Aggie faithful. It will take some deep post-season runs in football, basketball, and baseball for him to win some favor back.

How Did We Get Mike Elko?:

This is all speculation as well, but after Bjork recommended the hiring of Mark Stoops, the powers that be told him to get Elko and be done with the coaching search. Don’t screw it up any worse than what you’ve already done.

When Mark Stoops was recommended and blown up, there were two choices:
1) Reset the whole process.
2) Make the most apparent hire right away, which was Elko.

I was leaning to number one on Sunday morning mainly because I needed to learn how botched things were. After seeing the results, I fully agree that number two was the proper path.

There was no need to complicate the process and make it worse. Who knows what coaches on the “fluid list” were still interested after learning about Mark Stoops and the blowback?

Mike Elko was the guy to get at that point. And we went and got him.

I’d like to know if initially focusing on Mark Stoops over Mike Elko costs us another million per year and an additional year on the contract. We could have had Mike Elko for five years at $30 million had he been the main target when the key games were done on Saturday. Instead, we gave him a six-year contract for $42 million.

It’s not a terrible contract based on the current market, but I was surprised to see the annual salary and length of the deal. Hopefully, it’s a moot point, and we’re not wondering if Ross Bjork cost us a few million thanks to his idiocy.

Is Mike Elko a Good Hire?:

After all the dust settled, Mike Elko was the best hire. I’m confused that Mark Stoops was even on the “fluid list” of finalists. I wonder how anyone could think Stoops was a better hire than Elko. It makes no sense.

Moving on from Stoops, I like Elko over Dan Lanning, Ryan Day, Kalen DeBoer, Jed Fisch, and even Kyle Whittingham, who entered the process late with sincere interest.

Lane Kiffin is the only other coach who would have been a great hire, but I get perception wouldn’t have allowed it.

I love the Elko hire for a host of reasons.

First off, he’s a football coach through and through. Not just some Xs and Os genius but a dude who understands the game of football from the players, the program, and the plays. His two years at Duke were fantastic; he learned much about being a head coach. He’s a more well-rounded football coach than when he left Texas A&M. It’s almost like we sent him to finishing school for two years.

In addition, Elko is young and hungry.

This is the thing we missed the most on Jimbo. Jimbo is a football coach but wasn’t hungry when we hired him.

Jimbo’s problem was he was so focused on making his offense work in today’s game that he wouldn’t evolve. He didn’t have to because he had a national championship and a massive guaranteed contract. He could dig in trying to make his offense work because he didn’t have to worry about anything from an accomplishment or monetary standpoint. Sure, he ruined his legacy at two schools, but he’s got a national championship ring and earned well over $100 million in his career. Jimbo wanted to prove a point rather than evolve because he wasn’t hungry for success.

Elko appears to be the exact opposite. Sure, he’s got a fat contract that can take care of a few generations, but he hasn’t won anything on the football field as a head coach. What he did at Duke the last two seasons is impressive, but in the grand scheme, it’s not much.

Mike Elko has a good decade or two of coaching football in front of him. He’s got an incentive-based contract where he can make more money than his base salary if he wins a national championship. He has all the world’s motivation to succeed at Texas A&M.

He’s only two seasons removed from the Aggie program, so he has more familiarity than any potential head coach. Elijah Robinson has the most, but he would never be the head coach with Elko in the mix. Elko makes more sense than Robinson because he’s done it for a couple of seasons.

Elko’s familiarity with the Aggie program is going to pay massive dividends. We’ve already seen it with the team and recruiting. In the first few days since his announcement, there has yet to be a mass exodus to the transfer portal or de-commitments in recruiting. Sure, some players are likely going to transfer, and maybe a couple of kids will de-commit, but by and large, it looks like the players are committed to keeping this thing together.

That is HUGE because this Aggie team is loaded with talent. This isn’t a rebuild job. This isn’t a head coach driving the program into the ground, and the next coach has to rebuild everything. This is a situation where a head coach needs to walk in and keep the train on the track while making some modifications so the train runs better.

This team was a few points away from playing in Atlanta this season. The talent is there, and it’s clear that Elko’s familiarity with the players is a massive asset.

Beyond the players, Mike Elko knows the administration to a large degree. There have been some changes in two years, but for the most part, Mike Elko has a good idea of who does what from an administration standpoint. He doesn’t have to sit in his office wondering who to contact when he needs something. He already has a good idea, which will make his transition easier.

His family’s familiarity with College Station is also a positive. They likely have friends with whom they can plug back in and know where they want to live. We forget coaches are people with family that need to be taken care of. I’m sure Elko’s wife and kids can go about their way and not spend a lot of time adjusting to a new place.

That saves Elko from worrying about them.

I have no idea how successful Elko will be at Texas A&M. Nobody does. I’m not foolish enough to think he will win repeated national championships. He’s in a position to appear in the College Football Playoff, and that’s all you can ask for.

Most people have not realized it, but a MASSIVE change is coming to college football next season. The Big 10 and SEC are doing away with divisions, and the playoff is expanding to 12 teams.

For Texas A&M, that’s a massive gain because everything doesn’t go through Tuscaloosa and Atlanta anymore. Even if Nick Saban continues to dominate, it’s not our most significant issue. We can still carve a path to the College Football Playoff, which will be a massive step for the program.

Don’t get me wrong, I want to supplant Alabama and Georgia in the SEC, but that’s a tall order for next season. From day one, Mike Elko has a much easier path to college football relevance than in years past.
I’m bullish on the future of Aggie Football. Only time will tell if I’m right. I hope I’m finally right because I missed on Fran, Sumlin, and Jimbo. I was right on Sherman from the start.

I bought into the hype early on with the other three and thought each guy would return Aggie Football to national relevance. They had a blip of a great season but failed to do more over their entire tenure. They failed.

I’m hoping Mike Elko is different, but I think we finally got it right.

I can’t believe anyone with authority thought Mark Stoops was the answer. What a train wreck that would have been. No Stoops for us, thank goodness.

What a Fiasco

Someone in the Texas A&M Athletic Department took all the attention away from a pretty good day of college football, including one of the greatest endings in Iron Bowl history.

For 3 hours on a Saturday night, Mark Stoops had become the head coach of Texas A&M.

I don’t know exactly what happened, but it seems Ross Bjork had been discussing the position with Mark Stoops. He was doing this without the knowledge of his bosses and didn’t have full authority. Stoops and Bjork had reached an agreement. All that was needed was approval from Bjork’s higher-ups.

From what I can tell, Billy Liucci with TexAgs posted on his website that the hire of Stoops was all but done. Liucci is also the person who broke the news that Jimbo had been fired. He’s clearly connected to someone who said it was okay to post the information.

The hiring of Mark Stoops by Texas A&M hit social media, and all hell broke loose. I’ve never seen anything like it. My phone blew up from people asking what was going on. Twitter/X was full of people in disapproval. NOBODY was supportive of the hire.

For good reason. You don’t fire Jimbo Fisher to hire Mark Stoops. It makes ZERO sense that someone at Texas A&M was even talking to Stoops, much less finalizing details for his hiring.

Mark Stoops was never getting hired at Texas A&M. I don’t think he would have gotten the approval from those above Bjork. A lot of assumptions were made. It was a done deal, but it never was.

Either way, it’s an embarrassment. It’s further proof the chain of command at Texas A&M is broken and needs to be fixed. I don’t know precisely what needs to be fixed, but someone above Bjork better be super pissed off if this ever happened and get it fixed.

Watching Bjork’s initial press conference and interviews over the last couple of weeks made me think we had an actual plan for hiring Jimbo’s replacement. It’s now apparent we don’t. That’s frustrating.

The Mark Stoops era at Texas A&M provided and will provide a ton of good humor. Unfortunately, it’s an embarrassment of leadership. It should have never happened.

Where Do The Aggies Go From Here:

Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened in college football. Most people don’t know, but Alabama once “hired” Rich Rodriguez, who decided not to come. The guy they wound up hiring would be Nick Saban. It’s wild to think what would have happened if Rich Rodriguez had taken the job and not Saban.

There’s another instance where Tennessee “hired” Greg Schiano, but similar to A&M and Stoops, the fan base revolted, and Schiano didn’t take the job. The Volunteers would eventually hire Jeremy Pruitt, and we know how that turned out. It wasn’t good.

Is Texas A&M hiring the next Nick Saban? Probably not. But they can avoid hiring the next Jeremy Pruitt.

Someone needs to get their ass chewed on this morning. Then, immediately settle down and get re-focused on hiring the best coach for Texas A&M. If that means taking the keys from Ross Bjork, then so be it. It would be best if he were talking to Mark Stoops.

I believe Texas A&M had a plan to see how the games this weekend played out. Most notably, with Ryan Day at Ohio State and Kalen DeBoer at Washington.

Day lost, and DeBoer won.

The Aggie leadership needs to get back to their original plan. Reach out to Day and ask his interest and if he can make a decision in the next 72 hours. I still believe he’s the best hire for the job. Conform with DeBoer he’s deciding once Washington is out of the hunt for the College Football Playoff.

You reach out to Jed Fisch and confirm he’s still interested despite what happened on Saturday night. You tell him nothing was officially decided, and an erroneous report occurred.

You also put Elijah Robinson and Mike Elko back in serious consideration. I have some concerns with Elijah Robinson based on how the team played in his two games as head coach. Maybe there was just too much “Jimbo Stink,” but many apparent errors that somebody should have cleaned up weren’t. They still looked a lot like a Jimbo-coached team.

Robinson may need an entire off-season to change the program’s culture. I know the players want to play for Robinson, but there’s a massive difference between wanting to play for someone and winning football games. We don’t have enough information on what kind of coach Elijah Robinson could be. I wanted to see more out of him these last two games.

As for Elko, I still think he’s the ultimate fallback guy, but you can’t wait forever. He would stabilize a lot of the issues Jimbo left. This feels like a “lick your wounds” hire at this point, but there are much worse hires.

The other thing I would do at this point, but it won’t happen, is to reach out to Lane Kiffin and Eli Drinkwitz. If you’re going to talk to SEC coaches, this is who it should be. Certainly not Mark Stoops.

I know many people don’t like Kiffin, and I have issues with him, but he would elevate A&M’s football program from a Win/Loss standpoint.

The number one focus for the coaching search should be SOLELY on finding a coach that will improve the number of wins. That’s it.

Sure, there has to be some element to being a fit, but don’t let emotion miss out on someone that can elevate the program to national prominence. That’s what Bjork said was the mission in firing Jimbo and getting a replacement.

While what happened with Stoops on Saturday is an embarrassment, the A&M administration still has the opportunity to do what they set out to do – Improve the number of wins from Jimbo Fisher.

Someone in the administration needs to chew on whoever’s ass needs chewing on and then get everyone calmed down and back on the mission.

This whole thing can still be salvaged with the proper focus. Hopefully, that happens, and we can all look back on the last Saturday night of the regular season and laugh.

Right, Aggie leadership?

Is This Hire Gonna Be Like It Used To Be

As we wait on the white smoke from Kyle Field, I want to take a look back at previous Aggie Football coaching hires to see if this go-round is any different.

This is a monumental hire for Aggie Football. I know it feels like that every time but this time is truly different. The reason is the talent on the current team is capable of winning a national championship. It is.
The same thing existed in 2011 when we hired Kevin Sumlin but nobody realized it. We didn’t know what Johnny Manziel was capable of. This time is different because every coaching staff in the country knows what kind of talent is on the Aggie roster.

In addition, coaches know that Texas A&M is poised to compete at the highest levels in what college football is about to become. Money and support will matter now more than ever. You’re starting to hear from coaches that if a program doesn’t have money to spend it’s going to be limited in its success going forward.

Coaches understand what Texas A&M is capable of going forward even if most college football fans that can only look at past results don’t.

To get there I want to go back and look at who and how we hired coaches before this one. Having that frame of reference will help determine if we truly learn from past mistakes and do things differently.
Before I get going let me say I have very little inside knowledge. Most of my knowledge comes from public sources anyone can read. I think I consume a lot more stuff when it comes to Aggie Football but I don’t have any real inside knowledge other than a few things I’ve picked up along the way.

Previous Coaches:

Jackie Sherrill:
I’m going back as far as my knowledge will let me. I was alive when Jackie was hired but I wasn’t aware of the hire. In reading the history of this hire this was a MASSIVE hire. Bum Bright wanted a big name and wanted to flex the money muscle.

Bum was willing to make the next Aggie coach the first with an annual income of over a million dollars.
He tried to get Bo Schembechler first but he declined. Then he went and got Jackie Sherrill.

Jackie had just come off three consecutive 11-1 seasons at Pitt with three bowl wins where his teams finished in the Top 5. He was extremely successful at Pitt.

Jackie had great success at A&M but his hire was as big as it got at the time.

The search consisted solely of finding the most successful coach that would take the money.

It worked.

R.C. Slocum:
Slocum took over from Jackie due to some recruiting violations and internal politics.

Slocum was the obvious choice because the Aggies were rolling on the field and Slocum was the architect of the Wrecking Crew. No coaching search necessary.

Just give the keys to the machine Jackie built and see what he can do. The same formula has worked for OU giving the keys to Lincoln Riley and Ohio State giving the keys to Ryan Day.

Dennis Franchione:
Sandwiched between Jackie and the Jimbo hire, Dennis Franchione was as big of a hire as it got at the time.

He had been wildly successful at TCU and had some immediate success at Alabama. He looked like a no-brainer hire.

The story was the Franchiones wanted to come back to Texas. From a football standpoint Alabama was about to have some recruiting restrictions placed on them for things that happened before Franchione got there.

That all makes sense as to why Franchione would take the Aggie job over the Crimson Tide job. It was also deemed payback for Alabama luring Bear Bryant away from Texas A&M. The storylines were wonderful to paint for the media and Texas A&M.

There was a fallacy in this hire in that Fran was the only coach considered based on my knowledge of how things went down. It makes sense as on the surface Fran was a MASSIVE get for Texas A&M and the school hadn’t had a coaching search in 20ish years.

They didn’t want to screw up firing Slocum and missing out on Fran. Based on what I’ve read and heard including being very attentive at the time no one else was considered.

I wanted them to consider Brent Venables who was running OU’s defense to perfection at the time along with this coach at Bowling Green named Urban Meyer. Yes, Urban Meyer jumped from Bowling Green to Utah at the same time Fran went from Alabama to A&M.

To be completely honest I think even if the school did a legit coaching search with due diligence on multiple coaches Fran likely still gets hired. However, who knows what a true search with due diligence would have produced?

Fran didn’t work out because he was a fraud propped up by Gary Patterson at TCU and some pretty awesome talent left to him at Alabama. I don’t know if due diligence would have uncovered that but it would have been interesting to know.

Mike Sherman:
We got Bill Byrne as our AD right before we hired Fran but Byrne didn’t have much to do with the Fran hire other than stamp it and introduce him at the press conference. For Mike Sherman, I was told this hire was all Bill Byrne’s by someone who would know.

I trust that person immensely but the factors around the timing of the hire lend to that as well. Robert Gates had just left Texas A&M the year before and we had an interim President. Bill Byrne had sole control of the Athletic Department.

This hire also fits Bill Byrne to a T.

I could write 10 pages on Bill Byrne but the jist of Bill Byrne is that he seemed to never think Texas A&M was a Tier 1 athletic department. He would talk like it but his actions never showed it. He was mindful of finances which was very helpful from a profitability standpoint.

When it came to hiring coaches he never shot for the stars when it came to head coaching hires other than Billy Gillispie, Pat Henry, and Gary Blair.

While all three were EXCELLENT hires they were also easy hires. They were Texas guys that weren’t making huge salaries at the time. He just paid them more money and gave them the keys to their respective sports at a flagship Texas school Very astute hires but it didn’t take a lot of work on his part to make.

For every other hire at Texas A&M, Bill Byrne liked to show he knew more about hiring a coach than anyone else. He never went for the big names. He liked to find the diamond in the rough.

When Coach Fran announced he had been fired Bill Byrne said he was immediately starting a national search. Well, that national search took him to a hotel room in Hempstead to interview Mike Sherman. I shit you not that’s about as far as it really got.

Bill Byrne loved the Green Bay Packers and the offensive line. Mike Sherman fit exactly what Bill Byrne thought football should be.

While Mike Sherman is a fine person and offensive coach he was never made for college football. Especially at a program like Texas A&M. He certainly stabilized the program from what Fran had done to it but Sherman was never the long-term answer. I loathed this hire from a college football standpoint.

It’s been a while so I can’t remember who was available during that coaching cycle but there was another coach that could have been interviewed in Hempstead by the name of Art Briles. He was coaching in Houston just like Mike Sherman. I know Art Briles’ name is sullied now but at the time I don’t see how any person could have interviewed Briles and Sherman thinking that Sherman was the better college hire.
Byrne zeroed in on Mike Sherman from the start and never deviated.

The craziest part about that is EVERYONE knew Fran was getting fired that season. That was the year the news of his VIP email “leaked.” The leaders at Texas A&M had months to see who would be interested.

After Fran was officially dismissed, Bill Byrne simply drove 45 minutes down Highway 6 to meet with the guy I believe he wanted all along. His statement of a “national search” was a farce.

He was always hiring Mike Sherman in my mind. Nobody held Byrne accountable because there was no real leadership at Texas A&M when the hiring went down. Byrne did what he wanted.

Kevin Sumlin:
I don’t have a lot of insider information on the Sumlin hire.

The timing of it all was very strange. I do know there were no plans to fire Mike Sherman until after the loss to Texas on Thanksgiving night. The decision as I understand it was made pretty swiftly that night.

We were headed to the SEC. There were concerns about Mike Sherman being the guy to lead the Aggies into the SEC but he was going to get the chance. However, that loss to Texas made it obvious he wasn’t the guy.

To complicate matters, Bill Byrne was on his way out. Bill Byrne didn’t think the Aggies should go to the SEC so he was winding down as athletic director.

So we had a surprise firing and lame-duck athletic director. We were behind the ball from a timing standpoint and an athletic director who didn’t care about the results for that head coach.

I think Byrne headed up the search committee since he was technically the athletic director but there was a lot of input from various parties. As with most committees with a lot of input and little accountability, the results don’t turn out well.

I will say at the time Kevin Sumlin was a very hot name. He had great success at Houston and seemed to be on the rise. I don’t begrudge the hire at all but just curious what some due diligence would have done.

Sumlin was successful thanks to Case Keenum and Bob Stoops. You remove those two elements and he’s not the same coach. I don’t know that due diligence would have uncovered that but my guess is Sumlin was the hire all along because it was the easy hire.

To be fair, the obvious coaching candidates at the time were all pretty lame. Larry Fedora was the other name being thrown around and he didn’t do anything at UNC. It might have made sense for A&M to hire an up-and-coming coordinator or big name over an established coach at the lower levels.

There was a rumor Mark Richt was being considered and may have even visited campus but that seemed like a stretch to get him from Georgia. I’m also not sure Richt would have been the correct hire as his ceiling was pretty clear.

Either way, Texas A&M went with the easy and obvious hire in Sumlin.

Jimbo Fisher:
Kevin Sumlin went into the 2017 season on a massive hot seat. After he blew the game against UCLA in the Rose Bowl his seat was on fire and he was a dead man walking.

The whole season there was speculation on not if Sumlin got canned but when. The Aggies had plenty of time to get things lined out for a new coach.

Thanks to Scott Woodward who was the Athletic Director at the time they made a massive hire in Jimbo Fisher. I don’t know if anyone else was considered as it seems Woodward zeroed in on Jimbo Fisher and no one else. I think 99 times out of 100 you make this hire but there were some questions about Jimbo.

For me, I was mostly curious about how the Jameis Winston situation was handled. Art Briles had been let go from Baylor a couple of seasons ago so I was curious what Jimbo knew and how he handled it.

On the football field, Jimbo was having his worst season ever. Florida State was struggling to be bowl-eligible and had been passed up in the ACC by Clemson the previous two seasons. Florida State was in a clear decline from when Jameis was under center.

Everyone chalked it up to Jimbo being frustrated with the FSU administration. He was checked out because he knew he was headed to Aggieland. On the surface, it sounds reasonable but you would think a championship-caliber coach would have some personal pride to try and win football games. Especially when you’re still a big dog in the conference.

I think even with some due diligence you still hire Jimbo but I don’t think the administration did that.

Through Scott Woodward’s connection to Jimbo, the Aggies could make a massive flex by hiring a coach with a national championship to his name.

Like I said, 99 times out of 100 you make that hire but it would have been interesting to look under Jimbo’s hood and see who else might be interested and attainable.

Summary:
Other than Mike Sherman I believe every coach the Aggies hired would have been hired even with some more due diligence. They were easy and obvious hires but rooted in enough reason they would be successful as the head coach in Aggieland.

I just think it might have made more sense to not zero in on someone from the start. Have some flexibility in truly considering more than a single candidate should question marks emerge about the lead candidate. You never know what might happen when you don’t have a solution to the problem before working through the problem.

What We Know About This Coaching Hire:

In his initial “We Canned Jimbo” press conference, Ross Bjork laid out these items for what he deemed necessary for the next head coach in Aggieland.

1) Program Identity – Not sure what this means other than they need head coaching experience along with if they’re defensive or offensive oriented.
2) Great Interpersonal Skills – They don’t want to hire an asshole. I wonder if they’ll take a jerk that wins football games.
3) Track Record of Player Development – Assuming this means putting some guys in the NFL.
4) Commitment to Academics – Giggle.
5) Recruiting Machine – Obviously.
6) Supreme Organizational Skills – I think this is a shot at Jimbo.
7) Culture of Discipline – Another shot at Jimbo I believe.
8) Passion for the Game – I take it as they want someone not just looking for a paycheck. Wonderful idea.
9) Proven Winner With Strong Leadership Skills – This one seems obvious.
10) Involved in the Community – Eh. Let’s be real. Nobody cares about this one. Just win football games and the community can fend for itself.
11) Knowledge of Xs and Os – While important I’d rather they just have the ability to hire great coordinators, watch game film to understand opponents, and watch the game to offer adjustments to their staff. “Schematic Advantage” as Charlie Weiss once put it is way overrated for a head coach.
12) Ability to Capitalize on Today’s Modern College Athletics – I think this means someone with intimate knowledge of NIL programs and the Transfer Portal. We ABSOLUTELY need someone knowledgeable about that.

None of these items are truly insightful. All they tell me is the Aggies are looking for an established head coach with some kind of record if they can find one. It makes sense. Start with someone who has the most experience and work from there.

The Contract:
Ross Bjork has alluded to learning from the Jimbo contracts. First off, we don’t need to tie ourselves to a coach for 10 years. I don’t know the number Bjork has in mind but I wouldn’t go longer than 6 years. From an annual salary standpoint, I wouldn’t go more than $10 million a year.

I don’t want to give out a $60 million contract but it’s not far off from what the top coaches make. You are going to have to pay market value to get a top-notch head coach. If you can grab someone with a truly established track record don’t let money be the factor. Just don’t tie ourselves to a decade if it doesn’t work out.

In addition to the annual salary throw some serious incentives for 10 wins, SEC West, SEC Champion, College Football Playoffs, and of course a massive incentive for a national title. I’m saying you can make another $10 million if you win it all.

Pay them a ton when they’ve done something.

The Search Process and Candidates:
The rest of what you’re going to read is based on my reading of social media and various articles. I have no insider information on what’s going on. I do think I have a pretty good idea of what’s real and what’s not. I know who to trust in these processes and who not to.

I believe Dan Lanning was the number one target from the second we fired Jimbo. As both sides started talking I think it became clear Lanning isn’t going to leave Oregon for Texas A&M right now. Some of it is money and the other is he has serious momentum at Oregon. He’s got a potential Heisman Trophy candidate and a decent shot at playing for the College Football Playoff.

Should he lose to Oregon State this weekend or Washington next weekend he might come back around but I think that’s a long shot.

Because Lanning isn’t a serious candidate it seems the search committee broadened their search. Thanks to the standardization of Zoom and Teams it seems they have talked to several candidates last week. Based on what I’ve read they talked to actual candidates and not their agent which has been the norm in several coaching candidates.

Many times, agents got the coaches hired without administrations ever actually talking to the coach. It sounds like the Aggies are talking to actual coaches via video conferencing. I think this is a great move.
The Aggies also seem to be talking to coaches who have expressed interest in the Aggie job. It doesn’t hurt to talk to someone to see if they’re genuinely interested and have a plan. You never know who might impress you until you talk to them.

I don’t know what the result will be but so far I’m pleased with the process based on what I’ve read.
Based on what I’ve read and seen there appear to be three finalists in the moment. This is all very fluid as there are two more weeks of games. I’m not sure how a coach with a legit shot at the College Football Playoff leaves their program for Texas A&M. Stranger things have happened but it seems like a massive longshot for a coach to leave with a shot to win a national title.

Here are who I believe are the three finalists heading into the final weekend of college football:

Ryan Day:
This seems like a massive longshot but the more I’ve read on Day it seems like if he loses to Michigan on Saturday he’ll be named the Aggie head coach next week. Ohio State thinks he’s underachieving and will never win them a national championship.

To me, that’s crazy because he pushed Georgia to the brink in the Semi-Final last season. If his kicker makes that game-ending field goal they win the game and I’m convinced they would have beat TCU in the championship game.

This dude is a field goal away from a national championship and they’re still not happy. Sure, Ohio State has massive resources but Day is doing a pretty good job. They’ve only won two national championships since 1970. Twice in 50 years. Day isn’t doing anything more than any coach before him.

He’s recruiting well and has been in the College Football Playoff for 3 of 4 seasons. What more does Ohio State want? I have no clue how he could be on the hot seat but if I was him I wouldn’t be happy either.

In addition to his actual coaching, he’s become enamored with the SEC. Ever since losing to Alabama in the 2020 title game, he realized how he needed to adapt Ohio State to being more physical like the SEC. In his first test with an SEC team since that 2020 game with Bama, he took Georgia to the wire.

I don’t think he loses to Michigan this weekend so the Aggies never get a real chance to hire him. However, if he wants to come to Aggieland you make this hire all day every day.

The dude wants to win it all and he’s got the experience and is still plenty young and hungry.
Cheer for Michigan as this is the guy to hire.

Kalen DeBoer:
I don’t know much about this guy as he didn’t come onto the national scene until this year. He did well at Washington last year and has been damn good this year. If he can get by Oregon next week he’s headed to the College Football Playoff.

My biggest question with DeBoer is his lack of time at a major program without a stud at quarterback. Michael Penix, Jr is a stud so I’d like to see more of DeBoer without him.

I wouldn’t mind this hire but there are lots of questions in my mind for how he’ll translate to the SEC as well.

Jed Fisch:
Ironically enough, Jed Fisch took over the Arizona program from Kevin Sumlin. He went 1-11 in his first season, 5-7 last season, and he’s likely to go 9-3 in his third year at Arizona.

What he’s done in 3 seasons at Arizona is pretty impressive. I just don’t know what his ceiling is.
His pedigree is pretty impressive as he’s coached for a ton of successful head coaches.

He’s a roll of the dice hire. If he’s the floor it’s not a terrible floor.

It also gives me some hope the search committee didn’t go in with any preconceived notions about who should be the head coach. They’ve let the process play out like it should if Fisch is a finalist.

So What’s Going To Happen?:

At this moment nobody knows for sure.

Bjork has made it clear he’d like to hire someone by December 4th due to the transfer portal window opening up. That makes sense. The College Football Playoff will be set so no need to wait around on a coach in the playoffs. Make the hire once the playoffs have been set if not sooner with Day.

If Ohio State loses this weekend then I think Day is named next week. I don’t think that happens and Day stays at Ohio State. He’s the guy I want even above Lanning after thinking about it more.

Assuming Ohio State wins, I think we wait to see if Washington beats Oregon next weekend. If Washington loses then I think DeBoer is headed to Aggieland. I wouldn’t be upset at that either.

I do think both Ohio State and Washington make the College Football Playoff removing Day and DeBoer from consideration.

We’ll make one more run at Lanning before announcing Jed Fisch as the head coach on Monday, December 4th.

Maybe Fisch can finally be the guy to Make Aggie Football Great Again.

You Didn’t Win, Jimbo

Some of what you’re about to read I wrote before the Ole Miss game. I had outlined a piece called, “What to do with Jimbo Fisher.”

After the South Carolina game, I knew what was coming. We were headed for a 7-5 finish.

I didn’t think Jimbo would use the bye week to adjust and do anything differently. He hadn’t done it in the past so why would he do it this season? I did want to see if he would before passing the final judgment. The South Carolina game proved it to me. He was set in his ways.

After the Ole Miss game, I was dejected. The same old Jimbo we’ve seen for the last three seasons stuck to his guns and didn’t adapt a single thing. We were headed squarely for 7-5 because there was no way he was beating LSU in Baton Rouge.

I didn’t want to continue writing the same things I’ve written over and over again related to the deficiencies of what Jimbo has done the last three seasons. I’m focusing on the last three seasons because I feel that’s his true body of work. 2020 was great but that was ages ago and a single blip in his six seasons at A&M.

He’s had time to get his recruits in along with some longevity with his staff. He can’t blame anyone else for the state of the program over the last three seasons. It’s entirely on him. I also believe your more recent history is your most relevant history.

Jimbo’s last three seasons at A&M have fallen well short of expectations and it wasn’t going to change anytime soon. It wasn’t going to change anytime soon because Jimbo was going to stick to his guns trying to prove everyone wrong. He believed his way was still a way to win a national championship.

He couldn’t even sniff the SEC West but he routinely talked about how to win a national championship. That’s a coach detached from reality.

Mississippi State Game:

Before I get going on my thoughts about Jimbo Fisher I do want to briefly touch on the Mississippi State game.

Walking to the game with my buddies I said, “I wonder if Petrino tells Jimbo to take his hands off the offense. Henderson is his guy and he’s going to run the offense as he sees fit.”

I’ll be damned if I didn’t nail that one. We saw something out of a quarterback we hadn’t seen in some time. We saw a quarterback produce on the ground and through the air. We haven’t seen something like that in the last 3 years where our starting quarterback took over the game. Jaylen Henderson was damn impressive.

Sure, he missed a couple of deep passes but he had thrown 8 passes in his collegiate career before Saturday night. Those passes were 2 seasons ago so I’m not going to fault a guy who wasn’t perfect on the night. The dude showed up in a big way though.

I’ve had a feeling Jimbo constrained the offense all year. We didn’t see those constraints on Saturday night. We saw an offense use the zone read to neutralize the threat of a crashing defensive end. We saw an offense roll out a quarterback rather than drop straight back to keep pressure off of him.

We saw clear plays designed for this defense they weren’t expecting. We FINALLY saw creativity from an Aggie offense. It wasn’t without fault but by and large, it was damn effective.

I’m not saying Jaylen Henderson is the second coming of Johnny Manziel. He caught Mississippi State by surprise and LSU will be more ready for him.

It was just refreshing to see an offensive scheme that was unique and not the same old tired 20 plays we’ve seen the last 3 seasons from Jimbo.

That’s my quick thoughts on Mississippi State.

Back to the piece I had started on Jimbo.

All of the bold and underlined areas I touched on were my outline before Ole Miss. I had outlined these items as key discussion points for what I thought was the inevitable decision when he went 7-5. After reading them two weeks later I think the outline points are still relevant.

I know it’s a little confusing but just trying to show in two weeks nothing changed for Jimbo. At the time I wrote those words he could still beat Ole Miss and win 10 games including the bowl game. He took himse

You will read words in present tense that should be past tense today.

First off, believe it or not, this is not a post on firing Jimbo Fisher. I don’t want Jimbo Fisher fired. I want Jimbo Fisher to win out this season including a bowl game for 10 wins.

I want Jimbo Fisher to have the Aggies as the second-best team in the SEC West. I want Jimbo Fisher to close a really strong recruiting class. I want Jimbo Fisher to have some momentum going into the offseason for the first time in 3 years.

Beyond this season, I want Jimbo Fisher to routinely compete for the SEC West. I want Jimbo Fisher to go to Atlanta to compete for the SEC Championship. I want Jimbo Fisher to get into the College Football Playoffs and compete for a national championship.

I want a statue of Jimbo Fisher outside of Kyle Field.

I really and truly want all of that.

I just don’t think it’s going to happen. Should this season play out like I think where we go 7-5 losing to Ole Miss and LSU on the road I think the decision-makers have a serious issue on their hands.

What to do with Jimbo Fisher?

Execution vs Scheme:

Jimbo is convinced his offensive style is the only style that can win a national title. He said so much after last year’s LSU win at Kyle Field. In a season where he went 5-7, he spent some of his post-game press conference crowing about how his offense is the type of offense that can win national championships.

YOU JUST WENT 5-7 AND YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT HOW TO WIN A NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP FROM AN OFFENSIVE STANDPOINT???

His specific comment was, “We are so caught up in tempo. Name me a tempo team that’s won a National Championship. There’s not one in the last 15 years.”

Well, Jimbo…

The 2015 season title game between Alabama and Clemson was a 45-40 contest won by Alabama where Nick Saban himself said he believed his defense could not stop Clemson’s offense. This is the reason he called the onside kick in the 4th quarter. Clemson was running a tempo offense with Deshaun Watson.

Clemson didn’t win THAT game but they certainly stressed Nick Saban’s defense to the point he called an onside kick because he didn’t have faith in his defense. Clemson would win the national championship the next season which was the 2016 full season. That same Clemson offense won the national championship the following season after stressing Nick Saban so much he felt he needed some luck via an onside kick to win the game.

Maybe there’s a fine line between urgency and tempo in Jimbo’s book.

Either way, both are a long way from the slow, plodding offense that Jimbo likes to run. Teams with an offensive urgency have won national titles in the last 15 years.

You can’t tell me the following offenses didn’t have some sense of urgency in trying to stress the defense beyond that 2016 Clemson offense I previously talked about:

2018 Clemson

2019 LSU

2020 Alabama

Sure, those offenses had elite quarterback and wide receiver play but much of what they did was operate with a sense of urgency to stress the defense. I suppose you could argue their offenses weren’t true “Tempo” offenses but they ABSOLUTELY had a sense of urgency and used their elite talent to stress defenses by quickly lining up and calling plays.

They certainly weren’t offenses that tried to bludgeon their opponents with perfect execution on every play. It was to line the ball up and let players make plays.

Jimbo has the weapons at his disposal but he refuses to utilize them to his advantage. He has an antiquated style of offense he needs to evolve.

He hired Bobby Petrino to run the offense but nothing has appeared to have changed. The only thing that appears to have changed is that all of his playsheets and notes are with Bobby in the coaching booth. The style of offense is the same.

That’s all on Jimbo.

Look around college football. Everyone is running some kind of offense with an urgency that can stress the defense. They’re attacking sideline to sideline to make the defense defend the entire width and length of the field.

They’re doing it urgently so the defense doesn’t have time to rest or get set. You don’t have to run this pace the whole game but there’s absolutely a time and place to have some sense of urgency with your offense in a game.

Jimbo simply talks about perfect execution. Seriously. Execution is all he talks about. Thanks to the power of the Internet we have proof:

A compilation of the 118 times Jimbo Fisher has said the word “execute”

(1/2) pic.twitter.com/VTdGtGaENM
— Aggie Highlights (@aggie_highlight) October 24, 2023

118 times in 19 games Jimbo has referenced execution as the sole reason for the success or lack of success for his offense.

At what point does Jimbo admit some scheme issues are leading to all of these struggles and not just straight-up execution?

Jimbo needs to get with the times. His slow and plodding offensive style is antiquated. Defenses know what to expect with his offense which makes execution by his players more difficult.

It’s more scheme than execution despite what he thinks.

Humps vs. Hills:

A common argument is just to give Jimbo more time. There’s a long list of college coaches who won after years of being at their schools.

That’s not true. Most coaches that have won national championships in the last 20 years have done so in the first 5 years.

Mack Brown and Dabo Swinney are kind of the outliers taking longer than that but in the time it took them to win their first national championship they were routinely winning 10 games and were the second-best team in their conference.

Jimbo Fisher is a long way from routinely winning 10 games and being the second-best team in his division.

It’s not a hump that Jimbo is just trying to get over. He’s got a hill bordering on a mountain he needs to get over.

Now we’re back to the present tense.

As I read all of that two weeks later I believed it was even more accurate after what happened at Ole Miss and what we showed against Mississippi State with a different quarterback and offensive scheme.

The decision-makers at A&M decided to make the change with Jimbo. I applaud them for what they did. It needed to be done. It’s a painful thing to admit due to the money involved but for the sake of the football program it needed to be done.

Jimbo was not going to wake up one day and adapt to what he needed to do. He was stuck in a time warp from over a decade ago.

A&M needed to make the change.

I’ll keep moving on to the topics I planned to write two weeks ago.

Blaming the Players:

I can’t tell you how tired I got of Jimbo blaming the players. Obviously he routinely blamed lack of execution which is blaming the players.

His BS about fighting for inches got old too. They’re only fighting for inches because they’re talented and your coaching sucks.

I got tired of him dressing down quarterbacks. There’s a time and place for it but he spent the whole damn game yelling at his quarterback. So much so he quit paying attention to the ball in the Auburn game because he wanted to yell at Max Johnson and was standing on the field while the play was alive.

After the Ole Miss game, he blamed Randy Bond for kicking the ball an inch too low on the potential game-tying field goal attempt. Never mind it was the FIFTH blocked kick of the season. Couldn’t have been the lack of special teams coaching or scheme. It was the player’s fault for not anticipating a potential block and kicking it higher.

The photo I used for this piece is Jimbo dressing down Max in the Ole Miss game. The dude was getting hammered and Jimbo was just piling on. I’m sure it got old being dressed down like that the entire game.

He pretended to blame himself as well but he never truly meant it. Which is why he wouldn’t change his ways.

Most Coaches Are Interchangeable:

The sad reality in college football that nobody wants to admit is every coach other than Nick Saban and Kirby Smart is interchangeable. They’re the two outliers in college football.

Sure, there are tiers of coaches in the college ranks but the dropoff from Saban and Smart to the rest of college football is pretty far.

Everybody wants to talk about Urban Meyer as an elite level coach but do you see any drop off from him to Ryan Day at Ohio State? I don’t. Urban was a VERY successful college coach. However, if he never gets Tim Tebow to Gainesville I’m not sure he sniffs a national championship at Florida and he doesn’t get the job at Ohio State. He likely flames out.

Ohio State is a perennial winner because of its location and conference. Some of it is coaching for sure but several people have had the same level of success Urban had at Ohio State. Ohio State while REALLY good under Urban only won one title.

He certainly never attained the level of success Saban and Smart have had at their schools.

Urban’s time at Jacksonville in the NFL shows me while he was a solid coach he had some really good timing at Florida with Tim Tebow and the defensive talent Ron Zook left him. I’m not trying to take anything away from Urban but just trying to show there are a lot of external factors to most coaches winning it all.

Urban had great timing.

Moving on from Urban let’s talk about Dabo Swinney. I know he’s a piñata right now but Dabo is THE perfect example for the reality of most college coaches – You’re only as good as your coordinators and starting quarterback.

With Brent Venables running his defense and Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence under center he won two national titles. He also played for two more which is an amazing accomplishment. From a success standpoint, Dabo is the third most successful coach in college football.

The coordinator and quarterback luck hold for Ed Orgeron, Jimbo Fisher, Gene Chizik, and Mack Brown. All four of those guys had great coordinators and a Heisman winner or runner-up as their quarterback.

I’m leaving off Les Miles because he’s essentially the Barry Switzer in the NFL of college football. Much like Switzer taking over from Jimmy Johnson, Miles took over from Saban. Only a fool wouldn’t have won a national championship with what was left to them.

Outside of Saban and Smart, the coordinator and quarterback are just as, if not, as important as the head coach.

Despite all of that, colleges are paying coaches like Nick Saban and Kirby Smart to grow on trees. You just have to find one and pay them before they win it all. They don’t grow on trees. It can be fool’s folly to pay someone to be something that they’re not.

In reality, just hire a coach who’s got some recruiting ability and the smarts to hire top coordinators. Then you roll the dice every season and hope some luck with an amazing quarterback finds you.

It also helps if you’re in the SEC.

Recruiting Momentum:

One of my greatest concerns with holding on to Jimbo was his recruiting momentum was about to slow down big time.

Texas A&M has a solid NIL machine but kids still want to win games. The 2022 recruiting class was sold on winning a national championship. Two seasons later they couldn’t be further from that goal with Jimbo as head coach.

If Jimbo were to start losing recruits which I suspect was about to happen, elite recruits in future classes would be harder to come by. When you lose recruiting momentum in college football due to not winning enough it’s hard to get it back. If ever even get it back. That’s where Jimbo was about to be with recruiting.

I think we were also staring at a lot of transfer portal entries this go-round. Not the backups we saw last season but starting talent looking to go somewhere and win football games.

Don’t think opposing coaches weren’t going to use 5-7 and 7-5 to their advantage.

I’m positive it was about to get bad. Three seasons of failed expectations spoke for itself.

As we’ve seen with other coaching staffs once you lose recruiting momentum you’re a dead man walking. The hole for the next coach is that much bigger.

Now vs Later:

If the Aggie decision-makers can make a solid hire they can hold a portion of this team together AND keep the recruiting machine going. A&M is recruiting at a level it hasn’t seen but momentum is still a very real thing. I think some of the elite recruiting was Jimbo but let’s not kid ourselves that A&M is VERY competitive on the NIL front.

Let’s give another coach a shot at doing something with the talent on the team and in the pipeline rather than come in a year or two later with a total rebuild.

A competent coach and staff can win big next year. The talent is on the team and in the recruiting pipeline if we can hold it.

I don’t think there’s any way Jimbo was going to hold a good portion of the talent. A new coach at least has a chance.

That’s why the move needed to be made now and not later.

Those That Came Before Him:

In the end, Jimbo Fisher will be no different than those who came before him in Aggieland.

He did recruit at a superior level compared to the coaches before him but his on-the-field performance was the same or worse. He had one good season out of six but didn’t do enough with the resources he had.

Why that is I have no idea but we need to try something different with this next hire.

We need someone who is truly hungry. None of the guys we’ve hired since R.C. Slocum were truly hungry.

Fran was too caught up with the perception of himself and had already won a national championship in his mind. Mike Sherman while a fine person was not a college head coach. Kevin Sumlin was never equipped to be a big-time college head coach.

Jimbo wanted to prove to everyone he could win a national championship in his style. He didn’t want to adapt and instead took a big paycheck to prove people wrong.

Let’s get someone who hasn’t won anything and is super hungry to win it all. How you identify that I’m not totally sure but give me someone who hasn’t won anything of real substance or thinks too much of themselves and is willing to put in the work to win a national championship.

Dan Lanning:

Dan Lanning has been my key target since I started thinking Jimbo might get let go this season. I was actually on the Elko train for a bit but that had more to do with finances and reality.

I like Lanning the most because he’s coached in the SEC under Saban and Smart. He’s had pretty good success at Oregon. I think it’s important to have had some time as a head coach at a big program to show you can do it. He checks that box.

He’s not been perfect as a head coach but that’s okay. He’s won a lot more than he’s lost and hopefully learned some coaching lessons along the way.

He’s young and appears to understand the recruiting game. After all, he hired away the architect of Jimbo’s vaunted 2022 class.

Yes, you read that correctly. Lanning hired the guy who was the key component to that 2022 class at Texas A&M. His name is Marshall Malchow. He also spent time with Lanning at Alabama and Georgia.

Lanning’s Offensive Coordinator also has heavy Texas ties. He’s been at UTSA, Lake Travis, and Texas. I know time spent at UTSA and Lake Travis doesn’t seem like much but he’s continued Bo Nix’s development and is familiar with the state of Texas.

There’s a lot to like about Lanning considering his success as a head coach at Oregon, his time spent under Kirby Smart and Nick Saban, and having some staff he’d likely bring that has strong awareness of Texas.

I think he’s a coach that would hit the ground running in no time.

I believe Lanning is THE key target and it’s okay to “break the bank” on. I’m not saying give him a 10-year deal at $9.5 million per year but I do think it’s fine to give him an 8 million dollar-a-year contract for 6 years. That’s $48 million total guaranteed.

I know he has a $20 million buyout but that’s the cost of doing business for a guy like him.

I’m also fine throwing in some serious incentives for 10-win seasons, College Football Playoff Appearances since it’s going to 12 teams, Division Championships, Conference Championships, and of course a MASSIVE incentive for winning a National Championship.

I’m talking about throwing a $10 million carrot for winning it all.

I do have questions if Lanning would take the job considering he’s in the hunt for a Pac-12 title and berth in the College Football Playoff. I know he also came out and said he had no interest in leaving Oregon. We’ve heard that before from other coaches so take that for what it’s worth.

If I do have one concern about Lanning it’s that he’s a bit prickly. He’s not the smoothest talker but I don’t care. I want someone more interested in winning football games than winning press conferences. He also has a slight Tom Herman vibe but not going to hold that against him as he’s won at a big program.

Either way, he’s the candidate I make tell me no before I move on to anyone else. Even if he said he’s not interested. He may not have realized what he was saying no to.

At least say we tried everything we could to hire him.

The Others:

Mike Elko – Mike Elko has always been my safety hire if we needed to fire Jimbo and save some bucks. What he’s done at Duke is remarkable. My biggest question with Elko is if he has a limited ceiling. He seems like that 9-3 to 10-2 coach at A&M. That’s MUCH better than we’ve experienced in the past but I don’t know if it’s enough. The man can coach football but I’m not sure he’s geared for what a perennial national title contender needs.

Jeff Traylor – Much like Elko, he seems like a safe hire who will improve from where Jimbo was but I believe has a ceiling. If we wound up with Traylor I wouldn’t be upset but I think we’re looking at a perennial 9-3 and 10-2 coach because he doesn’t have the elite level experience.

Lane Kiffin – I LOVE Kiffin as a football coach. He’s got a great football mind but it ends there. When things don’t go his way he becomes very petulant. He seems to think he’s got a ceiling at Ole Miss which is true but he doesn’t need to verbally express it every time something doesn’t go his way. Pass on him.

Deion Sanders – I thought Deion was the perfect hire for Auburn last season. They screwed that up. I don’t have a problem with his flash but I do wonder about his ability to coach in games. We just don’t have a good sample set due to a host of reasons. I know the shine is off him right now. The reality is other than getting stomped by Oregon they’ve been pretty competitive in the rest of their games. They blew a MASSIVE lead to Stanford but other than that they’ve only lost to ranked teams. This was a 1-11 team last season that’s now 5-5 in a pretty good conference this season. He’s someone I wouldn’t take off the list just yet. Like most things in life don’t let the media narrative around him influence the decision making. What he’s done at Colorado is REALLY impressive when you remove the flash and talking heads. He needs to be considered as the process plays out. I don’t think he’s the guy but I’m not going to dismiss him solely because of perception. He’s better than a LOT of college coaches. I do think he’d be better off at a program that needs more of a rebuild which isn’t A&M right now. I don’t want to see him at Arkansas or Mississippi State though.

Elijah Robinson – This is my heart-string candidate. This guy seems to have that Terry Price aura to him. Those guys don’t always make good head coaches but as the coaching search plays out and he gets to coach two games let’s see what happens. If Lanning doesn’t take the job and Robinson beats Brian Kelly in Baton Rouge I think he’s all of a sudden a serious candidate assuming players aren’t entering the transfer portal and recruits are holding. My biggest question with Robinson beyond his ability as head coach is what does he want? If he’s never truly wanted to be a head coach it’s not a gear he can just turn on. It’s something he should have been building to.

Kalen DeBoer – This guy seems like a winner but his body of work at a massive program is pretty small. He won big at Sioux Falls over a decade ago and then bounced around coordinator positions at minor programs before getting the Fresno State job for a couple of seasons. He then landed the Washington job where he’s done pretty well but with an outstanding quarterback. I have no clue if he has any interest in this part of the world and the SEC. This guy is the wildest of wildcards. I just don’t know enough about him and don’t think anyone does either.

Glenn Schumann – Schumann is THE assistant coach in college football simply because he sits next to the throne of college football in Kirby Smart. He’s young at 33 but has Texas ties having graduated from McKinney Boyd. His dad was a football coach and Schumann started his coaching career at Alabama under Saban where he got tight with Smart and moved with him to Georgia. Schumann is by far the biggest roll-of-the-dice candidate out there. He’s got no skins but his pedigree is as good as it gets for any assistant in college football. If you’re going to gamble on an assistant he’s the guy without question.

Jake Spavital – Just wanted to give you a giggle if you’re still reading this.

Summary:

Jimbo needed to go. The money is an unfortunate thing but the move had to be made for the health of the Aggie football program. It was pretty clear Jimbo wasn’t going to get it done. He was stuck in the past and stubborn to the point he wanted to prove doubters wrong. That’s a bad combination.

Had we waited to let him go we might have saved some money but we would have put the program in a bigger hole for the next guy. It would likely have cost us more money over time. It was time to make the move.

This will be THE defining hire of Ross Bjork’s career. Even he doesn’t know who it’s going to be right now. If he did we’d know about it.

Whoever it is will be walking into as good of a situation as you get in college football. That is assuming they can sell the current players and committed recruits. If they can do that AND coach modern-day college football we’re going to see a massive spike in wins next season.

Now we just sit back and see if it happens.

Sorry, you didn’t win, Jimbo.

Thoughts from the South Carolina Game

That may have been the most depressing win I’ve ever witnessed at Kyle Field. Not because I wanted the Aggies to lose. It’s the exact opposite of that. I want the Aggies to be great.

What I saw on Saturday was depressing because it was more of the same Jimbo Fisher. I fully expected that game to play out exactly how it did.

However, I had hope coming off the bye week with a record of 4-3 there would be a sense of urgency and some wrinkles we hadn’t seen in 6 years of Jimbo as the head coach. I knew better but I still had hope.

The only wrinkle we say was Jimbo using his timeouts before the end of the first half. That decision resulted in a touchdown thanks to an amazing play by Ainias Smith. That was the only thing different we’ve seen from Jimbo this season.

Everything else was the same with 7 games under our belt and an extra week to prepare. Jimbo doing the same thing that hasn’t been effective in almost 3 seasons of football.

We saw an offense come out flat and struggle to do anything on its first three drives.

I suppose this game was better than last year’s South Carolina game coming off a bye where we had two big turnovers on our first two offensive drives. I suppose punting on your first three possessions is better than two turnovers so that’s a positive. Even if our punter is still struggling like before the bye.

It’s still depressing we couldn’t come out and dictate our will to an inferior defense right from the start.

What we saw is a stubborn head coach who refuses to admit his way is an inferior way. Defenses know how to defend what they’re going up against.

Jimbo firmly believes his way is the best and it’s just about player execution. He’ll be damned if he admits his way needs to be adapted.

I’m going to write a longer piece on what to do with Jimbo Fisher later this week. I have some massive concerns like most Aggies and this game didn’t change anything despite the win.

Let’s talk about the South Carolina game.

Offense:

Quarterback:

Max Johnson didn’t have a bad day from a statistical standpoint. He was 20 for 30 which is a 67% completion percentage. He threw for one touchdown and no interceptions. He was sacked three times on our second drive and under pressure for much of the first three offensive possessions.

Max looked like Max for much of his career in Aggieland. A pretty solid but not spectacular quarterback.

I think at this point we can just accept Max Johnson as who he is as a player. He’s very capable of manning the helm but he’s not going to carry the team by himself.

I think he’s limited by the scheme and the play calls but he’s going to need the help of the other 10 offensive players along with the coaching staff.

Offensive Line:

Like I’ve talked about all season the real key to this offense is the offensive line. At least the way Jimbo wants to run his offense. He still thinks it’s 2020.

Jimbo refuses to adapt to whatever issues this unit has. I don’t believe it to be one main issue and believe the issues are multiple.

Part of it is scheme, part of it is talent, and part of it is just overall attitude.

For whatever reason, the scheme is confusing this unit. Time and time again this unit is confused on who to block based on what the defense shows before and immediately after the snap. It’s not that complicated but they seem to focus on a single defender before the snap and don’t adjust at all when the ball is snapped. I don’t understand why this keeps happening. We’re eight games into this season and it keeps happening.

There are way too many instances of defenders running wide-open into the backfield because an offensive lineman didn’t pick them up. I suppose you could call this an execution issue which it is but when someone repeatedly fails at execution you have to look at the scheme.

From a talent standpoint, there’s decent enough talent but nobody is dominating. None of these guys are getting drafted based on their current play. I don’t get that because Kam Dewberry, Bryce Foster, and Layden Robinson all have NFL talent. I have no clue why these guys aren’t playing up to their talent but they’re not.

Despite their supposed raw natural talent, I don’t see any of these guys regularly just hammering their opponent. At least if you’re making execution issues go block the hell out of someone. Nobody is even doing that.

Their overall attitude seems to lack confidence. I think they’re so confused schematically they can’t just focus on physically beating their opponent. At some point, you just have to beat up the guy on the other side of the line. When you’re hesitant because of your assignment it’s going to contribute to your lack of physical domination.

Eight games in and this whole unit is struggling. So much so that we’re rotating guys at right tackle and left guard. That’s not something you want to be doing eight games into the season and totally on coaching.

As for the game itself, this unit seemed to improve as the game went on. Sadly, it was going from getting dominated to a stalemate but they did improve. That’s a positive.

They certainly never imposed their will on a defense they could have physically dominated. Two-thirds through the season and we’re just happy with a stalemate.

Yikes.

Running Back:

Le’Veon Moss was a late scratch due to a hamstring issue he suffered in the Tennessee game. I think that was a pretty big loss for us in the running game.

Amari Daniels and Rueben Owens split carries and were decent but not spectacular. They wound up gaining 108 yards on 31 carries which is a 3.5 yard per carry. Those numbers are elevated thanks to a 29-yard carry by Daniels in the 4th quarter.

That run increased the yards per carry by a yard. These two running backs aren’t haven’t been ripping off big runs this season which is why they’re running behind Moss.

Much of that is the offensive line but a good portion is the running backs themselves. Rueben Owens has all the talent in the world but he’s slow to the hole and doesn’t seem to be able to shake defenders.

Daniels is a nice change of pace back but he’s not an every-down back.

It’s just frustrating we have a noticeable drop-off at running back from our main guy. It shouldn’t be this way with the way football is played now. You should be able to plug in a running back with no issues.

Wide Receiver:

There’s no doubt that Ainias Smith is the most talented and dynamic player on the Aggie offense. He certainly showed it on Saturday. His touchdown catch before the end of the half was all him. At one point he was surrounded by three defenders and he somehow wiggled his way to a score.

You can’t coach that. However, what you can do as a coach is figure out a way to get this guy in space and then get him the ball. We probably still win on Saturday without Ainias but he certainly made it a much easier win.

Evan Stewart had a decent game but I expect more out of him. He’s not struggling to do more because of him as a player. It’s because of the coaches and the scheme.

I think the scheme that’s being used isn’t maximizing the talent of Stewart and Ainias. I have to imagine every defensive coordinator goes into each game worried about numbers 1 and 0 on offense. Yet the offensive coaches aren’t maximizing their talent.

I just don’t get it. This could be the best receiving tandem in the SEC but their talent isn’t being used like that. It’s all coaching.

Max Wright got HOSED on a non-touchdown call. It looked pretty clear he did an amazing job of dragging his back foot but he didn’t get the call.

I’m sure in Jimbo’s eyes that ended the narrative the Aggies haven’t scored a touchdown in the second half of four straight games. It’s all on the refs and not Jimbo.

Defense:

Here’s the craziest thing about the Jimbo Fisher era at A&M – while Jimbo has struggled to win games at A&M it hasn’t been because of the defense for the most part. Sure, there’s been hiccups here and there but by and large the defense has been the most consistent unit in almost six seasons of football.

Without this defense, we’re struggling for wins even more than we are. It’s crazy to think Jimbo’s calling card during his six years as the Aggie head coach is his defense. Other than recruiting, Jimbo has had ZERO to do with the defensive performance but it’s his best unit.

Think about that a little more if you will.

Defensive Line:

This is still the heart and soul of the defense. This unit kept South Carolina corralled all game long for the most part.

They forced Spencer Rattler to have three intentional groundings on three consecutive series. I’ve never seen that before. Rattler didn’t want to get hit and was chucking the ball out of bounds. It’s not a bad strategy as if there’s a receiver in the area you can potentially avoid a sack. You also don’t get pounded by fellas bigger and stronger than you. I don’t blame Rattler for trying but it’s a testament to a defense when the quarterback is so quick to give up on a play he’s just throwing the ball away between the tackles due to pressure.

If I have one complaint about this unit it’s that South Carolina’s lead back rushed 16 times for 72 yards. That’s a 4.5-yard-per-carry average.

I think part of this is due to a change in strategy by Durkin. Ever since getting burned by Miami and Alabama through the air while shutting down the run, Durkin is a little more willing to give up yards on the ground while limiting yards through the air.

It would have worked against Tennessee with a little bit of offense and special teams. It might have worked against Bama and Miami. At least one coach can make in-season adjustments.

It makes sense even if that 3-man front is frustrating to see. I care more about limiting points on the scoreboard and the defense has done a good job of that other than Miami and Alabama.

We’ll find out this Saturday against Ole Miss if Durkin can adjust back to stop the running run. Ole Miss is going to run the ball early and often. I’ll be curious to see if Durkin goes back to more 4-man fronts to shut down Ole Miss’ running attack. If he doesn’t it’s going to be a looooooooooong day as Quinshon Judkins will chew up yards against that 3-man front.

Linebacker:

I don’t need to write this as you know it but Edge Cooper is playing like a man possessed. I don’t think we’ve seen this linebacker player since Dat Nguyen. The dude is simply making play after play.

The best was the screen play where Cooper was surrounded by three South Carolina blockers. There wasn’t another Aggie defender in the area. Cooper somehow fought through all three blockers and was able to trip up the ball carrier. It was an amazing play.

Beyond Cooper, Taurean York and Chris Russell, Jr. are playing solid ball.

I don’t have any issues with this unit at all.

Secondary:

This unit seemed to be a hodge podge of players other than Demani Richardson, Bryce Anderson, and Jarred Kerr.

That’s not a bad thing as it worked.

Josh DeBerry seems to be playing more nickel than cornerback which I’m okay with. He doesn’t need to be covering elite outside receivers.

Tyreek Chappell and Deuce Harmon started at corner but rotated quite a bit with Sam McCall and Jayvon Thomas. Chappell appears to be a little banged up which contributed to the rotation at corner it sounds like. Either way, everyone played pretty decent on Saturday keeping Xavier Legette in check.

None of these guys stood out in this game but that’s okay. Give me a unit that’s playing great as a unit over a couple of guys standing out while other guys are blowing assignments.

Your secondary is only as strong as its weakest part. Let’s minimize the weakest parts.

Special Teams:

Nik Constantinou still struggles to punt averaging 34 yards per punt with a long of 37. I don’t know what’s going on but this kid is struggling big time. I have no idea how this kid has regressed so much. Apparently, neither does Jimbo or anyone on his coaching staff.

He came out of the bye week doing the same thing he’s done all year.

Randy Bond finally hit a field goal over 45 yards hitting a 52-yarder. He had another field goal attempt blocked. I don’t put that on Bond but just more of the same when it comes to our kicking game.

Maybe, just maybe, Jimbo could hire a special teams coach…

Looking Forward:

The Aggies have a chance to salvage their season by winning out which would put them at 9-3. Win a bowl game and you’ve got a 10-win season and a Top 25 finish. The Aggies would also be the second-best team in the SEC West with wins over Ole Miss and LSU. That’s a damn good season all things considered.

I just don’t see it happening. I firmly believe this to be a 7-5 finish with losses to Ole Miss and LSU on the road.

I’m going to write a much longer piece on what the Aggies should do with Jimbo Fisher assuming he does what I think he’s going to do.

I hope I’m wrong.

Just win, Jimbo.

Thoughts from the Tennessee Game

I said at the beginning of this season we wouldn’t know what we truly had for the 2023 season until after the Tennessee game.

Well, here we are. We’re 4-3 and on an 8-game road losing streak. We still have Ole Miss and LSU on the road this season. That doesn’t seem ideal to change the streak.

We have South Carolina in a couple of weeks at Kyle which we should win but it’s not a gimme by any stretch. We could easily lose that game if Rattler gets hot. Shane Beamer is up against the wall at 2-4 right now so he’s going to come in ready to gamble. That usually doesn’t work in our favor but I do think we win this game.

I do believe Mississippi State and Abilene Christian are wins so we’re staring down something between 6-6 and 8-4.

7-5 seems like the most likely outcome at this point. We’ll win at Kyle and lose on the road.

In year 6 of Jimbo Fisher with Top 10 recruiting classes we’re likely going to finish 7-5.

If only we had executed better in 3 of those losses we could be 7-0 right now. That’s what Jimbo will tell you. Execute, execute, execute. It’s all about the lack of execution by the players according to Jimbo.

It’s the same excuse over and over and over and over. Lack of execution.

What if Jimbo had coached differently rather than doing the same thing over and over again? Is that not possible? Maybe when your team isn’t executing you should try something different.

We hired Bobby Petrino to run the offense and make things better. You sure as hell wouldn’t know it. Does anything look different about this offense 7 games in? Not to me.

Sure, we’ve been more productive at times this year than last year. I think that’s simply a factor of talent over competition more than the actual scheme. We have better quarterback and receiver play this year than last year.

I don’t think anything about the actual scheme is that much different.

This offense looks exactly the same as the previous two years. There are a few wrinkles like more motion but at the end of the day, it’s the same.

It still takes forever to get plays in and lined up. There’s never any urgency. Players don’t always know assignments. It looks like the same damn offense even though we have an offensive coordinator.

The offensive line is a massive question mark letting defenders through like an amusement park turnstile.

The offense was supposed to be different this year but it’s not. If you’re an opposing defensive coordinator you can take film of any of the Aggie losses going back to 2021 to devise a winning scheme.

Just send pressure off the edges and mix in the occasional blitz in the middle of the line. Don’t even get cute on the edge pressure. Just have your defensive end or outside linebacker run a straight line through the tackle to get to the quarterback. They’ll get there.

If the Aggies need a yard then put a man head up on the center and as soon as the ball is snapped fire straight ahead as fast as possible. You’ll blow the center up.

It’s not a hard offense to defend and Jimbo refuses to admit it making adjustments to cover those deficiencies.

There are no quick passes and very few screens. Motion Ainias into the backfield and do a quick toss to see if he can get outside the edge rusher and juke a second-level defender. At least try and scare the defense they may not know what play is coming.

We don’t pressure the edge at all. It’s all about trying to get downfield with slow-developing plays.

Our motions are terrible as they never set up any plays. It’s like we just put players in motion because someone said it’s a good idea. We don’t use motion to our benefit it seems like.

Either way, Jimbo, just try SOMETHING different than the last 3 years. It’s mind-boggling he keeps running the same offense out there that’s not working.

Even more maddening is his lack of adjustment in the second half. Just the same thing the defense learned to shut down after the first couple of series and Jimbo keeps thinking it’s going to break loose.

We haven’t scored an offensive touchdown in the second half of our last three games against Arkansas, Alabama, and Tennessee. Three straight games and not a single offensive touchdown in the second half. Jimbo is supposed to be an offensive coach. Bobby Petrino is supposed to be a great offensive mind. The Aggie offense has been kept out of the end zone in the second half for three straight games.

If only we executed better…

That’s garbage. That’s not on player execution. It’s on a coaching staff not adapting to what the defense is doing.

Do you want to know what Jimbo REALLY thinks of his offense? For two weeks in a row, he refused to take timeouts to give his offense more snaps at the end of the first half.

That’s a CRYSTAL CLEAR sign he’s more worried about his offense making a mistake than making a play. A coach confident in his offense to take more snaps. A coach with no confidence in his offense wants to limit the snaps.

He can say what he wants but for two games in a row, he didn’t want his offense to take more snaps than necessary to end the first half. That’s a problem.

That’s just the offense. I haven’t got to special teams yet.

I suppose I should talk about the Tennessee game in a little more detail before I rant too much.

OFFENSE:

Offensive Line:

My greatest concern with this offense has been the offensive line. It’s looked decent at times until defensive coordinators remember the cheat code.

Apply pressure to our tackles. Our right tackle situation is terrible. Neither Bisontis nor Crownover have looked good against better opponents. They both routinely get pushed around or just whiff on slowing down a defender.

This has been a known problem for a couple of seasons now and it’s not been addressed. I know trying to start a true freshman in the SEC is not ideal but that’s what we’re doing. We’re in a bad way if there’s no other tackle on the roster that’s better than what we’re running out there. Just this last week Jimbo was talking about Crownover playing in the NFL. The dude got destroyed in 2 plays against Tennessee and didn’t see another snap. What the hell does Jimbo see?

I get building players up but game film matters more than anything else. I swear Jimbo sees stuff happen in games and just denies it’s happening because he sees it differently in practice.

I know Fatheree is hurt but he wasn’t exactly stellar last season. I’m not sure he’s the answer if he does get healthy.

I just can’t believe Jimbo, Petrino, and Addazio can watch GAME film, and believe those two guys are the absolute two best options. Apparently, they are which speaks to Jimbo’s roster management and player development. It’s year 6 and we don’t have a serviceable right tackle. We have a MASSIVE liability.

I don’t know what’s up with Bryce Foster but this guy has regressed from the 2021 season. He struggles to snap the ball and gets no push when we need it most. He routinely gets blown up when it’s clear we’re trying to run inside for a yard or two.

Same thing – is he truly the best option we have at center right now? I know he looks and talks the part. He probably practices great. His actual game film against better opponents is pretty bad.

I think our guard play is fine. At least relative to right tackle and center. Trey Zuhn has improved from last year but I certainly wouldn’t call him dominant. He struggles from time to time letting pressure get through. He’s not a concern relative to the other glaring issues though.

This offensive line is far and away the greatest liability of this team. Yet Jimbo won’t admit it with his play calling. He thinks this line can hold up giving the quarterback the needed seconds for plays to develop downfield. It’s just not happening.

Wide Receiver:

The use of our receivers is probably the most frustrating thing for me. We have serious talent with Evan, Ainias, Moose, and Noah Thomas.

Noah Thomas made some great catches against Tennessee but the other guys were non-existent for the most part. It’s not their fault.

To me, it’s the scheme. They just line them up and let them run normal routes. There are no bunch formations or bubble screens to see if they can break something loose.

The scheme is to just run them downfield in normal routes hoping they can break open while Max has enough time to get the ball off.

We’ve got some serious horses at receiver that are limited by the offensive line. Rather than give these guys a chance to make plays Jimbo just keeps hoping the offensive line can figure itself out and give the quarterback time.

Running Back:

Unfortunately, there’s not much to say here. Le’Veon Moss does as much as he can considering the offensive line issues. Jimbo seems content to ride him for good reason.

Rueben Owens is still a little green with hesitation in his game at times. Amari Daniels didn’t even see a snap due to his struggles with blocking I believe.

I would like to see more production out of this group but until the offensive line starts to exert any influence at the line of scrimmage there’s not much this unit can do.

Quarterback:

I read a stat that Max was pressured 65% of the plays on Saturday.

That’s 2/3. I don’t know how a quarterback can be successful with that pressure. Even on the 1/3, he’s not pressured he’s bracing himself for it.

Max isn’t perfect and he’s not without fault but he’s tasked with waiting on routes to develop in a pocket that’s routinely collapsing. It also doesn’t help he’s having to deal with an errant snap from time to time.

The fact the right tackle situation is his blind side only compounds the problem.

I’m not sure we’d have beaten Bama or Tennessee with Weigman under center. Weigman is more mobile but he didn’t light up Auburn before he got hurt. Max seems more apt to run than Weigman did. I think we’d have seen the same results if Weigman hadn’t gotten hurt.

I think no matter who’s under center is going to have a tall order in waiting on routes to develop while the pocket quickly disintegrates to nothing. We’ve got a scheme problem and not a talent problem.

Until the scheme changes to allow quicker routes or more rollouts whoever is quarterbacking will struggle.

Defense:

These guys flat-out played their asses off on Saturday.

I think the Tennessee passing game is pretty anemic for the most part so it’s not a dominant offense but this unit only gave up one touchdown and got a crucial turnover.

We went into the game missing Bryce Anderson and lost Edge Cooper at the half. We lost Walter Nolen in the fourth quarter. That’s three MASSIVE talent losses.

Still, the guys who took their spots stepped up in a big way not letting Tennessee make a big play, and got off the field without giving up a touchdown in the final three quarters.

I was a little frustrated by Durkin daring Tennessee to run but after the game it made sense. Milton is a streaky passer but he has a great arm. Our secondary is suspect. We moved DeBerry to a safety position due to the loss of Anderson and put Deuce Harmon in his spot at the corner.

Durkin knew his secondary was a massive man down so he didn’t want a repeat of Bama. He smartly dared Tennessee to run the ball hoping we could get them into stoppable third downs. The plan worked as the defense routinely stuffed the Tennessee offense on 3rd down forcing punts and field goal attempts.

We were even perfect on fourth-down attempts.

I had a bad feeling when Edge Cooper didn’t come out of the locker room after half we would lose. I was correct about us losing but I was wrong the defense would be the reason. Cooper certainly would have improved our defense maybe limiting a field goal or even two but we were always destined to lose that game.

I can’t say enough good things about this defensive unit. Since getting their pants pulled down against Miami this group has played four outstanding games. Certainly good enough for the Aggies to win.

Sure, the Bama game had issues but a better offensive performance in the second half and we probably win that game. Especially considering the defense got crucial turnovers in the second half of the Bama game and the offense did exactly zero with them.

As long as this unit doesn’t fall apart we’ll have a chance to win our remaining games. If for some reason this unit regresses we may struggle to make a bowl game.

I don’t see them regressing though.

Special Teams:

Oh boy. If you’re a regular reader of my blog you know I’ve been worried about our special teams all year.

Well, it killed us on Saturday. In a game where field position mattered, we couldn’t flip the field thanks to our punter.

He had a miserable game. It was pretty windy in the stadium but it was a weird wind. Depending on where you looked the wind was doing different things.

On the field, the flags on the goalposts weren’t going crazy and showed opposite directions at times. I don’t think wind on the field was a factor.

Constantinou averaged 32 yards a kick and his longest was only 38 yards Tennessee’s punter averaged 40 yards a kick with a long of 49. I don’t think you can just blame the wind if the other guy is finding better success.

The dagger was his punt from the end zone. When we got the ball on the goal line I was convinced they’d get a blocked punt for a touchdown. I knew Jimbo wasn’t going to be aggressive offensively so I knew we would likely be punting with as little space as possible.

I was right about where we’d be punting from. I just assumed Tennessee had a punt block dialed up. What I didn’t realize was Tennessee has an elite punt returner. He got the ball with a short field and took it to the house.

Randy Bond missed another field goal attempt over 45 yards. He continues to be perfect at missing field goal attempts longer than 45 yards this season. It could have mattered if the punting and offensive line struggles hadn’t mattered more.

How Jimbo doesn’t have a dedicated special teams coach is beyond me. Our special teams have been a massive liability under Jimbo his entire time at A&M.

The only bright spots have been Achane returning kicks and Ainias returning punts. Just raw talent excelling and not scheme or coaching.

Along the way, our special teams issues have contributed to losses against App State, South Carolina, Miami, and now Tennessee in just the last two years. There’s probably a couple I’m forgetting.

They certainly didn’t help against Alabama with the blocked field goal last week.

I can’t figure out if Jimbo can’t see this or just doesn’t care. The Aggie special teams are costing us games. It’s an absolute liability and Jimbo isn’t doing anything about it.

I assume hiring a dedicated special teams coach would help but who knows? The hire of Petrino hasn’t changed anything about our offense.

It’s extremely frustrating special teams have been a massive liability under Jimbo for two seasons and nothing has changed.

Just add it to the frustration list.

Looking Forward:

I hope that Jimbo takes the bye week to correct some of these issues. History says he won’t.

He’ll just focus on fundamentals and “executing better.” He won’t introduce any wrinkles or take advantage of an extra week to fix the glaring issues. He didn’t do it last season and didn’t do it this offseason. Why would this bye week be any different? It won’t.

Let’s be clear – He still has a path to win 10 games. Bama and Tennessee were the toughest tests for me. There’s ZERO margin for error but as of right now, Jimbo Fisher can still win 10 games this season including a bowl win. What a massive season it would be to close out with 6 straight wins.

Even though it could happen it won’t.

We’ll come out sluggish against South Carolina at home and likely eke out a somewhat convincing win.

Jimbo will think we’re back on track. We’ll march into Oxford and get punked by Lane Kiffin in a close game where Lane has a couple of offensive wrinkles that make the difference for his team.

We’ll come back home and beat Mississippi State convincingly. We’ll follow that up with a snooze win over Abilene Christian.

We’ll go to Baton Rouge the Saturday after Thanksgiving and get clocked by LSU where our defense just finally falls apart and their defense has their best performance of the year.

We’ll be 7-5 gassing up the buses for the drive down to Houston for the Texas Bowl. Ironically the same stadium where the national title game will be held.

It’ll be a fitting ending playing in the same stadium as the national championship game. An obvious reminder of how far we really are from the ultimate goal.

Jimbo will say we just have to work on fundamentals and execute better. We’re that close.

Whatever. It’s a tired act.

Just win, Jimbo.

Thoughts from the Bama Game

Since entering the SEC in 2012 the Aggies have never had a clearer path to Atlanta than what they did last Saturday. It wasn’t an easy path but it was as clear as it’s ever been.

It’s pretty obvious Texas A&M has as much talent as anyone else in the SEC West and was playing a very beatable Alabama football team. Get by Alabama and you can lose one game the rest of the way and still win the West getting to Atlanta. I’m assuming Ole Miss loses another game this year since they have Georgia on the schedule. Not an easy task for the Aggies but very doable.

Unfortunately, Jimbo Fisher is not cut of the same cloth as General William Sherman during the Civil War.

Jimbo had the opportunity to make a statement things truly “ain’t like they used to be”. However, the only statement Jimbo made is that things are just like they used to be. How far back “ain’t like they used to be” is open to interpretation but you can go back to 1998 if you want.

Sure, there were some blips in 2010 and 2012 but the Aggies still haven’t played for a conference championship since 1998. It makes planning for the first weekend of December much easier but that’s not what Aggie fans want.

Jimbo Fisher had the Fightin’ Texas Aggies poised to show everyone things are different now. All of the top-notch recruiting was finally going to prove differently. The Aggies finally had a clear path to march to Atlanta like General Sherman in the late Fall of 1864.

Unfortunately for Jimbo, Nick Saban stood in the way not ready to relinquish the crown of the SEC West.

You can’t tell me Alabama has a better receiving unit than Texas A&M.
You can’t tell me Alabama has better running backs than Texas A&M.
You can’t tell me that Jalen Milroe is a better quarterback than Max Johnson.
You can’t tell me Alabama has a better offensive line than Texas A&M.
You can’t tell me Alabama has a better defensive line than Texas A&M.
You can’t tell me Alabama has better linebackers than Texas A&M.
You can’t tell me Alabama has better safeties than Texas A&M.

I’m leaving the corners off that list above which I’ll get to later. Of all the things I’ve listed you can’t honestly say Alabama has more talent at any of those groups. You can certainly argue there might be a draw or a slight advantage to Alabama in a couple of those areas but for the most part, the team Jimbo Fisher put out on Kyle Field on Saturday had as much talent as Alabama.

He had the team to beat Nick Saban. He just didn’t have the ability as head coach.

I listened to a little bit of his post-game comments but it’s still the same thing. A little here and there and we win the game. The problem is it’s the same damn thing over and over again.

He added an offensive coordinator but he’s not changed how he manages games.

He took a 7-point lead into the half and came out flat yet again. The Aggie offense was essentially shut out for the entire second half while the defense played their ass off for the most part even getting two crucial turnovers.

We’ve seen this at Kyle way too many times in the last couple of years where the offense does NOTHING in the 3rd quarter letting a team slip back in or even worse give the game away:

2021 Mississippi State
2021 Alabama
2021 Auburn
2022 App State
2022 Ole Miss
2022 Florida
2022 LSU
2023 Alabama

Not in any of those games did the Aggie offense score a touchdown in the third quarter. Not a single touchdown. We had special teams and defensive touchdowns in the third quarter of those games but not an offensive touchdown.

AT KYLE FIELD THE CROWD IS NOT A FACTOR TO YOUR OFFENSE.

How is Jimbo so damn bad at getting his offense into gear in the third quarter of SEC home games over the last couple of seasons? We won 3 of those games but it’s a bit concerning the Aggie offense seems to struggle so badly in the third quarter of big games at Kyle. If not for touchdowns by special teams and defense we might have lost the 2021 Bama and 2022 LSU games. Thank goodness the 2021 Auburn team had a more inept offense than we did

That’s as concerning as his road record where he’s never beaten a team that finished the season with a record of 8-4 or better.

He’s showing some massive deficiencies he can’t seem to fix against good teams.

Teams are coming out of halftime AT KYLE FIELD and proving his offense inept. It’s frustrating as hell.

You know what? Screw this. I can’t type anymore about the Alabama game and why we lost. You watched the game if you’re reading this. You know why we lost. I’m not going into deep analysis because it’s obvious.

Jimbo Fisher did what Jimbo Fisher does which is fail to adapt to the opponent during the game. He sticks to his plan ignoring what’s changed as the game has progressed. He believes he’s smarter than everyone else and it’s other people to blame for the Aggie struggles.

Nick Saban took Jimbo to school all because Jimbo didn’t learn or adapt. My guess is Saban watched the Miami film and said to his staff let’s try that. It worked. Alabama did the EXACT same thing Miami did and it worked beautifully.

Jimbo either didn’t see it or didn’t know how to adjust. Likely a combination of the two.

Saban likely told his defensive line to just destroy our offensive line. Then he decided to let Milroe pick apart our secondary because Jimbo and Durkin thought they could confuse him with coverage and pulling pressure.

Meanwhile, all Alabama did was mostly go after our weakest link on defense. I’m not going to name who it is but you know who it is if you read this blog. It was a glaring weakness and we did nothing to mask it.

What Jimbo and Durkin should have done was EXACTLY what they did to Auburn and Arkansas. Apply pressure like crazy and do not let Milroe get comfortable. They thought they could confuse Milroe but they just gave him time to execute a plan that Saban had planned for all because he saw it on film earlier this year.

Jimbo and Durkin got too cute and it burned them. Jalen Milroe threw 33 passes completing 21 of them for 321 yards. He’s never come close to that effort in any other game but Saban was smart enough to know that was the only way to beat the Aggies on offense.

Strangely, it wasn’t the defense that truly lost the game. It was an inept offense in the second half that couldn’t score a single touchdown and mustered one successful field goal for 3 total points in the second half. The defense while not without fault did more than the other units to try and win the game. Coaching failed them.

Along the way, special teams also hurt the Aggies all because Jimbo doesn’t believe in wasting time on it. It’s annoying it even happens and it’s even more annoying that opposing coaches see it as an opportunity to gain an advantage. Stupid special teams.

We all know about the clock and timeout issues he has so no need to go over those. He just never has a sense of urgency believing timeouts are for deliberating as opposed to making sure his team has the most amount of time in crucial moments.

In Monday’s press conference, Jimbo was still blaming the ref on the Evan Stewart play. This is Jimbo’s problem – it’s always everyone else’s fault but his. THAT WAS ONE FLIPPING PLAY THAT WASN’T GOING FOR A TOUCHDOWN AND THE REF WASN’T EVEN REALLY OUT OF POSITION. THAT SINGLE PLAY WAS NOT WHY THE AGGIES LOST!!!! STOP USING IT AS A DAMN EXCUSE!

How stubborn and stupid can this man be? Damn, it’s frustrating.

Looking Forward:

I still firmly believe there’s enough talent to win out going 10-2 and being the sole team in second place in the SEC West. At this point that would be a FANTASTIC finish all things considered.

I just don’t see it happening. I don’t see how we beat Tennessee this weekend since Saban just basically confirmed how to beat this Aggie team. I thought we’d win at Ole Miss but I believe that feels like a loss right now. Call LSU a coin flip at this point and I think this is an 8-4 team at best.

South Carolina won’t be easy either as Rattler could get hot and you know Beamer is going to try a thing or two on special teams. I don’t think this is a 6-6 team but Jimbo can do fascinating things.

Jimbo had a chance to change the narrative on Saturday and didn’t do it. He still has the chance to change the narrative by running the table and winning a bowl game. He won’t do it.

He’ll stubbornly ignore an opposing coach implementing a game plan he’s seen before on how to beat the Aggies. Jimbo will blame the referees and the lack of execution on a few plays thinking if only those things would fix themselves the Aggies could win.

Meanwhile, everyone else will shake their head wondering why a man who was given everything from a program standpoint can’t see what everyone else sees.

Just win, Jimbo.

Thoughts from the Arkansas Game

Sometimes the final score of a game doesn’t indicate what happened. 34-22 in Arlington last weekend is certainly the case here.

If you didn’t watch the game you would have thought Arkansas put up a pretty good fight. The reality is Arkansas didn’t put up much of a fight at all. Especially after their first two offensive possessions. Sure, they got a couple of big plays to keep the game close but it was more about A&M shooting themselves in the foot more than anything else on those two scores.

Arkansas scored 10 direct points off turnovers and had a touchdown late in the game when the game was well in hand. That touchdown came off an Aggie turnover. The Aggie defense allowed zero touchdowns on Arkansas possessions that weren’t the result of an Aggie offense turnover.

In addition to those Arkansas points off turnovers, Texas A&M missed two field goals. That’s a potential 22-point swing. Arkansas went for 2 on that late touchdown and didn’t make it which is why it’s 22 and not 23.

Let’s say we take 16 points away from Arkansas and add 6 to the Aggies. That’s a 40-6 beatdown. We weren’t far from that score happening. There are another 7 potential points the Aggies missed out on but I’m not even counting those. It reasonably could have been 47-6.

A&M played a game with a decent amount of errors on offense and missed two field goals. Even with that, they walked away with a convincing 34-22 win. That’s pretty impressive when you can shoot yourself in the foot a few times and keep walking like nothing happened.

Let’s get to the game and I’m starting with the defense.

Defense:

For anyone calling D.J. Durkin by the name of D.J. Urkin, you can stop that for now. The defense stubbed their toe against Miami but his body of work so far as a defensive coordinator has been really solid to date. I don’t know if it keeps up but the Aggie defense has had more good games than bad games in his 17 games as Aggie Defensive Coordinator.

Right now, I would put Ole Miss, Florida, and Miami as outliers in his time in Aggieland. What the defense has done over the last three weeks has been dominant. They didn’t allow a touchdown in 11 straight quarters and the touchdown they did finally give up was off a turnover late in the game due to a defensive back brain fart.

I understand the opponents didn’t have the most dominant offenses but that’s the first game Arkansas essentially didn’t score a touchdown all season and Auburn scored two touchdowns on Georgia’s defense last weekend. The Aggies kept Auburn out of the end zone and basically did the same to Arkansas.

I don’t know how you can say that’s not damn impressive.

Defensive Line:

If you didn’t watch every snap of the Arkansas game you have no real clue how dominant the defensive line was. Sure, you can see the 7 sacks and 15 tackles for losses but if you didn’t watch every snap you don’t realize just how dominant it was.

These weren’t individual sacks as much as they were “swarm sacks”. What I mean by that is the ENTIRE defensive line was collapsing the pocket on pretty much every play. K.J. Jefferson is an outstanding runner which we’ve seen in the past.

However, on this day, he had nowhere to run because there was nowhere to run. All he could do was pull the ball down and wait to see which defender would take him down. Often it was more than one person taking him down. He couldn’t get away because the pocket had just collapsed and there were no lanes for him to run out of pressure. He just had to pull the ball and wait to be tackled.

That’s VERY rare in the game of modern football with a guy like Jefferson. Usually, an offensive line like Arkansas will keep the pocket as spread as possible so if Jefferson needs to take off there’s some kind of lane. There were no lanes on Saturday. Especially after the second possession.

The Aggie defensive line simply pushed or found their way into the Arkansas backfield while limiting space for Jefferson to get loose. The Arkansas offensive line is a little suspect but they couldn’t do anything against this Aggie defensive line. They just got dominated from the second possession on.

It was really impressive.

Individually, Walter Nolen and McKinnley Jackson were the most impressive. Those guys just collapsed the interior by brute force or contorting themselves past the interior of the Arkansas offensive line. I think these two guys are the best defensive tackles in college football. They’re certainly playing like it.

Shemar Turner also flashed at times.

The rest of the defensive line was impressive but these three guys are the core of this unit and allow the rest of the defense to make plays when they’re not making plays themselves.

The most impressive thing about the performance of these guys is the Arkansas coach said in his post-game press conference they prepared all week for the pressure. They KNEW it was coming but couldn’t do anything about it. That’s when you know you’re dominating.

Linebackers:

I bet Edge Cooper, Chris Russel, Jr., and Taurean York are just giggling at each other watching film right now. It looks like all these guys are doing is filling what gaps the defensive line creates. These guys are racking up tackles because all they have to do is fill the little gaps the defensive line creates.

They’re doing an outstanding job of it but it’s MUCH easier to fill a smaller gap than a larger gap.

I think this is the biggest difference in the defense right now. I don’t know who finally figured it but screw gap integrity. Let the defensive line just fire off the ball creating havoc and the linebackers just wait to see what gaps are created and then fill them with violent force before they get any bigger.

Our linebackers are pretty talented but it’s SO much easier to play linebacker when you don’t have to worry about big gaps or blockers teeing off on you.

I’m not taking anything away from our linebackers as they just need to keep doing what they’re doing. Keep supporting the defensive line and have fun making plays thanks to the guys in front of you.

Our linebackers are essentially the number 1 and 2 batters hitting in front of Barry Bonds in his prime steroids years. They saw pitches to hit and our guys are gonna have plays to make so just have fun benefitting by the dominating play of those around you.

Secondary:

Thanks to all the pressure by the lineman and linebackers the secondary didn’t have much to do this game. Arkansas only completed 9 of 17 passes. Jefferson was 6 for 9 on the first two possessions. That’s a 66% completion rate so that’s pretty good.

All of those passes were in the first quarter. That’s right. The majority of Jefferson’s pass attempts came in the first quarter.

Jefferson only attempted 8 passes the rest of the game for 3 completions. That’s a 38% completion rate. That’s not good. One of those was the botched coverage on the touchdown throw so he really should have been 2 for 8 which is a 25% completion rate. That’s terrible for 3 quarters of football in which you’re trailing.

Our front pressure shortened the time and field that our secondary had to defend which helped immensely.

If I have one concern coming out of this game it’s our ability to defend the deep ball with decent receivers. Specifically, Josh DeBerry. He’s been burned a couple of times now in the Miami and Arkansas games. If I’m an opposing offensive coordinator I’m trying to figure out a way to isolate him on a deep ball.

You need time to throw the ball but I would say the deep ball against #28 seems to be the Achilles Heel of this defense.

I hope I’m wrong but it’s the biggest concern I have about this defense right now. Assuming our defensive line keeps wreaking havoc we should be fine but if we start struggling to apply pressure I do believe there are components of this secondary that are vulnerable.

We’ll find out on Saturday because if there’s one man who can identify and take advantage of weaknesses it’s Nick Saban.

Offense:

Quarterback:

I’ll start with Max Johnson. There’s no bigger fan of Max Johnson than me. I’ve been banging his drum for two seasons. He’s a damn fine quarterback.

However, I don’t think he played that great of a game on Saturday. He was 17 of 28 for 210 yards so that’s not terrible but it’s just a 60% completion. Jahdae Walker had a few drops which certainly would have helped Max but Max kind of tailed off after the first two possessions.

He threw a BEAUTIFUL touchdown pass to Evan Stewart and was carving up the Arkansas defense. He completed his first 7 passes and it should have been 8 for a second score but Jahdae Walker stuttered on his route for some strange reason and missed the ball.

Similar to K.J. Jefferson, Max was 7 for 9 to start the game. After that, he was 10 for 21.

He went from a 78% passer on his first two drives to a not-even 50% passer the rest of the game.

I can’t explain why he tailed off but there was certainly a difference between Max on his first two possessions and Max the rest of the game.

Running wise Max is a damn fine scrambler. He’s way more athletic than you would think. He had some beautiful scrambles to get yards but he needs to avoid contact and hold onto the ball. Hopefully, Saturday was a big learning event for avoiding contact and holding onto the ball.

Max’s biggest failure in this game was pulling the ball from Le’Veon Moss on three occasions. I don’t know the play design but three times in the game Max put the ball in Moss’ belly and pulled it. Moss had a hole to run through and Max got tackled by backside pressure.

Even Jimbo was visibly upset about why Max kept the ball on a couple of those plays he should have let Moss take it.

I’m still behind Max Johnson. It’s impressive that we can still be so strong on offense when Max has kind of a Jekyll and Hyde day.

If he eliminates his mental and physical errors we’re going to roll opponents even more from an offensive standpoint.

Running Back:

A big issue I’ve had with Jimbo the last two years is his use of running backs. He seemed to have had a set rotation rather than adjust in the game to who was the most productive.

Not sure what happened on Saturday but Jimbo appeared to ride Le’Veon Moss in the running game which I’m okay with. He was producing more than any other back so he got the most carries. That makes sense.

Moss carried 17 times for 108 yards which is a 6.3-yard-per-carry average. That’s damn good.

Amari Daniels carried 10 times for 37 yards and Rueben Owens only saw 2 carries for 7 yards. That’s a 3.6 and 3.5 yards per carry average respectively.

Moss has kind of separated himself from Daniels and Owens as far as production goes. Owens is the most talented but he’s still a true freshman learning his way. Daniels is the most explosive but can’t do much if a hole isn’t there.

Moss seems to be the most aware of knowing what’s going to happen in front of him and exploiting it. Good to see Jimbo recognize it and give him the majority of the carries.

Offensive Line:

I thought the offensive line did fine for the most part. They gave Max time to throw and we rushed for 204 yards on 39 carries averaging 5.2 yards a carry.

I can’t complain about that.

If I have one concern about this group they cannot exert their dominance early in the game. I’m all about wearing a defense down over four quarters but it would be nice to see this offensive line come out and blow defenders off the ball early in the game.

Moss had runs of 15 and 30 yards on our final possession which were the longest runs of the day for Moss. It would be nice to see runs like that in the first half.

I do believe this line seems to be improving each game which is a great sign. They’re doing much better handling pressure and wearing down the defensive line late in games.

Playing ahead score-wise thanks to a dominant defense has helped that.

Just paints me a bit concerned if this team has to play from behind because this unit takes a while to exert some dominance on the defense.

Wide Receiver:

Because of the defensive effort, we weren’t forced to pass and Jimbo smartly played to protect the lead for the most part.

Ainias led the receivers with 4 catches for 71 yards. That’s a nice day but it’s certainly not dominant.

Evan Stewart had two BEAUTIFUL catches on his touchdown and play on the sideline. Both were just picture-perfect. He missed a good portion of the game for some reason but the fact he came out in the 4th quarter was a good sign. We’re going to need him for Alabama.

Jahdae Walker filled in for Stewart and had a TERRIBLE game. He stuttered on a route that had he kept going he would have walked in for the second touchdown of the game. He missed a couple of other balls where he was somewhat defended but very makeable plays.

Walker has looked good at times in his first four games but he didn’t do anything against Arkansas. He could have made a couple of big plays with one being for a score and the other a big first down. He did neither. Hopefully, it was a blip and he keeps developing.

Moose didn’t seem to see the field much as we ran a lot of tight ends and fullbacks this game.

Tight-end wise they weren’t dominant but Jake and Max each had a couple of nice catches to extend drives. They looked good blocking at times as well.

This unit still looks like it’s trying to find its identity. The talent is there but with the way the defense is playing I get limiting the desire for big plays and just keep moving the ball downfield in small chunks.

As long as Ainias keeps producing while Max and Evan hook up for beautiful touchdown passes I’m good where things are for now.

Special Teams:

What a day for Ainias. He had two beautiful punt returns taking one to the house. He had more all-purpose yards than Arkansas had offense. A nice statement game for him after ending his season in the same game last year.

Constantinou had a good day booting two punts over 50 yards inside the 20-yard line. I’m not complaining about that after the Auburn game.

Randy Bond seems to have an issue with any field goal over 45 yards. He missed his two attempts at 49 and 48. I don’t think he’s completed a field goal over 45 yards this season. He’s got to figure that out as there will likely come a game where we need 3 or 6 points from those distances. This is the SEC after all.

I still worry about this unit because we had an offside on a punt return and had a breakdown on a couple of kickoffs. Why we don’t just boot the ball through the end zone every kickoff I have no idea. We struggle to defend kickoffs and have been burned in the South Carolina game last year and the Miami game this year with kickoff returns for touchdowns.

With our defense just let the offense start at their own 25 and not give the other team’s special teams a chance to gain better field position or even score.

Kick the damn ball in the endzone and be done with it.

Let’s Talk About Bama, Baby:

I get it. You’re over the Arkansas game and focused solely on the Bama game.

On paper, I think things favor the Aggies. Bama can’t block and the Aggie defensive line can destroy offensive lines. One has to think those trends continue on Saturday.

My biggest problem is we’re still going up against Nick Saban and he’s not ready to give up the SEC West to anyone. Certainly not Jimbo Fisher.

I think this is going to be a pretty low-scoring game. I think both Saban and Jimbo are going to coach very conservatively hoping the other team makes a mistake. Rather than be a turnover offensively or a botched defensive assignment for a big play, I think Saban and Jimbo are going to hope the other team makes a fatal mistake.

They certainly don’t want to be the team making the fatal mistake.

For me, this game is going to come down to the Aggie defense against Jalen Milroe. If Milroe gets lanes to run or the Aggies let a Bama receiver get deep Bama will win the game. Milroe is one of the best running quarterbacks in football and you have to keep him contained.

Along with that, I think Bama is going to see if they can isolate one of their talented receivers on Josh DeBerry and burn him deep.

For the Aggies offensively, I think we’re going to see if we can establish the run so we can leverage some play action. Because of the nature of the game, I don’t think the Aggies try to get greedy early on believing their defense will limit the Bama offense.

Throw some quick punches and see what you can land before trying to land something big. I feel confident our offense will move the ball and score some points but I have no clue how many.

What I can’t figure out right now is if this is 2020 Jimbo or 2021 Jimbo that spit the bit in games that mattered and were winnable. This wouldn’t be a shocking win by any stretch to those who have watched these two teams this season and not relying on past performance.

Can Jimbo make a statement it’s not like it used to be? I don’t know.

What I’m REALLY hoping is this 2023 defensive line is the equivalent of the 2020 offensive line and running game. The 2020 running game would impart its will against the opponent. There’s no reason the 2023 defensive line can’t do the same against opponents because it has the talent and has shown it knows how to do it.

I just don’t know if we can establish defensive pressure when it matters most. I still have concerns about Jimbo and his coaching in a game like this.

With that, I’m going with Bama in a VERY close game. Tide 23 and the Aggies 20.

Just win, Jimbo.

R.C. Would Have Gone For 2

Aggie Football and More

Texas Aggie Football

Thoughts from the Notre Dame Game

A Month of Mike Elko

We Finally Got Our Guy

What a Fiasco

Is This Hire Gonna Be Like It Used To Be

You Didn’t Win, Jimbo

Thoughts from the South Carolina Game

Thoughts from the Tennessee Game

Thoughts from the Bama Game

Thoughts from the Arkansas Game