Texas A&M has extra week to prepare for Alabama,
Injuries, issues can be fixed prior to key Oct. 17 matchup.
The beloved bye week is hitting at just the right time for Texas A&M.
The ninth-ranked Aggies have won five straight games, including their first two SEC contests. Now they can rest before big, bad Alabama heads to College Station on Oct. 17.
A year ago, A&M head coach Kevin Sumlin groused about how his team didn’t get its first bye until the final Saturday in October. A&M, which started the 2014 season in late August, didn’t get a break in its schedule for eight straight games. The beleaguered Aggies officially hit rock bottom Oct. 18 in Tuscaloosa, where they suffered a 59-0 drubbing by the Crimson Tide. It was A&M’s third straight week of playing and losing to a top-10 team.
“It comes at a good time for us — something we didn’t have the luxury of last year,” Sumlin said of the bye week. “We went eight straight weeks and played I don’t know how many top-five or -six opponents. Totally different this year.
“When you’re 5-0, you’re doing a lot of things better than you’re doing things poorly, but you’d better pay attention to what you’re doing poorly. It’s not my job to sit up here and tell people what we’re not doing well so they can attack it.”
This year, will a bye before Alabama make a difference? The Crimson Tide won’t have the luxury of an extra week’s rest. They’ll play host to Arkansas on Saturday, a week after they blew past Georgia 38-10.
Healthwise, a week off will help the Aggies. Mentally, it will be a boost, too.
“They need time,” Sumlin said. “They need time away from me; they need time away from (the media), people telling them how good they are or bad they are or that they screwed up. ... They hit the proverbial wall, particularly for young guys. ... The physical part is a big deal, but the mental aspect gets left out. We have to be more sensitive this year because we neglected it last year.”
The three best Aggies through five games also happen to be some of the youngest starters on the team. Surely they’ll benefit from a bye.
Sophomore quarterback Kyle Allen won the starting job in the bye week after Alabama a year ago. He’s now positioning himself to be the best quarterback in the SEC. He’s ninth nationally and tops in the league in passing efficiency with a grade of 169, which places him a spot ahead of Georgia’s Greyson Lambert.
Sophomore defensive end Myles Garrett leads the league in sacks. He’s averaging 1.5 a game. That’s third-best in the country.
Freshman receiver Christian Kirk leads the SEC in all-purpose yardage, averaging 191.6 yards per game. He’s fifth-best nationally. A&M offensive coordinator Jake Spavital said that Kirk was banged up and needed a break from football this week.
“A lot (of the bye) is to get healthy,” Spavital said. “Christian is beat up a bit; we need to get Speedy (Noil) back healthy and take the beating off that offensive line, too. It’s also a good time to clean up anything that needs to be cleaned up. It’s a good opportunity to evaluate yourself and where you are as a unit, make those corrections and move forward.”