No kids on the block: Veteran O-line excelling
COLLEGE STATION — On one burly hand, Texas A&M offensive tackle Carson Green reasons if the Aggies’ offensive line had played better in 2019, he and his fellow big men wouldn’t have had to absorb the brunt of spiteful social media missives.
“We should have been doing this good last year,” Green said with a playful grin, “and people wouldn’t be so mean to us.”
A&M (5-1), which ranked No. 5 in the first College Football Playoff poll released Tuesday night, hosts LSU (3-3) on Saturday night at Kyle Field, in trying to continue to snuff out the meanness from both critics and opponents.
On the other brawny paw, a feisty Green is primed to take on all faultfinders, whom he dubbed “keyboard warriors,” in challenging them to reach down, grab some grass and hold on for dear life.
“If they’re going to make fun of me, dude, line up right in front of me and see what you can do,” said Green, perhaps only half-joking. “Half the time, more than half the time, 100 percent they won’t be able to do anything. … Good or bad, just ignore it all.”
The bad from a year ago was keyboard combatants pointing out the Aggies allowed 2.62 sacks per game, worst in the SEC and 107th nationally out of 130 teams. The good from this season is one of the more remarkable about-faces in college football: The same offensive line has not allowed a sack in the Aggies’ last five games.
A&M allowed two sacks in a narrow victory over Vanderbilt at Kyle Field, and since then Alabama, Florida, Mississippi State, Arkansas and South Carolina defenders have not sniffed Aggies quarterback Kellen Mond — although the contrarian Green takes exception to that “sniff” descriptor, as well, in constantly looking out for his passer.
“It looks good, but there are a lot of other stats that people don’t talk about,” Green said. “Everyone likes to talk about the no sacks, but we have to look at pressure, which is almost as big as sacks. If some guy gets eight pressures per game, but you didn’t give up a single sack, (the quarterback) might have thrown an interception because of the pressure, and nobody talks about that because it wasn’t technically a sack.”
Mond and backup Haynes King have delivered 171 pass attempts with zero sacks and a handful of hurries, and the result is easily Mond’s best season to date as a four-year starter.
“The main thing we try to focus on is quarterback hits — we don’t want Kellen getting hit at all,” Green said. “If we can keep him clean all game, we did our job.”
The Aggies’ offensive line performed a big part of its overall job simply by sticking around and adhering to the grind under third-year coach Jimbo Fisher.
It’s essentially the same starting five as last season, although center Ryan McCollum battled a back injury for much of 2019 that limited his impact.
Earlier that year, McCollum earned a spring drills offensive most valuable player nod from Fisher before hurting his back in the summer of 2019. He’s back snapping with a vengeance, while Green, fellow tackle Dan Moore Jr. and guards Jared Hocker and Kenyon Green also returned to the starting lineup.
Kenyon Green, a five-star signee out of Atascocita High, is a sophomore, while the rest of the self-anointed “Maroon Goons” are seniors. Carson Green said while Mond can throw around the ball when needed, the Aggies’ linemen prefer the old-fashioned way of moving the football.
“No O-linemen really likes to pass the ball,” Carson Green said. “Our big thing is can we show (Fisher) we can run the ball, so he doesn’t want to run pass plays.”
The result over six games is A&M leading the SEC in time of possession (33:22) and sophomore running back Isaiah Spiller averaging 107 rushing yards per game, third best in the conference.
“I’m really proud of those guys. They’re the reason we’re doing really good this season,” Spiller said of his offensive line. “The blocking is really good, so I can read the holes. I’m just thankful for those guys.”
So is Fisher, who resisted any idea of starting from scratch with a line he in part inherited from Kevin Sumlin, who was fired three years ago this month. Among the starters, only Kenyon Green is a Fisher recruit.
“All the great teams I’ve been a part of have had a ( good) offensive line,” Fisher said. “The skill guys can function when those big guys up front are doing their job.”
The Aggies have not played the past two weekends against Tennessee and Mississippi because of three positive COVID-19 tests in the A&M program and the resulting contact tracing, so they’re raring to go Saturday against SEC West rival LSU.
“Sitting out,” a perpetually perturbed Carson Green said, “definitely throws everybody off.”