Aggies unhappy with Week 1 run defense
Former conference foe Colorado will be a challenge on the ground
COLLEGE STATION — Texas A&M had just won by 31 points in its season opener and its overmatched opponent, Kent State, had only reached the end zone once, and that was with the game out of reach in the fourth quarter last Saturday. A&M safety Leon O’Neal was livid following the Aggies’ 41-10 victory.
“For the most part, we just didn’t handle our business like we were supposed to handle our business,” O’Neal said. “This is the best defense in the country, and it’s absolutely unacceptable how we handled that.”
O’Neal and his fellow defenders were most fired up that they allowed 226 rushing yards to the Golden Flashes — what would have been a season high last year when the Aggies played an all-SEC 10-game schedule because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Run defense has been a point of emphasis in practice this week, based on the Aggies’ next opponent: Colorado (1-0) at 2:30 p.m. Saturday in Denver.
The Buffaloes, a former Big 12 foe of A&M when both helped crank up that conference in 1996, outrushed Northern Colorado 281-20 in their opener last Saturday, a 35-7 Colorado victory in Boulder, Colo. Four Buffaloes running backs scored rushing touchdowns.
“Their backs are outstanding,” A&M coach Jimbo Fisher said. “We’re going to have our hands full on the road.”
The problem for Fisher and A&M defensive coordinator Mike Elko last week is their defenders didn’t have their hands full enough, especially against the run. A chunk of the issues derived from scheme, as Elko emphasized slowing the Golden Flashes’ passing attack led by quarterback and NFL prospect Dustin Crum.
“Our (defensive) ends were getting too far up the field,” Fisher said of one problem in the plan. “We were not packing inside with our (defensive) tackles.”
Fisher explained that while always “having a nose for the ball” is agreeable in theory, defenders also must constantly mind their business to ideally execute a scheme.
“We’ve got to seal up some areas in the rush game … the inside guys have to press,” Fisher said. “I call it sticking your nose in the honey — guys wanting to go make the tackle instead of doing their job and staying in their gap, and forcing it to the unblocked guy. If that happens up front, sometimes that’s when the holes (occur).
“(We) took the back door on a couple of blocks and tried to make tackles instead of compressing the whole line of scrimmage and not leaving anywhere to run. We left a couple of little seams in there, and we’ve got to do a better job of that.”
The Aggies were missing two big-time contributors on the defensive line, which still is expected to be a strength this season: end Micheal Clemons and tackle McKinnley Jackson. Both had offseason arrests via university police, and Fisher said this week Clemons will return against Colorado, while the university still is examining Jackson’s legal issues.
“Hopefully that will help, but we’ve still got a lot of things to work on whether we play with them or not,” Fisher said of the run defense issues being bigger than the opening-game absences of Clemons and Jackson. “We’ve got to get better, but Micheal will (provide) a good lift coming back.”
The Aggies played in front of about 100,000 fans for the first time in nearly two seasons because of the pandemic — Kyle Field was at 25 percent capacity in 2020 — and A&M safety Demani Richardson pointed out that also will take some getting used to, especially on defense.
When a defense is on the field, home fans are typically trying to disrupt an opposing offense. That can be especially daunting for defenders to communicate in a raucous environment like Kyle Field.
“We have a higher standard than what we did on Saturday, our ceiling is way bigger than that,” Richardson said. “Part of the communication (issues) are we have young linebackers, and the noise messed with them a little bit. We need to get used to that — do hand signals (or something) — we need to get used to being in a loud crowd.”
A&M finished 9-1 last season and No. 4 in the final Associated Press poll in large part because of its defense — especially its run defense. The Aggies finished second nationally in allowing 92 yards rushing per game, and gave up a season-high 222 to Arkansas — four less than they allowed to Kent State this past weekend.
“It’s not from a bad place,” Fisher said of his overeager players trying to make tackles, “we’ve just got to be more disciplined in how we do it.”