Aggies’ offense struggling vs. stiffer foes
COLLEGE STATION — Texas A&M, scruffy and disheveled on offense, showed up late to the league dance this past weekend.
“We need to get cleaned up,” A&M coach Jimbo Fisher said Monday.
It’s likely too late for the Aggies in the national title race, but they realize they need to scour their scheme for their second SEC game following a 20-10 setback to Arkansas on Saturday in Arlington’s AT&T Stadium. The Aggies (3-1, 0-1 SEC) dropped to No. 15 from seventh in the Associated Press poll, while the Razorbacks (4-0, 1-0) jumped to eighth from 16th.
“Nobody likes the feeling of losing … when you lose, you remember that feeling,” A&M receiver Ainias Smith said. “I’m pretty sure this team is going to remember this feeling, and we’re going to come back a whole lot stronger than we have before — (it’ll) be a sight to see.”
A&M fans just want to see a decent offense at 6 p.m. Saturday against Mississippi State at Kyle Field. The Aggies have failed to score more than 10 points in each of their previous two games against Power Five opponents (Colorado and Arkansas). They’ve also defeated Kent State (41-10) and New Mexico (34-0) in the first month of the season.
Despite some early slipups, including allowing Arkansas to leap to a 17-0 lead a little more than a quarter into the game, A&M’s defense has played solid through four games. The offense has been squishy over the same stretch.
“We’re not worried about the offense scoring a lot of points,” A&M safety Demani Richardson said. “We’re just worried about doing our job … making stops and doing what we have to do.”
The Aggies scored a touchdown late to edge Colorado 10-7 in Denver on Sept. 11, and their lone touchdown this past Saturday came on a 67-yard sprint by running back Isaiah Spiller up the middle in the third quarter, cutting the Razorbacks’ lead to 1710.
Begging the question: Why not run the ball more against the Razorbacks, considering flappable backup quarterback Zach Calzada was making only his second college start in place of the injured Haynes King?
Fisher said while he “would have loved” to run the ball more, Arkansas’ defense was allowing intermediate passes the Aggies simply didn’t capitalize on, and junior tight end Jalen Wydermyer “had a couple of balls he could have caught.”
“We’ve got to protect a little better, and he’s got to get open a little bit,” Fisher said of Wydermyer, adding that “missed reads” by the quarterback also came into play.
Added Fisher, “It’s a combination of things, just getting into rhythm on offense.”
He said last season A&M employed the same approach on offense, but the scheme clicked behind veteran quarterback Kellen Mond and a salty, seniorladen offensive line. Fisher said he’s most pleased a third of the way through the regular season with the play of his running backs — Spiller and Devon Achane — which doesn’t explain why they had only a combined 17 carries against Arkansas.
“We can’t get behind 17-0 right off the bat in the first three series of the game. … You talk about wanting to run the ball, but you’ve got to be careful that you’ll get conservative then and then all of a sudden the game gets out of hand,” Fisher reasoned. “(We need to do) what we did last year — be able to run the ball consistently and hit those 8-, 10-, 12-yard throws and score six touchdowns in a row, like we did a year ago (against Arkansas).”
Unfortunately for A&M, Mond and four seasoned offensive linemen aren’t strolling through the Kyle Field gates — at least not in uniform — and the strongarmed Calzada has struggled with his accuracy early in career.
“He didn’t have his best day, but we’re not perfect,” Smith said of Calzada’s outing against Arkansas, in which he completed 20 of 36 passes for 151 yards to go with a crucial fourth-quarter interception. “I feel like he’s going to use all of this as fuel and motivation to go ahead and bounce back. We’ve just got to be better.”
The Aggies, who owned title aspirations in Fisher’s fourth season, will need to do so in a hurry. After they face Mike Leach’s Bulldogs on Saturday, they host topranked Alabama on Oct. 9.
Fisher said he expects starting right guard Layden Robinson back in action after missing the last two games with a leg injury, which should help bolster the line a bit. The Aggies realize Robinson’s return isn’t nearly enough to cure their many ills on offense — but it’s a start.
“With a young offensive line, we need to continue to work with them and make sure they know we’re on top of what we’re doing,” said Smith, adding that he’s trying to stay upbeat. “And we need to make sure our quarterback is comfortable back there.”