Texas A&M WR Ricky Seals-Jones Still a Bad Matchup for WVU Despite Poor Season

Texas A&M will face the West Virginia Mountaineers in the 2014 Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tennessee. Redshirt freshman wide receiver Ricky Seals-Jones will take this opportunity on a national stage to show everyone why he is one of the most gifted athletes in college football. 

Seals-Jones has had a solid freshman year but has not yet played up to his potential. He has the size and speed to be a dominant player at the college level. 

Seals-Jones should be able to use his size to take advantage of the Mountaineers' lack of size in the secondary. He will present an obvious mismatch to the WVU defense, and the Aggie offensive coaches should take advantage of it. 

An Elite Talent

Seals-Jones was one of the top recruits in the nation when he signed with the Aggies out of Sealy (Texas) High School. He was ranked as the No. 1 athlete in the country and the No. 25 overall recruit by 247sports.com. 

The 6'5", 235-pound athlete played quarterback and safety as a senior at Sealy High. He missed much of the season with a knee injury but was able to participate in the U.S. Army All-American Bowl. 

Seals-Jones tantalized Aggie fans with a 71-yard touchdown reception against Rice in his first collegiate game. He was injured during that game and was forced to take a medical redshirt during the 2014 season.

Seals-Jones has had a couple of nice moments during his redshirt freshman season but has yet to live up to the billing he had out of high school.

Disappointing Season

Seals-Jones started off 2014 with a bang, catching five passes for 67 yards and a touchdown in a season-opening win over South Carolina. That was his most complete game of the season.

Seals-Jones caught 48 passes for 444 yards and four touchdowns on the year. His 48 receptions led the Aggies in the regular season. The issue is that he only averaged 9.2 yards per reception.

Texas A&M offensive coordinator Jake Spavital struggled to find a role for Seals-Jones in the Aggie offense, lining him up as a flex tight end but never sending him on true tight end routes. An athlete with his size and speed should be running intermediate routes down the middle of the field, where he can take advantage of mismatches with linebackers ad safeties. Instead, Spavital has him running routes within five yards of the line of scrimmage.

Seals-Jones takes long strides and is not going to make a lot of defenders miss in space. Spavital's misuse of Seals-Jones contributed to his average season.

The disappointing year by Seals-Jones was not all on the coaches. The redshirt freshman displayed inconsistent hands at times. He had plenty of drops at big moments in multiple games. Seals-Jones will have to work on becoming more consistent with his hands if he wants to be an elite wide receiver.

Bad Matchup For Mountaineers

The West Virginia secondary is undersized. Sophomore cornerback Daryl Worley is the Mountaineers' only starting defensive back who stands taller than 6'0" in height.

With Seals-Jones lining up in the slot, that means that either 5'11" junior safety Karl Joseph or 5'11" freshman safety Dravon Henry will be matched up against him. That six-inch difference in height between Seals-Jones and his defenders should be a huge advantage for the Aggie offense.

With multiple weeks to formulate a game plan, the Aggie offensive coaches should be able to come up with multiple ways to get the ball to Seals-Jones downfield against the smaller defensive backs.

It takes years to recruit an athlete the caliber of Seals-Jones. The Aggie coaches need to utilize the talent available and get some payback on all the hours they spent recruiting Seals-Jones to campus.

They need to feature him against WVU and help him have a breakout game to end his freshman season.