Texas A&M Aggies-Texas Tech Red Raiders Game Review

Hope glistened in the eyes of Aggie fans after a 52-30 dismantling of the heavily favored Red Raiders.  The worst thing that could have happened for Tech coming into this game was a 62-14 Aggie loss to K-State. 

It’s not as if we’ve been out-recruiting Texas A&M over the last decade, we’ve simply been getting better players than what we had in the past and executing better schemes. 

The Aggies still get good talent littered across their roster, which means they’re always dangerous.  When two really good or bad defenses are on the field simultaneously, the team with better QB play usually wins. 

The good Jerrod Johnson showed up for this game and I’m glad he’s only around for one more season.  Gray, Michael, Uzi, McCoy, and Tannehill all stepped up to make some nice plays and this was the Aggie OL’s best game of the season. 

You’ve got to hand it to Mike Sherman on the playcalling.  From an NFL perspective, Von Miller was the best player on the field for either team.  I won’t be surprised when he gets picked ahead of Kindle in next year’s draft.  

The rest of the Aggie defense is primarily a hitch screen waiting to happen.  To the Wrecking Crew’s credit, they did create some crucial turnovers that proved to be the difference in the ball game.

Player of the Game

Baron Batch (along with Alexander Torres) showed up with his A game and accumulated 120 yards on 20 touches and a TD.  He ran with a punishing style and I don’t recall many instances where the first guy brought him down alone. 

Offense

In rewatching the game, I didn’t really surmise that there is anything wrong with this offense other than turnovers.  We don’t have a good enough defense to make those kind of mistakes and get bailed out.  At one point, I thought we were going to rack up 600 yards in WR hitch screens. 

We are money right now executing these plays.  The running game looked good to me, but we more or less got a taste of our own medicine, having it game planned out for the second half by our opponent.  Our deficiencies were largely the self-inflicting nature like turnovers, penalties, and dropped passes.

QB

Outside of the ill-advised throw over Batch’s head, I didn’t think Taylor Potts was part of the (macro-level) problem as we moved the ball.  If the plan was to score a TD right before half, then I can justify the pick in the end zone. 

Batch was open in the flats, but he might not have got in and the clock would have ran out. 

Ed Britton is not an option in these scenarios and Torres isn’t going to get behind anybody on a short field. 

Lewis drew bracket coverage and Swindall had the one-on-one.  It’s the type of play you have to ask a WR to make every once in a while. 

That being said, I would have liked to at least been left with the option of a field goal, so I’m writing about something else. 

Seth Doege brings more mobility to the table, which makes our offense more difficult to defend.  For a guy that hasn’t seen any significant game action since the 2005 Class 2A Regional Finals, I thought he showed some promise.  We’ll see how he performs as a starter before we go any further than that.

RB

Baron Batch was a stud and continues to be the most consistent weapon on our team.  He’s as complete a RB as we’ve had under Leach.  The Aggies were all over the Harrison Jeffers hitches and the late fumble seemed to deflate whatever chances of a comeback we might have had.

WR

Alexander Torres is the best WR on our roster and one of the more underrated players in the conference.  Outside the hitch screen blocking, Lewis had some bad drops.  I haven’t yet made up my mind about whether Ed Britton is worth the risk.  He had the nice catch and run early, but I think he dropped almost everything else after that. 

Swindall was quality blocking, but he needs to make a better play on that ball at the end of half.  Non-sloppy route running could have at least avoided the pick. 

OL

Across the board, this unit was solid.  Waddle is going to be a nice player and he blew some guys off the ball in the run game.  Marlon Winn is 0-2 this season against future NFL pass rushers. 

He’s a good enough athlete to play at the next level, but lack of focus and upper body strength will more than likely get him cut in training camp.  Not sure if football is what Marlon wants to do for a living and he probably doesn’t have a good enough base to stop bull rushers at the next level.  

Don’t hold that against him as we’ve been lucky to have him on our team and Winn has helped win a lot of games for us over his career.

Defense

To win any titles in this league, you’re going to have to go through Texas and OU in any given year, so they’re the only programs worth measuring yourself against.  Colt McCoy has played about 3 or 4 games this season that were worse than the QB play we had in this game. 

Yet, Texas would win a game of this nature by a score of 37-10.  I would liked to have seen us do a few things different schematically, but most of our limitations were talent-related in nature.  If I learned one thing from this game, it’s that Will Ford is the most important defensive player on our roster. 

DT

This group didn’t play as bad as the 321 rushing yards allowed would indicate.  We executed a significant amount of stunts with this group and it seemed like Sherman had the right play called every time. 

I’m not sure if we were tipping our hand somehow and these were audibles, or just sheer luck for the Aggies and bad playcalling by us.  Bizarre, as I haven’t seen us do much of this to date.

DE

This is where things got ugly for us.  I don’t like to focus too much on the guys who are gone, but more on the guys who are still with us. 

However, getting guys like Johnson on the ground and stopping the off-tackle run game is something Williams and Dixon were getting done last year.  I’m a little bit puzzled in a way, but not necessarily. 

This game was about what I expected coming into the season, and to date, they had been playing way above their pedigrees.  Howard was specifically a weak spot and Henley lost containment more times than I can recall.  Ruffin was caught in a personnel dilemma of sorts and the Jet Package exploded in our face while fueling on the runway. 

LB

Here’s what we’ve got:

- A good run stuffer between the tackles with limited coverage skills.

- A serviceable perimeter run defender with decent coverage skills.

- A guy you aren’t scared to have on the field in 3rd-and-25.

If your expectations are for any of those guys to be better at anything we’re asking them to do other than that, then you’re going to be sorely disappointed as was the case in this game. 

Duncan can stop the run between the tackles, but can’t cover Tannehill or McCoy in the slot.  Bird can limit the running game on the outside and kind of cover Tannehill or McCoy, but can’t stop the run between the tackles. We have to depend on 10 other guys to get us in 3rd-and-25 before Marlon becomes useful. 

On a positive note, Sam Fehoko played his best game as a Red Raider.  He’s going to show up good in the film room on a few snaps. 

Things are starting to come together for Sam and he appears to bring fresher legs to the table.  If I had one personnel suggestion for Ruff, it would be to start finding more snaps for Fehoko over the last 4 games of the season. 

Preferably, in lieu of Daniel Howard as our “Joker” and Marlon Williams on running downs.  He also might not be a bad option for Duncan in 3rd and longs, but I still don’t completely trust him playing more than one gap if the run is still in play.  We got toasted with Bird and Williams on the field by QB draws. 

I don’t know, man.  We’re about out of options here until the spring.  

CB

I didn’t really think they were part of the problem outside of some PIs.  

Safety

D.J. Johnson was included in this group as he appeared to receive most of Will Ford’s snaps.  Johnson had a rough game and got discoed on a few occasions.  Ford’s size and strength were missed as he’s much more threatening in the run game. 

Safety becomes a hard position to play in this league, if you’re being counted on as an integral part of run defense and considering that, I thought Cody Davis and Frank Mitchem were decent outside some sloppy tackling. 

Cyrus Gray and Christine Michael accounted for almost 300 yards of offense with Johnson running for 71.  Tannehill and McCoy recorded 69 yards receiving while being assigned to our LBs.  I’m not going to complain about the 126 our secondary gave up.

Overall

Pooey.  It’s one game at a time from here on out.

This article was written by dedfischer of The Tortilla Retort .