Texas A&M Football: Grading the Aggies Position by Position Against Oklahoma

The Texas A&M Football Team lost 41-25 to the Oklahoma Sooners on Saturday.

This was the first game all year where I felt the opposing team was simply better on the field that day.

When A&M beat OU in College Station last year, Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops was upset because the Aggies were the more physical team. I thought Oklahoma was more physical on both sides on the ball on Saturday.

The loss dropped the Aggies to 5-4 overall and 3-3 in the Big 12. The fourth loss equals the loss total from the 2010 season. It is a disappointing result for a team that many expected more from.

This is a position-by-position breakdown of the Aggies performance against OU.

Quarterback: D

Ryan Tannehill finished the game with 32 completions on 63 attempts for 379 yards. Tannehill threw two touchdowns passes and three interceptions.

Tannehill struggled with a strong wind most of the day which explains some of his incompletions. He also saw a lot of his receivers drop passes for the third game in a row.

Tannehill did make a bunch of questionable decisions. There were two third downs where he would have been able to pick up the first if he had tucked the ball and ran. Instead he threw incomplete on the plays. He was also making the incorrect read on the zone read.

Tannehill had multiple passes batted down, one of which resulted in an interception.

He needs to play much better football for the Aggies to win games.

Running Back: C

I thought the running backs ran hard for the most part.

Christine Michael ran the ball for 88 yards on 17 carries. He left the game early with an apparent sprained knee.

Cyrus Gray had 29 yards on nine carries. I thought the coaches waited way too long to put Gray in the game. Against a penetrating defensive line like OU, Gray's running style should have been very effective. I understand that Gray is dealing with a groin injury, but he looked effective when he got the ball in the fourth quarter.

Ben Malena looked good in his short time on the field.He scored the Aggies only rushing touchdown in the game on his lone 16-yard carry.

The bottom line is that the Aggies needed their running backs to be special in this game, and they were not.

Wide Receivers: D

Ryan Swope is the only thing that kept this grade from being an F.

Swope caught eight passes for 149 yards and a touchdown. He did have some uncharacteristic drops.

The Aggies had way too many drops against Oklahoma. That is three games in a row where the wide receivers have displayed suspect hands.

Malcolm Kennedy was a bright spot with 60 yards on four receptions.

The bottom line is that this position has been a disappointment three weeks in a row. They need to get it turned around.

Tight End: C

The Aggies decided to throw to the tight ends once the game was out of reach in the fourth quarter.

Michael Lamothe had two catches for 20 yards. Hutson Prioleau had one catch for 11 yards. Nehemiah Hicks had one reception for eight yards.

The tight end if a viable weapon in A&M's passing attack. I just wish the coaches would use them more often.

Prioleau did drop a beautiful pass from Tannehill in the end zone. It would have been a great play, but you need to make those catches when given the opportunity.

Offensive Line: C-

The one thing you can say about this unit is that they did not allow a sack.

The Aggies need the OL to open holes for their running backs all day, and they simply did not do that until the game was out of reach. In the third quarter when going against the wind, the Aggies needed a long sustained drive to give their defense a break. The OL could not open holes to lead a long drive.

I thought the interior of the OU defense dominated the interior of the A&M OL for most of the game.

Not a very good performance by a very talented group.

The OL also need to learn how to prevent the DL from jumping in the air and batting down passes.

Defensive Line: C-

The defensive line was just OK against Oklahoma. They needed to be better than OK.

OU was missing their starting running back but was able to grind out some yards on the ground. The Oklahoma OL got just enough push for their running game to be a threat.

The Aggie DL was unable to rise up on third down and stop OU QB Blake Bell when they basically knew what the play was.

The DL did not generate enough pressure on Landry Jones.

The defensive line was just OK, which was not good enough to beat Oklahoma.

Linebackers: C

The linebackers were decent but not great. Like the rest of the defense, they probably played well enough to win in the team concept but did not make any big plays to win the game.

Caleb Russell had a sack. He's effective blitzing the passer coming off the bench.

Sean Porter was largely invisible.

The inside linebacker play was decent. Charlie Thomas had six tackles but dropped an interception.

Jonathan Stewart had seven tackles and recovered a fumble.

Damontre Moore had a nice game with eight tackles and two tackles for loss.

Defensive Backs: B

Even though they were missing two starters, I thought the secondary had their best game of the year.

Lionel Smith actually had a very solid game.

Toney Hurd got his first start at safety and had three tackles and a pass breakup.

Terrance Frederick broke up three passes. Trent Hunter had 10 tackles but still struggles to wrap up.

The wind definitely helped, but they held Landry Jones to under 50 percent completions for the game.

If the secondary plays this well the rest of the season, then the Aggies should win all the rest of their games.

Special Teams: C

Randy Bullock was 1-for-3 on field goals attempted, but one of those was definitely affected by the wind.

His kickoffs were strong, and I thought he had a decent day considering the elements.

Dustin Harris was very good on punt returns with two for 43 yards.

A solid day from the special teams. You need better than solid to beat top-10 teams, but the Aggies were just solid.

Coaching: F

I thought the defense had a solid game plan, and they were in the right scheme to accomplish it. They wanted to make Landry Jones move around in the pocket and throw on the run, and for the most part, they did that.

On offense, a lot of the play-calling made no sense to me.

The Aggies were going against the win in the third quarter. When A&M got behind on the scoreboard, Mike Sherman started to panic again and tried to air it out. Instead of running the ball and trying to get through the quarter, we had a series where there were three consecutive incompletions that took less than a minute off the clock.

In the game preview, I said that the Aggies should try to run the ball at least 50 times in this game. The Aggies had a total of 29 rushed in the game. They threw the ball 63 times. You would like to see those numbers reversed.

Mike Sherman's play-calling was very puzzling to me.

The bottom line is that the coaches need to get this thing turned around in the next three games. It has been a disappointing year already. The coaches and team need to put together a win on the road next week to remind everyone why they were so highly thought of in the first place.