Summary

I predicted we were 4 TDs better than Aggies in the trenches, but would only end up winning by 2 TDs, given the rivalry factor and it being a road game.  I’m still not sure why Texas gets beat by these guys every year.  Richmond Webb and Sam Adams are no where to be found.  They’re wearing crimson or burnt orange these days. 

It was a tale of 2 halves for the Red Raiders.  Even though we were down by 3, it didn’t feel like being down to the 1993 Ags at the intermission.  We had turned the ball over twice and the Ags capatilized with 10 points.  I was wrong about the shuttle pass that June Jones used against us with Marlon Williams at MLB going for 30 in conference play.  It only went for 26.  And 17.  Other than that, a couple of deep balls by Tannehill that totaled 88 yards, were the only real damage of concern that A&M had inflicted in their 269 yards of total offense at half.  The Aggies had run the ball 17 times for 48 yards in the first half.  Not too shabby for the defense, and A&M would finish the game with 20 net yards on 23 attempts.  Brandon Williams and McKinner Dixon couldn’t be blocked on the edges and we mixed our cover 2 effectively between man and zone in the 2^nd half, allowing us to run our dime package on 3^rd down.  The Ag offense would only generate 22 total yards on 16 plays and punted on every possession in the 2^nd half.  They did finish with a 15 yard gainer on the last play of the game to top the 300 total yard mark.  The only scoring for A&M would come on a blocked extra point, which was returned for 2 points.  You can still feel Billy Gillespie’s influence on this program.  Tech will not lose many games in which they out rush an opponent and the 111 to 20 edge to the Red Raiders was a more accurate reflection of what was going on in the trenches.  Brandon Williams threw his name back in the hat for the sack total race in the Big 12 finishing with 2 on the game, and giving him 7 on the season. 

On the other side of the ball, 3 things stuck out to me in the 1^st half.  The proverbial bonehead Harrell interception, the Swindall fumble after a nice play, and the lack of touches by Batch (5-27 and 2 TDs).  We still had 20 points on the board, and A&M hadn’t really come close to stopping us.  Batch would touch the ball 11 times for 69 yards in the 2^nd half, while the Tech offense generated 3 TDs and a FG, and only punted once.  I’ve never seen a QB have as much time to throw over the course of 30 minutes of football.  Outside the 1^st half pick, Harrell was sharp and we didn’t have much trouble generating points unless self-destruction played a role.

A&M has some talent at the skill positions on offense, but not much to go with it, specifically on the OL.  Ryan Tannehill is a crafty WR, who has a very high grasp of the game of football.  He runs good routes and understands how to get open.  Jeff Fuller had a long TD pass called back by a holding penalty on a busted coverage, but I think this kid’s a player as well.  Goodson had a tough go at it finishing with 8 carries for 18 yards and a long of 10.  He was able to inflict some damage on a couple of shuttle passes and short dump offs against Cover 2 zone, but was held in check overall.  If Sherman can shore up the OL with recruiting, then the Aggie offense may not be so harmless in the near future.   I think Joe Kines is a pretty good DC given the talent he’s working with.  The Ags don’t have the beef in the middle to stop the run, or the speed at DE to generate a pass rush.  After some fetal attempts at blitzing and stunts, Kines conceded his pass rush and focused on covering WRs, which was probably his best option at the time.  They just don’t seem to have much speed on that side of the ball, and it showed as the game wore on.

Offense

Leach’s record improves to 28-3 since 2005 when the RB position exceeds the 20 touch mark (27 touches for 149 yards on 79 plays).  We only called 4 running plays in the first half in an attempt to make our offensive progress much tougher than it had to be.  I can’t stress enough how much risk this takes out of our offensive execution by at least attempting to run the ball.  The 2^nd half couldn’t have played out more beautifully, outside the bizarro pick by Bennett.  This was somewhat a wash given it had come after Gray’s fumble on the kickoff, but I thought at that point it was about to get ugly.  This was much closer to a 52-13 game than an upset given the way our OL personnel was manhandling the Aggie front.

Quarterback

While Scipio is busy anointing Colt McCoy as the next Joe Montana, I’m contemplating between Chad Pennington and Jon Kitna as to who Graham Harrell resembles.  Didn’t that 1^st half interception feel like you were watching a Lions’ blooper reel on Sportscenter?  Way too much experience to be making those kind of throws under pressure.  The 2^nd interception was due more to a great play by the Aggies, but the ball should not have been thrown in the first place.  Other than those two plays, bidness as usual.  I’m not worried.  This offense didn’t miss a beat without Crabtree and that’s a testament to Harrell’s ball distribution.

Running Back

Batch ran 13 times for 87 yards, which was about 7 carries too few.  You can never out-guess which one of those 7 additional carries would go for 60, and that’s why you have to keep feeding a back of his caliber the rock, especially early in the game.  Woods didn’t do much damage outside 34 yards on 4 catches, but was absolutely devastating in his pass blocking. 

Wide Receivers

With Crabtree in and out of the game nursing a minor ankle injury, the future playmakers of this offense stepped up.  Tramain Swindall has a knack for being wide-ass open, but his fumble in the 1^st half allowed the Ags to go up 23-20 at the break versus a 27-16 Tech lead, and therefore, eliminated him from offensive MVP consideration.  Still, he finished with 7 catches for 101 yards and 6 of those went for 1^st downs.  I thought Detron Lewis provided his most consistent performance to date with his underneath work.  Lewis got back on track with his hands, and provided what seemed to be chain-moving plays, throughout, especially during Crabtree’s absence.  Lewis finished with 9 catches for 92 yards and 6 going for 1^st downs earning my offensive MVP honors.  Getting this kind of production from the future stars of this offense will only help us down the road as Lewis and Swindall are the type of athletes than can give matchup problems to the dime personnel of teams in this league when Crabtree is receiving bracket coverage. 

Offensive Line

I don’t have anything to harp on here.  Vasquez had a bad play or two, but overall, everyone was solid across the board whether in run blocking or pass protection.  Harrell had all day to throw and Batch was able to exploit the openings provided.

Defense

Any time Tech holds a team to 20 net yards rushing on 23 carries, I don’t really need to look any further in the box score to know they won.  This prevents teams from changing the tempo of the game and will put our offense back on the field enough times to out-duel the opponent.  As for the shoddy pass coverage in the 1^st half, I’ll just add this bit.  We’re not a very good cover 2 zone team.  We may not be good at man either, but when your DEs only allow the QB 2.8 seconds to get rid of the ball, the distance of separation between a WR that runs a 4.4 and a CB who runs a 4.6 is not very far over that amount of time.  Like within an arm’s reach.  And then put 2 safeties behind them.  Ruffin made some excellent adjustments with his coverage in the 2^nd half to man under and the results were felt immediately as Tech DL personnel dropped Johnson 3 times in the 2^nd half.    

Defensive Tackles

I don’t know what else to say about Colby Whitlock at this point.  Dude shows up to play every week, every down.  It’s a luxury to have a guy with his size and agility, and a motor to boot.  Richard Jones was solid.  Brandon Sesay redeemed himself from the poor showing against Nebraska.  He may have the most upside of any DL we have, but his motor is to Colby Whitlock’s what a bicycle is to a Harley.  I’m guessing his improved play was inspired by his embarrassment in the film room last Sunday.  Chris Perry will be another solid DT for this team after an offseason with Bennie Wylie. 

Defensive Ends

Brandon Williams is no secret in this league when it comes to first steps as a pass rusher.  It’s also been no secret that he has trouble with containment.  If there’s been one area I’ve seen the most improvement in this unit, it’s with discipline and fundamentals, which is probably the area we were struggling at the most last year.  Williams has been the direct beneficiary of this improvement and he played the best game of his Red Raider career.  He’s now established himself as one of the top 3 speed rushers in this conference.  His 2-sack performance and solid containment throughout the game earned him my defensive MVP honors.  McKinner Dixon has brought consistency and strength to the other DE position and plays the run about as good as you could ask for.  These two guys right here can be difference makers as the schedule gets tougher.  Editor’s Note:  Kansas is starting two freshmen at the offensive tackle position.  Daniel Howard continued to be effective as a pass rushing specialist in the dime package and notched a sack as well.  Ratliff, Riley and Brandon Sharpe all notched some playing time and didn’t do too bad. 

Linebackers

If you’re not convinced by now that Brian Duncan is playing a high level of football at MLB, watch an Ohio State game and James Laurinitis.  After seeing both guys play, then tell me who you would rather have starting on your team at MLB.  Opposing fans and the media may not realize how good he is yet, but Big 12 OCs have and are starting to gameplan around him.  A pattern of formational alignments have started to appear as a trend in which teams take measures to get him out of the middle of the football field.  Duncan can’t do much damage to you on a slot receiver and it allows you to run the ball away from him.  It also puts Marlon Williams at MLB and this is a huge problem for us defensively.  I expect our next 5 opponents to run 4 wide sets with mostly trips in order to exploit this advantage, and see if Ruffin starts flopping his OLBs versus sliding his whole crew over a slot.  We have a chance to successfully defend teams using an honest front with

Duncan in the middle.  That advantage goes away, if he’s not there.  To Marlon’s credit, he played his best game of the season and looks somewhat serviceable when allowed to play in a 1-gap technique scheme.  He needs the thinking taken out of it.  Bird’s services were not required much in this game, hence his absence near the top of the tackle chart.

Cornerbacks

I’m not really going to single anyone out here.  I’ll add here that I can identify Cover 1, 2 & 3 pretty quickly.  Telling the difference between Cover 2 & 4 often gives me some difficulty as it does our CBs and Safeties, especially in the 1^st half of the game.  The 2^nd half was as well as they’ve played all season.  The confidence they gained early in the 3^rd quarter when playing man under seemed to foster an elevated level of play when they switched back to zone.  Or could it be that mixing up our coverages in the 2^nd half actually confused a freshman QB.  I’m not sure and I’ll let you decide.

Safeties

I really like the way Darcel McBath was punishing WRs in this game.  He got burned on a deep ball when he bit on an in-route in zone coverage, but I’m not going to worry too much about that as I was more appreciative of the physical play and range.  Daniel Charbonnet was sufficient, and Jordy Rowland made an outstanding play on a Goodson screen pass that convinced me we should be using him as an OLB in lieu of Marlon.  Especially, if we’re going to ask Marlon to play man coverage against Jeff Fuller.  More than anything, McBath and Charbonnet need to engage in more pre-snap communication with our corners.

Conclusion

I think Leach learned a valuable lesson against Nebraska. and it showed in the 2^nd half of this contest.  The 1^st half consisted of a gameplan that played into the hands of an undermanned Aggie team, while the 2^nd consisted of a more physical, ball control offensive attack.  Tech played keep away from the Aggies holding the ball for 11 minutes and 38 seconds on two 4^th quarter scoring drives that ended in TDs.  While many around the country will say this team is soft, you just don’t seem to see that when you watch this team play for 4 quarters.