10 Things for Tuesday

The SEC released the 2022 schedules for each team in the conference tonight and A&M's is just kind of dull. There's nothing wrong with it, and the non-conference opponents are interesting -- ok, two are interesting. One is Sam and the other is roadkill -- but it looks like a second-grader put it together. There's no innovation to it at all. Play Arkansas week 4 this year? Great, do it again. Mississippi State week 5? Go for it. Alabama week 6? Looks good.

The Aggies and tide will play twice in 364 days. Wow, talk about shaking things up and adding excitement to your schedule.

Here's the only difference between next year's schedule and this year's: A&M gets a bye after Alabama instead of going to Mizzou. Ole Miss and Auburn get flipped in order and Florida moves in bewteen them.

That's it.

YAWN.

Way to make it exciting for the fans, boys.

There's obviously not one for Texas and OU. Clearly, they could change that in a moment, but with this kind of hype around the rollout and the coordination of it all, the SEC is plainly not expecting to go to 16 teams next year. Maybe 2023. I still get the sense that with the bitterness involved with the Big 12, it'll be 2025 unless the two schools pay a king's ransom first.

It's not the teams or the level of play. We know that two SEC teams, or more, will have a say in the College Football Playoff. It's the officiating.

The SEC's officiating hasn't been good ever, but it hasn't stood out as any more or less abysmal compared to other conferences. That changed this past weekend, when SEC crews made a pair of remarkably bad screwups.

In the Memphis-Mississippi State game, SEC officials allowed Memphis to pick up a punt that appeared to be downed and return it 95 yards for what became the game-winning touchdown. Whether it was "downed" is debatable; what isn't is that one of the crew members signaled the play was dead and even threw a position marker. He was ignored by the players and his cohorts and replay didn't do anything. If that wasn't bad enough, Memphis had two players on the field wearing the same number on the play. They didn't catch that, either.

In the Penn State-Auburn game, the SEC crew couldn't even keep track of what down it was. The forced Penn State to punt on third down!

It's bad enough that SEC refs seem to have an inherent bias towards Alabama (which also showed up Saturday), but they can't even count to four? This is a humiliation.

Commissioner Greg Sankey should set the tone for the conference and other major powers and start firing these clowns. It's an embarrassment to the conference. But, so far, nary a peep has emanated from Birmingham.

Typical.

During his Monday press conference, Arkansas coach Sam Pittman said he told offensive line coach Cody Kennedy to prepare this week like center Ricky Stromberg and right tackle Dalton Wagner will be out this weekend after suffering injuries against Georgia Southern. if that's the case, it's a huge blow for the Hogs. Obviously, they're cogs in the running game, but Stromberg was just named the SEC Offensive Lineman of the Week. Now, they'll probably have a backup making line calls and spotting blitzes with McKinnley Jackson in his face. They may also have an inexperienced right tackle dealing with Micheal Clemons -- or worse, DeMarvin Leal.

That could be problematic.

Was the amount of playing time given to defensive end Donell Harris. This is a guy who arrived with a lot of hype but played very little last year; last weekend, he got some snaps in some pretty important situations and was up to the challenge. Hopefully we'll continue to see more of him because he's ready to seriously contribute, because he's a unique pass rusher with his speed.

A few things to note from Saturday: Zach Calzada completed more than 50% of his passes Saturday for the first time in his career and threw multiple touchdowns for the first time. In fact, at at one point, he threw three touchdowns in four passes (including his last pass at Colorado).

But he's got more to do in order to gain the full respect of his opponents and observers. First, he's got to be more decisive when it comes to getting the ball out. For a guy who has a nasty habit of staring down his first read, he can hold onto the ball for a long time. Jimbo Fisher said he was responsible for one sack last Saturday; I had him for two. He's also got to throw the ball away at times and not force the ball, especially when you've got the lead.

Guess what? None of what I said is news to him. And if he takes another big step forward like he did from Colorado to New Mexico, he'll make some of those adjustments and the offense will be more effective.

In the last class, the Aggies only took one sure guard in Bryce Foster. He's now the starting center. Right now, it looks like they're in position to end up with maybe one guard in the 2022 class. That's becoming a little bit of concern for me, because I'm not liking the depth chart there.

If Foster's the starting center from here on out, then Aki Ogunbiyi and Layden Robinson are your guards for the next two years barring injury. It's the prospect of injury that causes concern. Josh Bankhead and Smart Chibuzo played last weekend with the backups and, to put it simply, didn't wreck shop. There's no indication that they will. Jordan Moko looked ok in week 1 at right guard, but I guess he's banged up. I don't think they want to move Kenyon Green inside again.

So what do you do? My only suggestion would be moving Matthew Wykoff to guard in the spring and let Remington Strickland develop as Foster's backup. Hunter Erb may end up inside as well.

Guard has been a position where, over the past couple of seasons, A&M has thought they had plenty of depth only to see it whittled away. They're getting to that point again. The offensive line hasn't exactly been great so far this year, but the idea of injuries to the starters this year or next is not a pretty thought.

It would be pretty amazing if the Aggies were to land both Bear Alexander and Walter Nolen to fortify their defensive tackle slots in the 2022 class. But how incredible would it be to follow that up by bookending them with David Hicks and LT Overton in the 2023 class? It's a real possibility.

Deuce Harmon essentially started last weekend with Keldrick Carper out, and Tyreek Chappell continues to get playing time at corner in every game. So far, both true freshmen have shown that the situation is not too big for them. They're out there not because they have to be, but because they've earned the playing time. That does make you feel more comfortable about a secondary that will lose Myles Jones and could lose Brian George, Demani Richardson and Leon O'Neal next season.

There's no arguing O'Neal's been a lot better this year than he has been at any point in his career. You can also argue that ProFootballFocus's scores are weird and seem to be at odds with what you see on the field. But in 2019, O'Neal's season score was 38.7. Right now, it's 85.9. He's the highest-ranked safety in the SEC.