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Published Sep 21, 2024
Postgame Thoughts, sponsored by Paine Net Lease Team
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Mark Passwaters  •  AggieYell
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COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS -- Texas A&M beat Bowling Green Saturday night, but this doesn’t feel like much of a win at all.

With SEC really heating up and a lousy Arkansas team up next on the agenda, the Aggies should feel good at 3-1. But I honestly don’t know what to think after that disinterested, poorly handled football game.

For one thing, Bowling Green is a good football team. They’re well-coached. They’re disciplined. The Aggies are more talented, and that was enough tonight. That’s hardly reassuring.

Offense

Marcel Reed is human. A lot of people forgot this over the past week. That was his second career start and he was inconsistent. At times, he was bad. But he did enough to win, so that’s a plus. He didn’t turn the ball over, which is another plus. He threw a beautiful touchdown to Theo Ohrstrom and was up to the challenge when Bowling Green cut the lead to three.

He also had some very freshman moments, like missing a wide open Noah Thomas on a deep post that would have gone for six. He was sometimes too quick to pull down the ball and run, or too entranced with a deep route to check it down. Reed did have 264 yards of total offense, but he — and the Aggies — left a lot on the field.

I was pretty disappointed with the running backs overall. They struggled through the entire first half, and never really broke out against a team that came in 120th against the run. Everything was a dogfight. Le’Veon Moss ended up having a decent game (16 carries, 90 yards), but his fumble late in the game cannot happen. Amari Daniels had 34 yards on 9 carries, but a long of 8. That’s pedestrian.

I will, however, say that both of those guys were great in pass protection. There were times when Reed had all day, and they were part of the reason because they picked up and eliminated blitzers. That was highly impressive.

The receivers continue to under-perform. Noah Thomas finally had the ball thrown his way, and he had 5 catches — for 38 yards. And that led the team. Cyrus Allen, after his big touchdown last week, had no catches. Jabre Barber had two catches on the first drive and then nothing until late. He’s all short passes right now. Nothing moderate or deep. The only receiver who really shone was Jahdae Walker, who fought his way for a huge first down in the third quarter, and then had a 29-yard catch and run over the middle on one of Reed’s best throws of the night. Then he caught a touchdown for his third and final reception of the night. But the problem continues to be that A&M’s receivers can’t get any separation. It doesn’t matter if it’s a short pass or a long one, everything is contested. They either need more creative routes or more talented players — probably both.

Maybe the tight ends need to be more involved. Tre Watson has been an efficient receiver when he gets the ball and Theo Ohrstrom has caught long touchdowns each of the past two weeks. If they can create mismatches, then they should get the ball more.

The offensive line was a mixed bag tonight. They only gave up one sack, and that was really on Reed — he had plenty of time to throw the ball away. They only gave up two tackles for loss. A lot of the time, Reed had nobody near him for four or five seconds, which is a lifetime for a quarterback. But this was still a MAC defensive line. Experienced or not, A&M should have been blowing them off the ball. Bowling Green came up and challenged the Aggies by putting eight men in the box, and they couldn’t handle that for large parts of the game.

The inability to score touchdowns in the red zone is a glaring problem. If they had done so, this game is put away early. Instead, getting 3 instead of 7 allowed Bowling Green to stick around.

Defense

First, let it be said the defense did what it needed to do to win the game. They stood up after the blocked punt in the third quarter and held Bowling Green to nothing. But the Aggies got out-schemed and, at times, outplayed tonight.

First off, what in the heck were they doing with Harold Fannin? This guy is a Mackey Award candidate, and Bowling Green’s best offensive weapon. And he ate A&M alive like they had no idea who he was. There should have been specific defenses to handle him, and instead, he’s out running free in the deep secondary with nobody around him. If there’s one guy you cannot lose, it’s him! Fannin had 8 catches for 145 yards and a touchdown. That’s just not acceptable.

The Aggies had two sacks of Connor Bazelak, the first two Bowling Green has allowed all year. But we’re getting to the point where guys like Nic Scourton, Shemar Stewart and Shemar Turner have to dominate. That’s why they’re here, and that’s why they’re hyped. They have that ability. That means more than two sacks. A lot more.

The Aggies are blitzing a lot, but they’re not getting home. That’s got to be a concern. It’s nice to see a quarterback moving and running for his life, but if he can pull up and throw a 9-yard completion 3rd and 8, it’s pointless. And we saw that a lot tonight.

After a really bad start to the game against the run, the Aggies really came back and held Bowling Green to just 89 yards on 23 carries. Forty of those yards came on a reverse, which was an absolutely brilliant play call. Take that away and Bowling Green has 22 carries for 49 yards, or a little over 2 yards a carry. But you don’t get to take it away.

Both Scooby Williams and Taurean York had solid statistical nights, Williams having 7 tackles and York 5. But both guys were guilty of overrunning plays and getting themselves out of position.

Jaydon Hill had a horrible night. He had Fannin at least a good portion of the time, and he was the guy closest to the scene when Fannin went for his long touchdown, so I’m suspecting he might have had something to do with it. It wasn’t a coincidence that BJ Mayes was off the bench and in the game late.

Marcus Ratcliffe didn’t have a wonderful night — he had a few blown coverages and got run over once — but he did have another interception. He has three on the year and that’s more than anyone had last season. He’s also the first Aggie to have interceptions in three straight games since Jason Glenn did in 2000.

Special teams

It was a good thing Randy Bond was on tonight, or the Aggies lose. They put a lot of pressure on him, and he went 4-4 with a long of 42. And that was the special teams highlight of the night. Otherwise, they were a disaster. Tyler White had a punt blocked, and he never had a prayer. Jared Zirkel kicked a punt out of bounds for the second time in four games. Again, massive mental blunders that almost proved incredibly costly. Kicks out of bounds, especially, are amateurish. But White’s punt could have been blocked by three different guys, which is far more serious an issue.

Coaching

Scot Loeffler and his staff kicked Mike Elko and his staff’s butt tonight. A&M got out-coached and out-schemed by a wide margin, and they should be embarrassed.

First off, the offensive scheme was bland and uninspired. The running game, especially, was poorly called. Second down? Run it up the gut. Over and over and over. They don’t run plays that have routes that get receivers open. The quick crossers we saw at K-State weren’t there. The first drive was a master class; the fourth down pass to Terry Bussey was really good. Outside of that, I was not very impressed. Maybe they’ve had to simplify things to make Reed comfortable. But they’ve got to try a few other things, because they were getting predictable tonight.

Defensively, things were even worse. Bowling Green absolutely out-witted Jay Bateman and his crew tonight. They knew A&M would be aggressive, so they used it against them. They had a brilliant middle screen that was a touchdown that was called back, and the reverse was perfect as well. A&M’s aggression had them out of position and it bit them. Badly.

The coverage plan for Fannin, whatever it was, was mind-bogglingly bad. This is the one guy who can beat you, and it seemed like they had him played like he was just another guy.

There’s a lack of discipline on the defense. I like the aggressive nature of it, but if you don’t play your assignments, you’re going to get burned. Bowling Green anticipated that, schemed for it and it worked. When you hold a team to 20 points, you’re doing something right — but they shouldn’t have given up that many. Not even close.

I don’t think that the Aggies came out and took this game as seriously as they should have. Nic Scourton talked about some guys being “lose”, and I don’t think he meant that in a positive way. This was a team that took Penn State to the wire and was tied with them at halftime. And, while I never thought the Aggies were in danger of losing — they probably were and I’m just ignorant — I also never thought we saw their best effort.

Two games out of four, we’ve seen questionable effort and fire from the players. That’s on Elko and that coaches. They have to get these guys motivated every week. Not taking a MAC team seriously is a very Aggie thing to do, but it shouldn’t happen after Appalachian State. They didn’t play with have the fire and emotion they did when they stomped Florida, and that’s extremely disappointing. Playtime’s over. The Aggies either get it together now or they become a national laughing stock again.

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