The first game of the season just finished, with the Aggies adding a tally to the win column, but Texas A&M Football fans cannot be happy with their team’s performance on Saturday.
The scene was set to perfection. The Aggies walked into their first full-attendance home game in nearly two years with a red-white-and-blue-out in the stadium, making the atmosphere at Kyle Field electric. Football was back and Johnny Manziel was in the stands watching the entire time.
Things didn’t start out so hot though.
The Texas A&M Football team made sure their first game was as stressful as possible
Unfortunately, A&M couldn’t seem to separate themselves, even in a game that saw them favored by around 30 points. They’d reach that total, but it took a while.
Kent State went 3-1 last year and proved that it wasn’t just a flukey season by staying competitive with the Aggies. A&M took a while to get going.
Aggie fans were biting their nails down to the bone in the first two and a half quarters, as it would take that long before any real separation happened in this one. Eventually, the floodgates opened up in the third quarter, leading to a relatively deceptive final score of 41-10.
Don’t get it twisted — this game was more of a sigh of relief than a confidence builder.
Even though it wasn’t the game A&M fans were hoping for, there were more than a handful of takeaways from this one, both positive and negative. Today, I’m going to go over three of these takeaways, starting with an obvious one.
Texas A&M Football QB Haynes King had a disappointing game but showed flashes of brilliance
There’s no way around it — Haynes King had a pretty brutal outing against Kent State in the Aggies’ week 1 matchup. Don’t worry, I’m about to explain to you why you shouldn’t worry about this.
For starters, pun intended, it was his first-ever start. He had a brand-new offensive line and wasn’t even named the starter until this past week. There was always going to be a warming up period.
Still, it was tough to see King’s three interceptions land in the hands of players in Kent State uniforms. Two of three passes were King’s fault, though the first was caused by a deflection. The second, on the other hand, was a ball thrown directly into the defense’s hands. The third pass was an unlucky deflection at the line of scrimmage.
King looked shaky, to say the least. In his first game as the team’s starter, he matched Kellen Mond’s interception total from the entirety of the 2020-21 season.
The bright side of this is that one of the few strengths of Kent State’s defense last season was their ability to limit passers. In the four games they played, opposing quarterbacks had more interceptions than touchdowns. There isn’t as much shame in having a tough outing as a quarterback, especially when the Golden Flashes couldn’t do much else on defense.
King also showed flashes of brilliance, including a Johnny Manziel-esque play in the first half that saw him escape a sure-sack for a first-down rush on third and long. It was one of a few positive plays from him.
He finished the game with 292 yards, two touchdowns, and three interceptions, completing 21-of-33 passes.
King will get better, fans just have to be patient with him.
The Texas A&M Football team’s defense has officially arrived
Admittedly, Texas A&M’s defense got off to a slow start. On Kent State’s first offensive drive, they threatened the Aggies by marching straight into the red zone and knocking a field goal through the uprights for three points.
That, however, would be the extent of Kent State’s offense on Saturday outside of garbage time scoring.
On the night, the Texas A&M Football team only allowed 336 yards against a team that averaged over 612 per game last year.
After the first drive, A&M was dominant defensively. Kent State had a few sporadic chunk plays, but outside of that, they weren’t able to do anything else. At this point, it’s important to remind you that Kent State had the highest-scoring offense in college football last season and didn’t lose any key starters.
I’ll also remind you that A&M was playing without two of their starting defensive linemen. Both Micheal Clemons and McKinnley Jackson did not play after receiving suspensions earlier in the offseason. Jimbo Fisher’s defense didn’t seem to care, as they held the Golden Flashes to just three points.
The Aggies’ defensive performance was highlighted by a few plays, but the one that sticks out is Leon O’Neal’s pick-six in the third quarter that seemingly opened the floodgates for Texas A&M scoring. Prior to the defensive touchdown, A&M had only managed a ten-point gap.
The Texas A&M Football team’s offense isn’t as bad as it may seem
On the surface, scoring just 41 points against one of the worst returning defenses in the country seems like a relatively bad thing. I mean, in their last contest, Kent State allowed Buffalo, a MAC team, to score 70 points.
And heck, if things had continued the way that they began, I’d say that there was something to worry about offensively.
Fortunately, the Aggies’ somewhat disappointing performance on offense wasn’t actually as bad as it seemed. Texas A&M actually gained 595 yards during the game, which, if you’re not an expert, is a really large number. To put this into perspective, a pretty efficient Texas A&M offense from 2020 only averaged 439.3 yards per contest.
Beyond that, they would eventually reach 41 points, even if they needed a defensive touchdown to aid that total. Their second-half offense could not be stopped.
Still, Texas A&M had an undeniably rough first half on offense, and even into the second half, the turnovers kept happening. If there’s anything to worry about, it would be this team’s inability to hold onto the ball. Still, this can be drawn up to early nerves and a new quarterback settling in.
Overall, this was a great offensive performance no matter how you spin it. Haynes King got some nerves out with a few interceptions, and at the very least, Jimbo Fisher will have something to be upset about when this team watches film.