Reason No. 2: The Texas A&M Football team’s running game did not look good
Granted, it’s much easier to defend the run when you know it’s coming each play. With Haynes King out, the Aggies were now using a first-year starter who lost a quarterback competition in his first game with four new starting offensive linemen.
That’s a lot of words to say something very simple — Texas A&M had to run the ball a lot on Saturday.
Zach Calzada wasn’t bad, but he was pretty inaccurate. He completed fewer than half of his pass attempts and didn’t look nearly as confident as King ordinarily does. He finished with an underwhelming QBR of 49.9.
This, however, didn’t feel like the biggest issue on the night. In fact, most would describe Calzada’s performance as adequate. I’d make the argument that two infinitely more important players are the ones who handcuffed this offense. Those players are Isaiah Spiller and Devon Achane.
Again, these two have a great excuse in that Colorado knew the Aggies’ offense would rely on the two runningbacks. As a result, the rush defense — at least from a play-calling perspective — was easy for Dorrell’s unit.
Still, you’d like to see your two star runningbacks, both of whom looked like All-SEC players in Week 1, rush for more than 70 yards combined. More specifically, Isaiah Spiller only managed to collect 20 yards on the ground on eight rushing attempts, having one of the worst outings of his career. He did manage to catch the game-winning touchdown and reel in over 50 yards through the air, but his night as a whole was disappointing.
This team struggled because of the quarterback situation, but the runningbacks didn’t help them at all.