Just two games into the season, the Texas A&M Football team has already turned to their backup quarterback to fill in for the player who won the offseason quarterback competition. This didn’t happen as a result of poor performances by Haynes King though. Instead, King would go down with a leg injury that is now projected to keep him off of the football field until mid-October.
For this Aggie football team, nothing worse could have possibly happened. The team’s season entirely depended on the performance of the quarterback, and as things stand, A&M will have their second choice taking snaps for the remainder of the first half of the season.
Here are three changes that will happen with Zach Calzada under center.
Change No. 1: The Texas A&M Football team’s defense will have to take on a bigger role
I’d like to sit here and preach about how Zach Calzada is the better quarterback for this team. If I did that, however, I would be lying to your face.
There’s a reason why Haynes King won the starting job, and according to Fisher, it wasn’t just because he’s a dual-threat guy, though I’m sure that played a factor. King looked more confident, though Calzada had a few nice plays in his appearance against Colorado.
Still, the offense gets slightly worse with Calzada under center. Under the radar stats like time of possession and turnover margin could take a hit with the sophomore as this team’s passer, which will put more weight on the defense to get the job done.
The bright side of this is that the Aggies already look to have one of the best defenses in the country. In a terrible offensive showing in Boulder, the defense allowed just a single touchdown and notably clamped up after King went down with an injury.
Change No. 2: The Texas A&M Football team will have a more run-heavy offense
The numbers may not actually support this slide in the way that you’d expect. Heck, the Texas A&M Football team threw the football significantly more after Calzada entered the game against Colorado. The Aggies went from 34 to 40 passing attempts from Week 1 to Week 2, rushing the ball 13 fewer times against the Buffaloes as well.
These numbers will tell you the opposite of what I’m about to say.
The Texas A&M Football team will be running the football more. The primary goal of this team is no longer to develop their quarterback — it’s to survive while King is out. That’s not to say that they’ll be running on every play, they’ll just be more focused on getting out of each game with a win.
With Calzada under center, the team will also see fewer improvised runs. Remember when Haynes King turned into Johnny Manziel for a play against Kent State? You can kiss those plays goodbye. For this reason, the rushing totals won’t look like they’ve changed much on the stat sheet, as the Aggies will have fewer designed and improvised run plays from their quarterback.
Almost all of the runs will either come from Isaiah Spiller or Devon Achane, both of whom have been productive thus far in 2021. Spiller in particular could be more active in the passing game as we saw against Colorado, specifically on the final offensive drive.
Change No. 3: More conservative playcalling from the Texas A&M Football coaching staff
I briefly touched on this in the last slide, but I’m going to take a deeper dive into it here. The Texas A&M Football team is no longer in cruise control mode until they face Alabama. After a scare against Colorado, the Aggies will need to take things one game at a time.
A three-game stretch of New Mexico, Arkansas, and Mississippi State that once looked like a cakewalk now looks much more threatening. The three aforementioned teams combined have not lost a single game, with Arkansas recently knocking off a ranked Texas team.
Because of this, Jimbo Fisher has to be taking his future opponents much more seriously leading up to the Alabama game. Coming out of the game against the Tide would feel a lot better with a 5-1 record than it would with a 4-2 record.
As a result, you can expect this Texas A&M offense to make more conservative play calls. We saw Haynes King launching the ball deep during the first half of the Kent State game on plays that didn’t necessarily match the game plan. They would slow this down in the second half, using a more balanced offense to blow the brakes off of the Golden Flashes.
Against Colorado, we didn’t see much of this. Part of this is the fact that there was never an early cushion for A&M — something that may become a theme in the near future.