The Texas A&M football team needs to run the ball more

The Texas A&M football team’s offense has been dreadful this year. Largely, this can be drawn up to injuries that caused the eventual downfall of this unit, including a leg injury to starting quarterback Haynes King and a handful of banged-up offensive linemen. The Aggies were even missing their top two receivers against Arkansas.

Nobody likes excuses. That said, this team has a long list of serviceable excuses for why they’ve been underperforming. The long list of injuries and shuffling players isn’t often discussed on a national scale, but it’s had a huge impact on this team.

Still, there are certain aspects of the game that Aggie fans would like to see improvements in. The first is the run game, which Jimbo Fisher, at least on the surface, has seemingly been neglecting. It does go deeper than that though.

The Texas A&M football team can, should, and likely will run the ball more often against Mississippi State

Jimbo Fisher, head coach of the Texas A&M football team, was asked about having only a single rushing attempt following Isaiah Spiller’s 67-yard touchdown run in his weekly presser.

Fisher mentioned the fact that his team was attempting to run the ball shortly after before the drive was killed by a brutal penalty that sent his squad into a first-and-20 situation. He mentioned a drive-killing interception on the Aggies’ next offensive possession.

On the day, Texas A&M only ran the football 23 times ad passed the ball 36 times. The offense was far from balanced despite the run game working — at least to an extent. Overall, that’s been the story of the Aggies’ season.

But this isn’t as simple as “why isn’t Jimbo Fisher running the football more?” Rather, this comes down to the Aggies inability to play strong situational football. Here’s what Fisher said about this subject.

"“The timeliness of wanting to make plays is what we’ve got to learn. We’ve got to learn that every play matters. In those crucial times, that’s when you’ve got to be your coolest. That’s when you’ve got to be at your highest execution and we’ve got to be able to handle it."

He goes on to note that a large portion of this falls in the coaches’ laps for not building confidence in their players during practice.

Fisher is likely referring to the general lackadaisical attitude of this team on early-down plays, which dig them into a hole on later downs. The story was similar against the Colorado Buffaloes, where Texas A&M rushed the ball 29 times and passed it 40 times.

For a team that has one of the worst starting quarterbacks in the country in terms of passing efficiency (109th), you’d like to see them run the ball more. The Aggies also have Isaiah Spiller, who is a top-20 back in terms of yards per carry, even behind an inexperienced offensive line.

The Aggies need to run the ball more. Thankfully, Jimbo Fisher knows this, and his team is just a few details away from finding more success offensively.