WATCH: Breakdown and Analysis of Texas A&M Football vs. New Mexico

I, for one, have gone back more than once to watch the offensive performance that this Texas A&M football team put on display against the New Mexico Lobos last Saturday. As I’ve written several times over, these are exactly the type of fireworks Aggie fans have been desperate to see under Jimbo Fisher for almost his entire tenure as the head man of the Texas A&M football program. As such, I’ve been consuming as much content as I can in this regard; and this video that just dropped from John Harris of the Houston Texans is a great, in-depth analysis of how the offense performed against UNM. You can see the video down below:

For those less interested in sitting through the 20-minute breakdown—though I recommend that everyone watch it—I’ll do my best to summarize his observations.

• First, Conner Weigman is the truth. Even when facing the blitz, he stays cool, drifts away from the pressure, and puts the ball right on target. Harris once compares his ability in that regard to luminaries like Caleb Williams and Patrick Mahomes, as that’s one quality that sets those guys apart. Conner’s baseball background really shows up there.
• Second, Noah Thomas and Evan Stewart are basically cheat codes. They’re blazing past whoever New Mexico put on them (though more on that in the next point), making contested catches, and basically making defenses look silly. The talent at this receiver spot is finally showing itself.
• Third—and perhaps most importantly—Harris points out just to what degree UNM was completely sold out to stop the run, and the consequences that had for their passing defense. More than once, the Lobos ended up with a safety covering Thomas or Stewart, which is just completely unfair, and had a corner on a TE running a short route. That’s poor defensive planning on its face, and it becomes a bit clearer how the Aggie offense was able to generate so many big passes despite running only about ten different plays throughout the course of the game.

The last point there is definitely important to consider when projecting out for the course of the season. Now, there is a huge ‘however’ here, and it is that though it is the case that UNM was working with lower-quality personnel, the ability to take advantage of those matchups is something that Aggie teams of the past under Jimbo have been entirely unable to do; further, the types of shots that Conner was taking to those receivers were more often than not perfectly placed and executed in the face of tremendous defensive pressure.

I bolded and italicized there because I want to be very clear: I recognize that New Mexico is low on the talent totem pole, and they made foolish decisions with the amount of blitzing they did. Even so, the way the offense for this Texas A&M football team responded was how an elite offense responds to those conditions. That is the reason for excitement; not the plain fact that the Ags put up 52 on New Mexico, it’s how it happened.

Of course, nuance is often lost on the internet, so I’m sure that bit will be ignored. But I thought it was worth typing out.

BTHOMiami.