So, What Happened To The Defense for Texas A&M Football?

The question bouncing around most every Texas A&M football fan’s head for the past day and change is a rather simple one.

So, what happened to the defense?

The Aggies came into yesterday’s matchup with most fans chiefly worried about the ability of the offense to perform on the road. After all, it was the offense that was the bugaboo all of last season, and the Aggies hadn’t exceeded 30 points in a road contest in two years. I had predicted that the offense for Texas A&M football had the talent and the coaching to stand up to the excellent Hurricane defense, saying several times in the week leading up to the game that I had the Aggies scoring 34 points in a win for the Maroon and White.

Of course, I had that game as a win because I had the Aggie defense holding the Hurricanes to 16 points. Which they very much did not do.

So, what happened to the defense?

The simple answer is—to put it kindly—coaching issues.

I had also written in the past week about how DJ Durkin’s multiple scheme had confused Tyler Van Dyke to no end last year when the Hurricanes visited Kyle Field, rendering him almost a non-factor. That multiple nature was nowhere to be found for large swaths of Saturday’s game. In its place was a defensive strategy that seemed to be completely oriented around shutting down the Miami running game, keeping that emphasis even when the passing game started to tear the Aggie secondary up. Man-on-man coverage and basic zones.

I suppose, as I try to get inside the mind of the Aggie defensive staff, that they felt confident in the ability of the defensive linemen to collapse the pocket on dropbacks by Van Dyke. That, more often than not, did not occur. Blitzes were few and far between. The emphasis seemed to be a dogged insistence on keeping the integrity of the gaps and rush lanes to keep the Miami ground attack from taking off. The troubling thing was that this strategy never changed throughout the game, allowing the Hurricanes to repeatedly victimize a talented Aggie secondary.

This was one of the stranger developments that I’ve seen watching Texas A&M football. The Aggies were one of the best pass defenses in the country last year, and didn’t lose much at all on the back end. Antonio Johnson was a great player for the Aggies, but his absence doesn’t explain a downturn like this. It is clear that the coaching strategy was askew.

Given that it is indeed down to a coaching call—even if it is an incredibly questionable call—the situation is such that I just need to reserve judgment. I know many of you are calling for Durkin’s head—the cries of “three man front!” and “can’t stop the run!” echo in my head even now from last year—but he didn’t forget how to coach. It seems like the Aggies came out wanting to make a statement in one specific dimension, and were late (or entirely delinquent) when it came to adjustments.

Remember those three man fronts? Those were part of a multiple scheme that made the Aggies so effective against the pass last year. Did you know Wisconsin, one of the stoutest rush defenses year in and year out, operated with a base three man scheme under star DC Jim Leonhard? Three men on the line does not by necessity make your rush defense poor. What makes your rush defense poor is lack of gap integrity, often a symptom of youth and inexperience. We had four men down the whole game against the Hurricanes—and a whole lot of good it did us.

In any case, brief excursus about the number of down linemen aside, this is still a skilled defense. There’s still room to bounce back. But that bounce back better happen quick.