3 Takeaways From Brutal Loss to Ole Miss by Texas A&M Football

Passing game should have been better this year for Texas A&M football

Perhaps, in another timeline where Conner Weigman did not suffer an injury against Auburn, we would have seen more of this this year. Sadly, though, that is not the world we live in. Max Johnson acquitted himself well in this game, to be sure—he played his heart out, and did so through some massive hits. He delivered one pass that was an absolute dime to Ainias Smith to set up the Aggies’ final touchdown that was just beautiful.

But here’s what I mean: you see the skill that Max clearly has, and the talent just oozing out of this receiving core, and you can’t help but feel that things should have been much better this year when the Aggies were throwing the ball. Texas A&M football was down their top receiver, one of the top talents in the SEC no less, and still came through with a great performance against a stingy pass defense for the Rebels. Jahdae Walker, in particular, had a great game: the transfer from Grand Valley State was open time after time and made several key catches.

There’s no doubt that this and the last point are strongly linked. When Max has time, he can make good decisions and precision throws. There are plenty of other confounding variables as well, though, namely the complicated nature of Jimbo’s offense (again, it is the same system as Petrino runs!) and stress it places on the signal caller both pre and post snap. This is a system that, when run to perfection, not only maximizes the ceiling of the players running it, but raises that ceiling. However, if you’re not on that level, the floor completely drops out beneath you. It just feels like you’re spinning your wheels way too often, going nowhere fast. We haven’t seen the full potential of the offense since Jimbo got here. We started to, with Weigman. But we have yet to see it fully realized. This is not an excuse; it is an observation. If we’ve operated more towards the floor than we have the ceiling for five out of the six years he’s been the head man, then there is a problem with the system, yes. But it is also this line of thinking that makes me think that there is another year in the pipeline for Jimbo, no matter what.