Analyzing Jaylen Henderson’s Breakout for Texas A&M Football

Breaking Down Jaylen Henderson’s Huge Night for Texas A&M Football

I guess we should talk about the game that Texas A&M football played the night before the huge news of Fisher’s firing broke. Since then, the hubbub has all been about possible next moves for the hire, press conferences and interim coaches, and speculation about who might enter the transfer portal. There’s time to cover and speak on all those things, but there’s a man who deserves his due after an absolutely amazing game completely out of nowhere: Jaylen Henderson.

I was pretty leery of the prospect of a third-stringer starting for us in a conference game, even if it was against one of the worst teams in the conference. State’s defense wasn’t terrible against the run, as deficient as they were against the pass, so putting a guy in the game whose strength is running rather than passing—at least perceivably—was cause for concern on the surface. That concern quickly dissipated as Texas A&M football fans watched #16 get out on the field and start balling out. His overall passing numbers don’t exactly jump off the page—11/19 for 150 yds (7.9 per), 2 TDs, 0 INTs—but ESPN gave him a QBR of 86.0, which is the fourth-highest of any starting Aggie quarterback this season, behind Weigman’s three full games. Henderson is helped here  by his impressive night running the ball—despite taking 2 sacks, he ended the game with 60 yards on 12 carries and 2 touchdowns.

It’s fair to mention that there are some who consider QBR to overvalue rushing ability due to how EPA/rush is weighted in the system, but I think it is overall telling how highly Henderson’s performance ranks compared to the rest of the games this season. Aggie fans everywhere could tell that the offense looked pretty different with Henderson than it had up until that point—much more veer-and-shoot based a la Louisville with Lamar Jackson than the West Coast style we’ve seen for much of this year. This seemed to complement Henderson’s skillset quite well. He was decisive, zipping his throws into his receivers with impressive arm strength, and taking off to run if there wasn’t anything there. The one concerning thing was consistency pushing the ball downfield, as Henderson missed a couple of wide open guys deep, but that ended up not being a huge concern.

Going forward for Texas A&M football, there’s a lot of reason for optimism. This is by far the best defense the Aggies will see down the stretch—ACU is an FCS team (and not a particularly good one), and LSU has a shockingly terrible defense (though playing them on the road does present some concerns). Henderson will get another week to develop before heading to Baton Rouge, though, as it does not seem as though Max Johnson will be ready to return during the regular season, and when they get on the field down in the Bayou, everything’s on the table.