So, what happened with the offense for Texas A&M football?
I don’t think this upward trend was because Henderson was head and shoulders above Johnson, skill-wise; I do think it was because he was significantly more decisive. The offense for Texas A&M football was an order of magnitude more talented than many of the defenses they faced; one of the major limiting factors, as many fans know, was the inability to apply and maximize that talent. This lack of execution (sorry) was often precipitated by indecision at the quarterback position, which seemed to play into Henderson’s starts to a far lower degree than that of Johnson.
Whether or not my assessment is correct, the point stands that we begin to see the offense regain its higher rating from earlier in the season as the year closes. The raw number, as well as the ranking, raise every week after Ole Miss until the end of the season. The ranking takes a step back by one place from the LSU game to the bowl, but the raw rating still rises by 0.1, meaning that the step back in ranking is due more to another team improving their offense.
Overall, I don’t think it's necessarily a coincidence that we see the offensive rating rise when Weigman is the quarterback, fall when Johnson takes over (which also happens to be during the stretch that the Aggies face off against the best defenses they saw all year), and then rise again when Henderson takes the reins. You can pretty much see where each of those things happens by tracking the week to week data. This wasn’t a matter of Jimbo taking over playcalling after a blazing start by Petrino—the huge jump when Henderson took over should testify to that, as Jimbo was still the head coach at that point.
Even so, there are still improvements to be made. This offense was far more skilled than the ranking of 20th in the country would imply. The receiver room was one of the deepest and most talented in the nation, yet, after Weigman went down, they didn’t take advantage of that talent near as much. You could even see in the Auburn game, when Max aired it out in earnest, that there was an aspect of the offense there that seemed to go completely AWOL later on.