Texas A&M's win over Arkansas was much-needed for this fanbase— one that has been reeling over the past two weeks. The Aggies looked, frankly, noncompetitive against LSU, and not much better against Kentucky— but the chokehold they put Arkansas in much more resembled the A&M team that fans have been expecting to see this year.
The Aggies had several players with stock going up after this game, while one aspect of their team continues to see its stock fall. Here are three risers for the Aggies and one faller after the game against Arkansas.
Texas A&M's risers and fallers against Arkansas look far more positive this week
Winner: KJ Edwards
The Aggies committed to the run game in this one, just like fans wanted to see out of them, and the man bearing the brunt of that load was the freshman wearing no. 0. After getting far too few snaps against LSU last week, Edwards was the feature back for the Aggies against Arkansas, and he delivered in a big way for them.
A&M needs to build around this run game, and Edwards gives them the top back around which to do so. Rueben Owens has been okay for A&M this season, but you can just tell when Edwards gets the ball in his hands that he's different.
The thing that has been most impressive about Edwards so far this season has been his power when running the ball. I think every fan knew that he would have a level of electricity that the other backs don't, but he finishes runs as hard as anyone else on the team. Expect to see him get more and more snaps going forward.
Winner: Kiotti Armstrong
It was just one play, but it's worth singling out. The star redshirt freshman Kiotti Armstrong was responsible for the longest pass play of the season with his catch and run against Arkansas, notching 54 yards on a short crossing route that he turned upfield.
Armstrong is one of the most impressive athletes on the team, standing at a menacing 6'5" and weighing in at nearly 290 LBs. He leveraged that physicality in a big way on that play— when a linebacker made contact with him in coverage, he bounced right off of Armstrong and fell down, letting big no. 9 get open.
Mike Elko praised Armstrong effusively in the postgame, staying that he would be getting a lot more snaps going forward, as he continues to grow into things in this offense. For an A&M team that doesn't really have an established starter at tight end right now, that's a great sign.
Loser: Aggie pass rush
There just has not been near enough production from this unit so far in the season. A&M's vaunted defensive line transfers have not combined to replicate the pressure we saw last year out of Cashius Howell, Dayon Hayes, and company yet— and time is running short for them to figure it out.
Arkansas surrenders over 3 sacks per game, and the Aggies only registered one. The Hogs give up over 6 TFLs per game, and A&M notched only 6. Arkansas only ran 47 plays thanks to A&M's defensive performance, but that's still much less than you'd hope to see out of what should be a dominant defensive front.
All that said, this was Arkansas's lowest offensive output of the season by quite a bit. A&M held the Hogs to 214 yards on those 47 plays, lower than either Georgia or Utah did. That's something to build off of, even if the pass rush isn't where it ought to be quite yet.
Winner: A&M's pass defense
KJ Jackson didn't come into this game with a reputation as one of the nation's top quarterbacks, but it's still worth something that A&M held him to his worst game all season. Jackson threw for only 111 yards on 25 attempts, a measly 4.44 YPA on the day, and just barely broke 52% completion.
That's the lowest YPA and pure yardage he's had yet this year; the next lowest was against Utah, where he threw for 5.1 YPA and 244 total yards. He even did far better against Georgia than he did against the Aggies, throwing for 6.7 YPA and 283 yards against the Bulldogs.
It looked like the Hogs were going to try to exploit a matchup between former Aggie Chris Marshall and Julio Humphrey early on in the game, but Marshall was not a factor as the game went on. That's a credit to a secondary unit that has had a rough go of things recently.
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