Texas A&M Aggies Preview

One of the biggest tests a college football team can go through is how they perform after an emotional high.

Missouri went on the road and beat the school’s most hated historic rival. The next week they barely beat Troy.

Ole Miss defeated LSU, their old coach’s new school, and looked awesome doing it. The next week they were detonated by Florida.

Florida’s victory over Ole Miss catapulted them to #8 in the country as Jon Sumrall was heaped with praise from across the college football zeitgeist. They were then picked apart by Missouri.

Now, right after one of the greatest victories of the Eli Drinkwitz era, a team that Eli has never beaten and, in fact, has only looked stupid against comes to town.

Ok, Missouri Tigers. What are you going to do now?

When Missouri Has the Ball

Want to hear a wild stat? Five weeks into the year, Missouri’s rushing offense ranks 115th in success rate with a 38.3%. On the flip side, the Tiger passing game ranks 32nd in success rate with a 49.4%. Did you ever think you’d see that sort of performance from an Eli Drinkwitz offense? I know I didn’t.

This new-world Drinkwitz offense now goes up against a defense that has been one of the biggest reasons that the Aggies have had so much success under Mike Elko’s tenure…and is, currently, a shell of what it used to be. This isn’t the typical Top 20 defense we’ve seen over the past two years: the Aggies currently rank 40th in SP+, and that’s with last year’s performance still baked into the assessment.

So how does Missouri attack this newly-vulnerbale-but-still-stacked-with-a-ton-of-capital-D-dudes? Here’s how I see it:

Generate Explosives

If you can’t be efficient then you better be explosive, and through five games Missouri’s offense ranks 73rd in overall efficiency but 27th in explosiveness. Meanwhile, Texas A&M’s defense is 45th in efficiency allowed but 121st in yards allowed per successful play, and to drill down further, 127th in passing completion rate, 110th in yards per successful drop back, and 77th in yards per successful run. Simply put, you might not always have a successful play but, when you do, you go a long way. Let’s set the expectation at ten (10) explosive plays generated.

Stay Out of 3rd-Downs

One of the few things the Aggies are good at is 3rd-down defense where they rank 12th in 3rd-down success rate allowed (26.4%). Missouri had a decent day at converting 3rd-downs against Florida but still ranks 54th for the entire season at 43.3%. Austin Simmons, Cayden Lee, et al will need to be generating 1st-downs on 1st and 2nd-down because there’s a good chance A&M locks ‘em up on 3rd. I’d like to see at least a 45% success rate on 1st and 2nd-downs.

Finish Your Dang Drives

You know this one. Goal stasys the same. 5 points per scoring opportunity.

When Texas A&M Has the Ball

The other reason A&M had such a meteoric rise since Elko’s hiring was an efficiency-based offense that utilized a ton of different guys to do whatever it is that the defense of the week was bad at. A lot of that was thanks to the mobile Marcel Reed, but it seems most of the credit belong to current Kansas State head coach Collin Klein, as his hand-picked replacement (and last year’s Co-OC) Hollman Wiggins has yet to unlock the potential of this offense. They’re overall success rate is bad (78th), their explosiveness is worse (134th), and while the run game is good (28th) the pass game is one of the worst of the power conferences (105th). The defensive playbook deployed against Florida should work against A&M, but that’s just me prognosticating from a spread sheet.

Make ‘em Throw

I don’t know if Darris Smith and/or Langden Kitchen will return, but that tackle-heavy defensive front last week did wonders against Florida’s outside zone rushing scheme, eliminating Jadan Baugh and forcing the noodle-armed Aaron Philo to make plays. However, Rueben Owens and the A&M ground game is more likely to run up the middle than the outside, and the middle has been Mizzou’s weakest point as far as run defense goes. We’ll see how Corey Batoon schemes it up but Mizzou needs to do whatever it takes to eliminate the choice of running the ball and force Marcel Reed to look like complete shit while throwing the ball. I think a 40% rushing success rate will do the job.

HAVOC!

A&M has six turnovers on the year which is a tasty opportunity for a Mizzou defense that forced zero last game, but generating havoc is probably the better route to go here. The Aggie offense is allowing a 14.3% havoc rate, including the 108th-best pressure rate and a 5.7% sack rate. The offensive line features one guy with a pressure rate allowed under 1%, and everyone else is over at least 3%, with two linemen over 6%. The line is gettable, is my point, and speeding up a bad offense that doesn’t want to throw is just too tasty of an opportunity. I’d like to see at least a 20% havoc rate on the day.

Conclusion

Eli Drinkwitz is now 36-9 at home, 37-25 on Saturdays, 12-11 in the month of October, and 33-5 against teams that are ranked lower than his in SP+. But he’s 8-15 in games that kick off at 11:00a and, more damning, never beaten Texas A&M in the three shots he’s had.

The total margin of defeat: Texas A&M 114 – Missouri 41. Average margin of defeat: A&M 38 – Mizzou 14.

But that was other years! Now it’s this year! Mizzou is riding a high of euphoria but should still be motivated to take down the bully that keeps giving Eli Drinkwitz atomic wedgies. It’s a great season to finally punch back.