By Brant Daughtry
There’s good news for Auburn football this week. There’s nothing to lose. Texas A&M is a really good team, still in the running for an appearance in the SEC title game. You’re expected to lose, so if you do, it’s not like that’s a shock. But, if you somehow find a way to win, or even keep this game close, you have more to sell for the future. As good as Hugh Freeze has been at recruiting high school players, there’s some doubt about his ability to hold together the young players on the current roster, and the fanbase has been split for some time. Showing some measure of progress against a legitimate opponent would go a long way. I think there’s a path to that end as well.
The Aggies are under the direction of first-year head coach Mike Elko, who spent a few years as the DC there before making Duke football watchable for an entire season. He’s a master motivator and I think he’ll be the one to take A&M to the heights it’s capable of. He’s coming into a good-not-great situation, and making the most of it. I think it’ll only get better.
His defense is tough to game plan for because it does a lot of different stuff. Usually it’s a hybrid 3-4 look, meaning it can play a few guys in a few different spots. He’s built on having athletes in space that cover a lot of ground and don’t get out-flanked. The major thing that makes it tough is the multiple kinds of fronts they’re able to use. At any point, they can use several different looks with the same personal groups and confuse offenses. Specifically on third downs, he wants to make QB’s and play callers uncomfortable. They will crowd the line of scrimmage to disguise where pressure is coming from, and show a lot of different looks pre- and post-snap. The mental games they play are going to matter a lot against Auburn.
Offensively, they’re coached by Colin Klein, who you may remember as a the quarterback for Kansas Sate from a little more than a decade ago. He’s a legend in the Little Apple, and began his coaching career there after his playing career fizzled out. He did a good job, and did good enough to land the A&M job. In his first season, A&M hasn’t been AMAZING by any means, but he’s getting the job done. The thing that makes his offense tough to prepare for is that he designs his offense around what his players, specifically his quarterback, is good at running. We’ll get into the details of the quarterbacking in a second, but they run a lot of interesting RPO stuff out of different personal groupings.
The quarterback situation has been funny for the Aggies this year. Journeyman Connor Weigman was supposed to be the guy, but injury and inconsistency have made way for freshman Marcel Reed to come in, and the kid has been electric. He had his coming out party against LSU, entering at halftime and leading a major comeback. The offense with him leans on multiple tight end sets and mixing up the RPO looks. It’s heavily option influenced, but it uses a bunch of different kinds of options out a bunch of different sets to prevent it from becoming predictable.
Unfortunately for A&M, Le’Veon Moss, the Aggies leading rusher, has been ruled out for the season with a knee injury. That’s a massive blow to them, as he was leading the team in rushing yards and even after missing one game already, he’s still third in the league. They’ll replace him largely by committee, and use Marcel Reed’s legs as a part of that.
Players to Watch For:
Wide Receiver Noah Thomas, #3- Look, A&M is a running football team. They’re going to try and win on the ground, and wear Auburn’s defense down. But, when they do throw the ball, Thomas is the guy to watch out for. He only has 390 yards on the year, but that’s over 100 yards more than second place. He also leads the team with four touchdowns.
Defensive end Nic Scourton, #11- Scourton is a big body, but moves well for his 285 pound frame. He leads the Aggies with five sacks on the year, and the way Auburn’s tackles have struggled in pass pro this year, he could be primed for a big game. He’s not just a pass rush specialist though, he can cause havoc in the run game. He has 31 tackles this year with 14 of them for loss. He’s a big body that will cause problems for the edges of the offense.
There’s has never been a more obvious trap game. Auburn has lost a lot of games it shouldn’t have, and that record makes them easy to overlook. A&M has had a really good season and still has a shot at the SEC title game. In fact, if that game happened this week, the Aggies would be in. They have playoff aspirations, national championship hopes. And more than all that, they’re playing Texas for the first time in over a decade next week. In fact, in a press confercen earlier this week, Elko had a bit of a Freudian slip regarding that game. It would be really easy to look past Auburn. If they do, this is a game Auburn can steal. It’ll be up to Auburn to kick that door down, if it exists at all.
