College Football News Preview 2020: Texas A&M Aggies Keys To The Season
Biggest Key To The Texas A&M Aggies Offense
The offensive line has to be a plus. Not to be overdramatic, but this is it. This is the season.
Head coach Jimbo Fisher’s O lines struggled at the end of his time at Florida State, and the glitch still hasn’t been fixed – you can’t just make an offensive front good right away. There’s time before the A&M schedule ramps up, but with the experience returning, the veteran front five has to be fantastic.
The players are there. Five restaurant-quality starting blockers are in place, there’s enough decent depth to be fine, and the overall style of play A&M likes to use should be enough to come up with a good rotation.
Being last in the SEC in sacks allowed and paving the way for just 159 rushing yards a game again isn’t going to do.
Biggest Key To The Texas A&M Aggies Defense
What happened to the takeaways? Jimbo Fisher’s first A&M team in 2017 generated 22 of them, but the 2018 D didn’t recover its first fumble until half the season was over and forced just three interceptions over the first ten games.
The Aggies picked off Texas State four times in the 2019 opener, and there were just enough takeaways overall to get a keep the margin within range. Recovering fumbles was still a problem – just one in the first six games, but 14 takeaways in the first nine games wasn’t that awful. And then …
Crickets. The defense failed to come up with a takeaway in the final four games of the season and was a -7 in turnover margin in the final stretch.
A&M finished next-to-last in the SEC in takeaways and at the bottom in turnover margin. There’s too much talent and experience returning for that to happen again.
Key Texas A&M Aggies Player To A Successful Season
RB Isaiah Spiller, Soph.
There’s depth at running back … sort of.
There are promising young parts just waiting to show what they can do, but with a mass loss of transfers, the running back situation is Spiller, and a whole lot of thoughts and prayers.
The 6-1, 220-pound sophomore led the team with 946 yards and ten scores, caught 29 passes, and was able to rip off 100 yards or more four times. However, he had his big games against four of the worst teams on the slate – and ran for seven yards against Georgia and nine against Auburn. This is his chance to be a workhorse.
Key Game To The Texas A&M Aggies Season
at Auburn, Oct. 17
It’s not right to take anything with A&M for granted, but it’s going to have to royally screw up to not be 6-0 going into the showdown at Auburn. This kicks off the rough second half of the year with LSU, at Alabama, and a trip to South Carolina looming.
But beat the Tigers for the first time since 2016, and the Aggies will be in everyone’s top five going into the trip to Columbia to face the Gamecocks. Win that, and there’s a week off to prepare for Ole Miss and Vanderbilt.
To be go way big, beat Auburn, and A&M might be 10-0 before going to Alabama.
– Texas A&M Aggies Schedule Breakdown & Analysis
2019 Texas A&M Fun Stats
– Time of Possession: Texas A&M 33:07 – Opponents 26:53
– Fumbles: Texas A&M 19 (lost 10) – Opponents 10 (lost 4)
– Sacks: Opponents 33 for 199 yards – Texas A&M 29 for 226 yards