Jimbo Fisher breaks down Texas A&M's offensive struggles in second half

Texas A&M simply wasn’t able to put points on the board in the second half during their most recent losses, and Jimbo Fisher used the bye week to try and solve that issue.

Against Tennessee a couple weeks ago, the Aggies built a 10-7 halftime lead and held a typically-potent Volunteer offense to just 20 total points on the day. But a three-point second half ultimately led to a Tennessee comeback win.

Also, the week prior, A&M faced Alabama and scored a touchdown right before halftime to take a 17-10 lead into the break. Yet again, the Aggies came out and mustered just one field goal for the entire second half as Nick Saban completed the comeback win over his former assistant.

Following those performances, Fisher had to address the second half scoring problem for his team.

“It’s amazing because we’ve had things there, just a matter of executing plays and having the poise and presence to do it,” he explained this week, noting that the staff is trying to implement a script out of the second half gate to help spark the offense.

“And we’ve changed in practice, trying to put an emphasis after the break, starting right off, making sure we have a scripted set coming in, just like we do at second half. I mean, say you have scripted plays coming out, but we talk at halftime. ‘All right, guys, this is how we’re coming out. These are the things we’re going to do.’ And we do a great job of them in.”

A&M’s offensive execution in second halves was actually much better earlier in the season, but the strong defenses of Tennessee and Alabama threw a wrench into things. But Fisher just doesn’t want to get too caught up on one specific issue.

“Before this, it was really good. It’s kind of been shocking that we haven’t been able to go out and execute like that. So we’ve made them aware of it, but sometimes when you make somebody aware of things, you don’t want it to be, you don’t want to create a bigger problem than it is.”

Of course, it’s still a big enough problem to address it and try to figure it out, but Jimbo Fisher thinks the solution could be simpler than it seems.

“Now it’s a problem, I don’t mean that, but this is what we think we need to do and how we need to fix it and talk to the players. You know what I mean? Things that just focus and concentration issues and be able to relax and go play the game. So, you know, we’ve, at different times in careers, this is, different things have happened. We’re trying to identify.”