Jimbo Fisher confirms Haynes King will play against South Carolina
Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher confirmed in his Monday press conference that quarterback Haynes King will be available Saturday against South Carolina. King suffered a foot injury in a Week 6 loss to Alabama, but had all of last week to recover as the Aggies were on bye.
“He’s going,” Fisher said when asked of his quarterback’s availability.
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King started the first two games this season before being replaced by LSU transfer Max Johnson in Week 3. However, Jimbo Fisher went back to Haynes King against the Crimson Tide after Johnson broke a bone in his throwing hand in Week 5. King finished 25-of-46 passing for 253 yards, two touchdowns and an interception against Alabama.
The Aggies are off to a disappointing 3-3 (1-2 SEC) start and have fallen out of the top 25 after beginning at No. 6 in the preseason AP poll. Texas A&M owns an 8-0 record against South Carolina since joining the SEC in 2012, and is scheduled to kick off against the Gamecocks at 6:30 p.m. CT on Saturday in Columbia.
Jimbo Fisher defends Texas A&M’s final play call vs Alabama
Jimbo Fisher caught a lot of heat for Texas A&M’s play-call in the final moments against Alabama — everyone from passionate Aggies fans to Johnny Manziel were spewing venom on Twitter — but Fisher defended the choice afterwards.
To illustrate, the Aggies had 1st & Goal from the Crimson Tide 2-yard line, and quarterback Haynes King threw at a covered Evan Stewart for an anticlimactic finish. Afterwards, Fisher stated his quarterback made the right read, Alabama’s defense just came through.
“We had three looks. We were one-on-one … right in the corner, on a one-on-one route. We had three options on the front side. He read it. Same play we had scored on earlier. We hit Moose on. They changed the coverage, went right back and made the perfect read where we were going to. They played it off the first time.
“We knew if they did it, we had a one-on-one backside and if they didn’t, the other way we had our two looks on the front side, which we wanted.”
Still, Fisher recognizes there’s some things the Aggies could’ve done differently in the moment, but he wasn’t ready to completely pan how it played out.
“We’ve probably got to get it out, and get it a little deeper. I’ve got to look at the route and what it was. The read was perfect, because of what they did coverage wise. We had two of three plays in there, we had two, three options in the play. We’ve scored on that play earlier to Moose. They took him away that time. He went right back to that.
“So I’ve got to look. I’ve got to look at why that wasn’t done. I know that the decision in that process was right based off the coverage in which they gave us.”
On3’s Steve Samra contributed to this report.