Rapid Reaction: Texas A&M falls to Mississippi State

Texas A&M was flat-out embarrassed by Mississippi State and has some serious soul-searching to do coming out of the 42-24 loss to the Bulldogs. Texas A&M‘s offense struggled for much of the first three quarters, and by the time they started to get it together, it was too little too late. On the other side of the ball, Texas A&M’s defense had their worst showing of the season and there will be some questions for D.J Durkin and Co. this week.

Texas A&M’s offensive struggles go beyond the players

It’s long past time for Texas A&M to make some serious changes to this offense. The issues go beyond the quarterback struggles, the offensive line struggles and wide receiver drops. Simply put, it’s time for Jimbo Fisher to call in an offensive coordinator and/or do some serious soul-searching and adapt his offense. The offense finally put a good drive throwing the ball in the third quarter, which ended in A&M’s first touchdown of the game, but up until then, the Aggies struggled to get thing going through the air. There’s too much talent on this roster for the offense to struggle like this. There’s no identity, there’s just one consistent playmaker in Devon Achane and the unit as a whole struggles to stay on the field and generate consistent long drives.

Quarterback remains a question

Max Johnson exited the game midway through the fourth quarter with a hand injury and Haynes King entered in relief and closed out a scoring drive. On his next two drives, he threw interceptions, one returned for a touchdown, and ended any chance for Texas A&M to even attempt a comeback. Johnson’s status moving forward is unknown and with the Aggies set to travel to Alabama next week, the offense, and quarterback, remains a major question and there’s no clear answers.

Aggies can’t capitalize on opportunities

Texas A&M’s defense forced just one turnover on Saturday and could have come up with more early in the game, but failed to capitalize. Facing eleven third downs and two fourth downs on Saturday, the Aggies allowed five third down conversions and both fourth-down conversions. On offense, the Aggies had the ball twice in the red zone in the first half but fumbled both times. In the second half, they came up with 17 of their 24 points inside the red zone, but if they had been able to create points of any type in the first half, this game could have gone a different direction.

Bryce Foster has a concerning outing

Foster made a public statement, apologizing for his snaps after the Arkansas game and in all honesty, he wasn’t all that bad at all last week. Against Mississippi State, the snaps were a serious concern. Johnson was already getting pressured, and that’s a credit to the Bulldogs’ defense, but it didn’t help that the snaps were consistently low. Foster struggled blocking as well and there were times he looked lost out there. Not sure what went wrong on Saturday, but Foster wasn’t himself.

Moose Muhammad stepping up into bigger role

Muhammad had a rough outing last week against Arkansas, but stepped up in a big way against the Bulldogs. Despite the offense’s struggles, Muhammad had himself a game, recording six receptions for 119 yards and one touchdown. He came up big time and time again and on a day in which the offense struggled overall, he was a bright spot and showed he can step into the role that’s now vacant with Ainias Smith out for the season.

Defense can’t get pressure

Texas A&M’s defense lived out of the three-man front, looking to keep Mississippi State’s air raid attack from beating them deep. Once again, an understandable process from defensive coordinator D.J Durkin and the staff, but it didn’t work. The Bulldogs looked to establish the run early in the game and Texas A&M never adjusted. On top of that, Will Rogers threw for over 325 yards on the Aggies largely because the defense could not create pressure out of the three-man front. After some early success getting after him, down the stretch, regardless of who was on the field, the Aggies struggled to get to the quarterback. Durkin’s gotten credit for his ability to adjust and his versatile defense through his early tenure in College Station, but Saturday was by far his worst day leading the unit.