1. Our offense is Manny Diaz's wet dream. We've got playmakers and can move the chains, but we make too many mistakes to sustain long drives and while we have some playmakers, don't seem to be a huge threat for long touchdowns.
2. We don't look like a well coached team right now. Just mistakes all over the place. Dropped balls, missed tackles, penalties, whiffed blocks, overthrowing wide open receivers, shanked punts, bad fumbles. We're not necessarily awful about any one of those things, but add them all up through the night and it results in a team that just isn't that good.
3. A&M is not as good as we made them look. With a healthy Speedy and RSJ for the whole game and a qb that is not overthrowing receivers they might be really good. But as poorly as we played, we were a few costly mistakes from being right there with them.
4. Garrett is a beast and really changes the game. A&M had one of if not the best defensive player in the country lined up against our biggest liability on offense. Makes it tough to do what you want to do on offense. As much as people want to complain about Mullen's playcalling, he had a LT that was getting embarrassed. If you help him with a RB, that means you're keeping Shumpert in, which leaves you with no running threat other than Dak, so that's not ideal. Holloway just physically can't block Garrett (or their other DE). Not sure what you really do other than put a TE over there to help and run quick passes and screens and draws. I feel like we did a terrible job gameplanning for Garrett, but at the same time, he's hard as hell to handle and it's not like their other DE was a slouch or like they had huge weaknesses elsewhere that allowed us to give unlimited help on Garrett. When your LT is getting beat every damn play, it's just hard to get an offense going. Even though I think the game was more an indication of how bad we are than how good A&M is, A&M is going to be able to punch above their weight against teams that don't have the personnel to at least slow down Garrett.
5. I hesitate to criticize Mullen over personnel decisions considering his track record, but I'm worried at some point it's going to really hurt Mullen in recruiting. If you're a three year player and have your head on straight, you can get on the field. Chris Jones and Bear have shown that. But otherwise it's damn hard to get on the field and get touches in the first two years you're on campus. Maybe Mullen's just had some bad luck with the RB's he's gotten, but we had Robinson, who was an NFL talent and couldn't get on the field as a primary back until his junior year. Now we have two backs that are RS freshmen that can't get on the field despite looking to be more talented than the two backs we are playing. You have Malik Dear, who has looked good more or less every time he's touched the ball barely getting touches. Players like Geri Green and Dez Harris have trouble getting playing time after being on campus for more than a year. We are redshirting a JUCO all-american OT and Gray, despite looking really good when he's played, can't get touches. I'm sure there are very good arguments for why those individual players aren't getting more playing time, and examples like of Graham returning punts as a true freshman that Mullen can point to where he put a young player on the field early. But there are just so many examples the other way you haev to worry about perception; an opposing coach is going to tell recruits "Mullen has unrealistic expectations from people new to the program; you're not going to get on the field your first year there and likely not the first two; look at all the seemingly talented players sitting the bench or barely getting touches" and it's going to be effective.
6. Aeris Williams fumble didn't bother me at all. He made it roughly the same number of touches without fumbling that Shumpert did.
7. How did Malik Dear only touch the ball 3 times. I know he cramped up after the big run, but that's still crazy. As bad as we are at running back, we should be handing the ball off to him enough that people question whether it's accurate to call him a slot versus a running back.
8. Playing the way we are right now, I'd guess we end up at 7-5. We should lose to Bama and UM. Our D matches up against Ark, but we're playing in arkansas. Mizzou may get better without Mauk, but we should be better than them. Definitely a game we can lose playing at Mizzou. UK I would be worried about on the road, but I think we are safe at home. La Tech I think we are safe at home. We're not far off from being pretty good and being able to win 9 games this year. I just don't see any reason to think we'll turn it around now.
9. I'm ready for a youth movement this year. Our season is by no means over. We should end up with at least 7 wins and go bowling. And again, I think we actually have the talent where if we got our shit together, we should have 5 more wins on the schedule before the egg bowl, and being good enough to win those 5 would mean we are good enough that an upset in the egg bowl would be plausible. However, I'm not sure a youth movement hurts us that much and probably gives us the best chance of winning 9. Playing youth will potentially bring in mistakes that will put La Tech and UK in jeopardy and maybe make it likely that we lose to Mizzou. But if we get them plenty of playing time over the next three weeks, I think Jenkins could be an improvement, Dear/Williams/Lee would be an improvement, Peters and Bryant could be an improvement, Harris could be an improvement, etc. We could end up more likely to beat arkansas and/or UM if we take our lumps with young talent now. Even if they don't leave us better at the end of this year, no doubt they playing now would leave us better in 2016 and 2017. If the worst case scenario is we end up at 6-6 instead of 7-5, I'm not sure you don't go ahead and roll the dice.
10. It's time to reset expectations and enjoy this year. Sucks that we regressed this year when the SEC is down, but that's where we are now. Time to be happy we will be going to a bowl game and be pleasantly surprised if they get it together and go 9-3. If you can't enjoy a 7 win season as a state fan, it's probably not for you.
