The Aggies After Week One

Some info on the Ags:

Our focus has been on the running game and up-tempo offense. Our goal is to wear you out between the tackles and run as close to 100 offensive plays as possible in order to wear down the defense.

Jerrod Johnson is our starter at QB - and he is being mentioned for the Heisman and Davey O'Brien awards. Versus SFA, he went 28-40 for 322 ayrds; with 2 TDs and no interceptions. I was at the game, and he looked - lackluster. He gets some flack for Aggie fans for not throwing the prettiest ball and not having enough "zip" in his passes - which could be attributed to off-season surgery he had last January right after our bowl-loss to Georgia. However, all of the little flaws in his mechanics are made up for with his great decision making, knowledge of the offense, playmaking ability, and trust in his receivers. The incongruency with his game is that he's had 9 x 300-yard passing games, but he hasn't ever looked great doing it (except for the Texas game). So even with a so-so showing last saturday he still put up over 300 yards of offense - it's baffling, but that's JJ. (He did the same thing last year, starting off slow, but really came on as the year went on)

We use Ryan swope in the flats ALOT (he had 13 receptions on screens and swings for 106 yards). However, ourbest receivers are Jeff Fuller (6'4 - 215 lbs, possession) and EZ Nwahukwu (pronounced watch-uh-koo; 6'0 - 194 lbs, speedy). Fuller can get up and make excellent grabs from the X-WR, and is very effective on fades in the end zone and deep routes. EZ uses his speed to get past defenders on flag routes from the Z-WR.

Our Starting TE Nehemiah Hicks is a true fish but is playing well, and practiced great all camp. The real starter is Hutson Prioleau (Redshirt Freshman), and he is a much better blocker - we are hoping he returns this week. Although Hicks made some great plays on receptions getting YAC, our coaches probably would rather see a more accomplished blocker in there to support the run game on the edges - Prioleau.

Christine Michael was recruited as a 5-star out of Beaumont, TX - accross the Sabine River from Lake Charles on I-10. He was outstanding last year, and has improved his game for this year. We are expecting HUGE things from this kid. He is a true-Soph and we expect him to leave for the NFL after his Junior year. He's a freak. His wingman is Cyrus Gray. A year older, but on the same level as Michael. C-Mike is 1a; Cyrus is 1b - running back. Both are good catching the ball out of the backfield. Michael is more of a 1-cut and go upfield back, and Cyrus is a make-you-miss type back.

We've switched to a 3-4 defensive front and our fans are hoping like heck that it improves our defensive numbers. We hired Tim DeRuyter to run the show - he had the #11 ranked defense last year at Air Force... Early showings are promising. Our front three linemen are all 300 pounders, but we use a quick NG who is smaller (6'0 305) to create havoc in the middle instead of the normal space-eater like most 3-4 teams (most NFL 3-4s use a 6'2-6'4 - 320+ pounder to demand double teams).

DeRuyter went very vanilla (he and the players both claimed that in the presser on Monday). So expect to see more blitzing this week. He likes to disguise his blitzes and bring it from every position. You may see the same alignment several times but a different set of 5-6 blitzing from the same package.

You guys might not have to face Von Miller this weekend, as he was dinged a little on his ankle last game and the coaches may be cautious and keep him out one more week. In his place is true-freshman Demontre Moore - who had a sack in the opener and is mini-Miller (though he is bigger than Von at 6'4 248 lbs)

Our secondary is strong at the CBs but lacks depth at the safeties. Our starters at safety are good, and Trent Hunter has started over 20 games at SS, but there just isn't much behind them due to injuries.

Our leading tackler is LB Garrick Williams, currently. He plays the Will ILB and is pretty good in coverage but is a run stuffer at 6'2 - 234 pounds. Garrick is a junior who was recruited as a WR out of high school by Dennis Franchione. He bounced around and found a place at OLB last year, but was moved inside this year. Replacing him outside is SO Sean Porter (6'2 - 220 lbs). He is good in coverage and will come off the edge on blitzes often as well.

Tim DeRuyter is big on giving all-out effort on every play. He models his defense after Dick LeBeau's Pittsburgh Steelers with the OLBs flipping based on Boundary or Field situations. Instead of 8 zones in the secondary he uses 6. He will man up on receivers and send the disguised blitz. He will blitz from ILB, OLB, CB, and Safety. He uses 3 down linemen, but there is always a 4th guy coming, you just don't ever really know which one. SFA was good about picking up the ILB blitz and throwing into the space behind the guy coming up the middle. DeRuyter has spend alot of time in Pittsburgh with Lebeau to learn the defense - he has improved the defensive ranking at each of his former stops, as well.

Our punting game stinks. We have a guy from JUCO who has a big leg, but he is erratic with his punts - some are high, some are low line drives, some wobble and flip, some go out of bounds, blech.

Our kicking game isn't much better. Our kicker, Bullock, missed a FG from 27 yards, but made 2 others and made 6 for 6 on XPs. However, he is also our Kickoff specilaist and he just doesn't have a big leg. Our first kickoff vs SFA went out of bounds and gave them the ball at the 35. Our coaches apparantly lost confidence in Bullock and had him kick the next 4 or 5 kickoffs as pooch kicks high in the air. He squibbed one, and it didn't do any good. Just not that good of a kicking game right now, which is a big worry.

Let me know if you have any other questions.