Areas needing improvement

Maybe I am overreacting to all the greatness from Thursday, but I have this nagging urge to try to find the holes in this team - not to tear down, but just to understand where the weaknesses might be.

And at this point, the sample size is small and the opponents had so many weaknesses themselves that I don't know how effective this might be, but here goes.

The obvious ones:

Simple play from the youngsters, especially on the defensive line. Wait, what? you say. How can I criticize a group that kept the SC QB moving the whole game? I am not really criticizing, more noticing that they didn't do a lot of complicated attacking to confuse the OL. Of course, they didn't need to (a mantra that I think you will read a lot in this series) so there is that. But I do think this is something to watch going forward as it is a set of adjustments that the group will need to do to develop over the course of the season.

We have been over the deficiencies of the secondary enough. No need to rehash it here.

Not much of a vertical passing game. Again, it didn't make sense considering how methodical and effective the mid and short range game was for long stretches of the game, but it was something that might be needed against some teams to stretch the field, and we didn't see enough to really check it off as something the Aggies can do well. On the other hand, we saw everything else we need to see from Hill and his weapons.

Another question is one that simply didn't come up so there is no way to know at this point - how will they react when they are trailing? How will they react when another team is getting the breaks because of a fumble or makes an effective adjustment? Some of this is individual, but some of it is general leadership. Anyone can captain a ship in calm seas, the saying goes. Or, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. How will they react when that happens? Sure, the history of this team is one that makes us think they will be more than just fine, but every year is different and we just don't know about this group at this time. There is a LOT of youth out there...

Then again, there was SO much that went SO well, SO early, in SUCH a challenging environment, that it really is hard not to feel that this team is WAY ahead of schedule. The more I see of other first games for other teams, the more I appreciate how well the Aggies played on Thursday. So much sloppiness, especially from Ole Miss, etc. But our Fightin Texas Aggies? They looked like this was business. Fun business, to be sure, but business nonetheless.

That is very exciting. Very exciting indeed.