In the spring and fall workouts many were questioning themselves what will this team look like this year, and all they could come up with was young unexperienced players and weak lines on both offense and defense. After coming off a brutal, on going 4-8 season, the Ags were looking for some kind of revitalizing of the team. In the past five to ten years atm has been in a rut with team output. Only winning one bowl game, and dropping more games in the month of November than ever before, it seems as if the ags have dropped to the bottom of the ranks. This year has seemed to start to turn it around a bit, with a huge class of freshman recruits coming in such as: 5-star Running-back Christene Michael and two 4 star receivers Uzoma "EZ" Nwachuku, and Kenric Mcneal, the ags Coach Mike Sherman is planning on putting explosive players on the field, and that he did.
Before I rant on the positive points of the first three games of the season, I'm forced to mention the fact that the teams the ags have played are not the best, but are more for working on the offense, and getting the younger players game time experience. Anyways if explosive is what Sherman wanted explosive is what he got. Coach Sherman starts sophomore or younger at both running back and receivers and only a junior quarterback with one year under his belt. Jerrod Johnson (The Quarterback) has been a powerhouse with twice the maturity he had last year, and a great view of finding people on the field. Standing at 6'5'' he pears over all the other players with ease to find his targets, but having the ability to throw is one thing under pressure another. In numerous situations he has had the poise to escape the rush, roll out, find time, and throw a bullet to a receiver who snuck behind several defenders. This has amped his stats to unfathomable three game stats (75-111, 961yard, and 9 tds) all this with out throwing a single interception. Personally i've been to each of their games and have only seen him come close to throwing one int. No matter who the teams are not having an interception 3 games into the season is a rather impressive stat, but he could not get these kind of yards if he had nobody to throw to.
A core of Wideouts, young but very talented, lead this so far unstoppable offense led by Sophomore Jeff Fuller. Fuller is the type of player real tall, big wide bodied athlete that can give defense coordinators fits on who should guard him. He began the season with 10 rec for 111 yards and a TD, but in the second game on a poorly thrown ball awkwardly fell on his right leg and broke it placing him on the injured players roster for 4-6 weeks. Many Ags started to moan as the cart drove away back into the x-ray office, and begin to question which young gun would step up and make things happen. The call was answered by Uzoma "EZ" Nwachuku a 6 foot Freshman with amazing athleticism, and can jump out of the stadium. In the same game people were questioning our offensive future Nwachuku had the game of a life time with 3 receptions for 101 yards 3 touchdowns, and to boot he had a rushing touchdown from 39 yards out. Giving him four total touchdowns breaking a 15+ year old school record, although he was not expecting it EZ was surprised with a ful fledge standing ovation from his first class that Monday morning. Now we found a solid receiver to somewhat replace Fuller, the others have to step as well and the number one in yards is a familiar face to aggie nation, it's backup QB Sophomore Ryan Tannehill. Although he has the most yards on the team surprisingly the Ags do not play him as much as probably should, normally is seen only on long 2nd or 3rd downs. Which seems obviously odd to anyone why would he keep his best receiver off the field? His athleticism is solid, decent speed, and most importantly knows exactly how to read the defense. More times this year I've seen Jerrod in trouble in the pocket and scrambles to be open then launches one down the field to a wide open Ryan Tannehill. It shows how he can use his Quarterbacking skills to find the small mistakes Defenders give him. Spreading the field has become the Aggie's bread and butter so far , and it has seemed to open up the running game a little more as the season progresses.
The running back core is not "of age" or mostly inexperienced back, it has the potential for big play type of guys. Starting for ATM this season Sophomore Cyrus Gray, who played most of the end of last season with the fallout of future NFL drafty Mike Goodson. Cyrus has yet to really prove that he can be an every down kind of runner, more of less he would rather break it to the outside, but with the lack of explosive acceleration it takes certain times for him to bust the big play. In the spring of 2008 rumor had it that Coach Sherman was recruiting a big named player from Beaumont Texas not 200 miles from College Station. This rumor was completely true and now Freshman Christene Michael is gettin some serious playing time for the aggie offense. In his first game he racked up 93 yards on 11 carries and averaged 8.5 a carry, this showed great potential for the big play back from East Texas. His fluid running motion, short stalky stature, and phenominal speed makes Michael a featured back in the 2009 Aggie O. In two games he has had 90 yard attempts on limited carries, due to the air attack blasting out huge numbers of yardage. But not only does he get the ball on the offense, but does return kicks as well. In the second game against Utah St, He showed the crowed why he is doing that as well, he was piled up on the left sideline and spun out of a huddle of defenders cut back ,Reggie Bush esk, and added 35 more yards almost breaking it for the touchdown. a sensational show of reading blocks agility, and speed shows this will become a back that gets more and more carries as the year goes on. Nothing against Cyrus Gray, but with the playing abilities of Michaels atm cannot afford to keep him with limited carries throughout the year. Not only do the running backs get the touches on the ground Quaterback Jerrod Johnson is a close second on the team, with just under 200 yards in three games and 3 scores. He has the ability, with his long strides and juking talent, to get some extra yards and create havoc for defenders to deal with. all this is part of a ATM team that has not been merely touched for anything in the first three games.
This all adds to the big game 4 against former Southwest Conference Rival, the University of Arkansas Razorbacks. They too are led by a high powered offense, and should be a good first test for this aggie team. Both teams are looking forward to facing each other and seeing what kind of team they really are.
