Texas A&M will face their first power opponent this Saturday when Arizona State rolls into town, coming off of an emphatic 70-7 win against FCS Morgan State. Mike Elko and the Aggies had a nice tune-up against Missouri State, but this weekend’s game will be a whole different beast entirely— though Arizona State is far from the toughest opponent on Texas A&M’s schedule, they definitely pose some particular challenges to the Aggies that will be telling for A&M fans going forward.
Cutter Boley, the Kentucky transfer, is the starting quarterback for the Sun Devils, and though he didn’t do much of note statistically in Lexington, he lit it up in his first game in Tempe. A lot of that has to do with the receivers that are surrounding him, though— Kenny Dillingham did some work in the transfer portal to bring in two top-level talents at the receiver position in Omarion Miller and Reed Harris.
While Boley may be in for a statistical renaissance compared to his previous season, the story for the Aggies really should start and end with the receivers that the Sun Devils are working with. Miller and Harris are going to be the focal point of this offense in Tempe, and Dillingham is going to do whatever he can to get the ball in their hands— and he can get pretty creative to do it.
Mike Elko and Texas A&M have one simple job against the Arizona State Sun Devils
Most of the yardage that the Sun Devils piled up this past Saturday came as a result of the receivers picking up yards after the catch— in other words, the ball was out pretty quick, and often pretty short. Dillingham can scheme things up pretty effectively to get his guys into space, not all that different from what we’ve seen out of Lane Kiffin offenses, so the Aggies will need to be aggressive to keep Arizona State off balance…