aTm's Achilles Heel: Defensive Tackle

They have a kid playing end this year that played well as a rush LB in a 34 front last year under Sherman. It's hard to know if his statistics are legit at this point because most teams on TAMU's schedule have chucked it trying to keep up. So he's had an inordinate amount of opportunities.

No doubt he's got talent. Every team on our schedule does. They also play a kid from SoLa by the name of Obiaha that we had lukewarm interest in. He played reasonably well against UF.

Not sure they have our depth but they have decent talent.

I meant DT.......sacks are useless on a run play......well sorta

We have a 3 DT tackle rotation that are SEC caliber, and 2-3 others that aren't yet, and only play in mop up duty. They held up well against Fl, but will get worn down if you keep the ball a long time.

Their DL has been pretty solid, man.
Their weakness is at corner/safety. They get really squishy on the edges. Options, swing passes, sweeps, and WR screens will get yards in this game.

I could handle Hill or ware taking the swing pass out the backfield a couple times, seems to have worked 9 times out of the 10 we have done it this year

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They play a 3-4, with NGs who are 300 pounds. The top 2 guys have combined for only 14 tackles, but all they have to do is not give ground. Nealy at the DT spot has been solid for them, as well. A tweener, he has 12 unassisted tackles this year. However, the real battles will be Josh D/Alexander blocking Moore, and Copeland on Stewart. If aTm beats us, defensively, it will be because Moore and Stewart had great days, not any particular wins in the trenches.

That's the beauty of the 3-4 - you don't have to win at the line of scrimmage - just do no worse than tie. The linebackers then win or lose it for you. If the 3 down linemen happen to win a battle here and there (or a game), that's lagniappe.

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They play a 4-3. They switched to it this year when Snyder took over as DC. Their back-ups play a ton.

He was a qb in ha cuz

Oh I know. But I've seen plenty of college QBs who aren't great at getting the right timing, ball speed, trajectory, when pitching the football. It's like being a deep snapper, not as easy as some guys make it look.

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They play a 4-3. They switched to it this year when Snyder took over as DC. Their back-ups play a ton.

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I see reporting that confirms your assertion. Still a little confused over why aggieathletics.com still has the old defensive alignment (that's their lsusports.net), but the rivals site has the change.

Upon review of the Rivals depth chart, they have Ennis down to 280 pounds (although aggieathletics has him at 300), with Nealy at 277. That's what I came here to discuss - they're even lighter (300 is light for a NG - 277 is really, really light for an SEC DT).

For reference, our starters are at around 285/290 and they seem a little light to me. Mathis, their senior backup DT is 295-300, but Robinson (out of Longville, LA), their other backup is effectively a DE playing DT at ~270 pounds. To compound their size disadvantage, they have converted a rush linebacker to DE (Moore, although he is an outstanding player, Mingo holds down his spot at 240, and Moore is listed at 250).

These aTm guys face a HUGE offensive line. If Porter plays, he might be 290ish, but everybody else will be 300 or better. Our projected lineup's listed weights total 1582, for an average of 316 1/2, that's Josh D/Collins/PJ/Trai/Alexander from left to right.

(Our starting day lineup of Faulk/Collins/PJ/Williford/Hurst was 1612 - an average of 322).