By The Numbers: Texas A&M 59, Northwestern State 7

Good morning, Aggie family. By now we’ve had time to sleep on the Jimbo Fisher debut and upon further reflection, yep, it was still very solid.

Defensively

It was a collaborative, grinding, team effort without a lot of gaudy numbers.

0: sacks

0: interceptions

5: tackles for loss

4: the highest number of tackles recorded by a player

2: defensive starters ejected for targeting making special teams tackles. This is the only bit of concern. Getting angry about targeting calls is futile. It will take players years to recondition their tackling. Even then, it’s often subjective and dictated by the individual officials. But the silver lining is that Alaka and Wilson will be back for Clemson, and they’ll (hopefully) be a bit more careful about lowering their heads.

251: total offense allowed.

21: rushing yards allowed.

It’s always good to dominate when you are expected to.

Special Teams

Didn’t do much, didn’t have to.

52.5: yards per punt for Mann, off two punts. Punter U continues to reload.

52: LaCamera tied a career long on field goals, going 1 for 1 and nailing all 8 extra points.

Offense

Now for the tasty bits. Were we worried that a pro-style attack couldn’t put up gaudy numbers, even against a pedestrian FCS school? Well, no longer.

That’s across-the-board effectiveness. What else was good?

20/240/3: Trayveon Williams had a night. It’s clear he’s the featured back and we got to see what he could do with 20 totes in this offense.

0: You know something else that jumps out (then I’ll quit posting screencaps)? The only player to lose yards rushing was the starting QB, when getting sacked. Very encouraging.

0: Interceptions. Also very good!

10: players with receptions

9: players with at least 2 carries

THE GRAND FINALE?

06:59. This was Northwestern State’s time of possession in the second half. The entire second half. They had the ball for fewer than seven minutes throughout the entire third and fourth quarters combined. If past concerns revolved around the team fading down the stretch, this type of dominance on both sides of the ball is very encouraging.

11,204,775: number of times we were made aware during the game that our tight end production had already practically equaled the entirety of last season. Neat! Expect the AOL-style FWD: FWD: FWD: from your parents at any moment.

It was fun, and it was dominating. There were a couple of blemishes with the ejections, but overall count this as extremely gratifying after the long buildup of the offseason. Now file it away with a healthy pinch of salt, and get ready for Clemson a week from tomorrow.