So, I'm back to try and make sense of last weekend's thrashing. I see some people calling for Mond's retirement. I hear Gary Danielson say that Mond would be a great QB on another team (ouch -- still too soon for us, ala Mr. K Murray). I really don't care too much about what people think they see on the field, I'll try to dig into the numbers and see what is really happening. On paper, Mond seemed to have a better day. 300 yards passing. 2 TDs. One unforgivable Pick-6. Pretty much standard fare for our QB's to find an open 'bama defender for a score. 1 official sack (for -1 yd). No fumbles. We still lost by a lot, although it never seemed like we were really getting clobbered. The scoreboard told us something different though. (The only time I ever felt like we were outclassed was 2014 when our QB slept under trees in Northgate.)

Against Vandy, they basically gave us the short field and Mond connected on a lot of short reads. We knew that Alabama wasn't going to give us anything anywhere, and they really didn't. WR's were hassled all day (including at least 3 missed PI's) and there were very few "open" or "light" coverages. With the speed in the DB backfield, Satan doesn't have to play off our WR's -- bump, grind, hack, harass is the name of the game, and 'bama did it well. The OL did OK giving time, but we really didn't see more than 4 or 5-man rushes. Therefore, there were usually 7 in coverage and our WR's couldn't do enough to get open. It seems like every other CFB team can find open receivers, but we don't seem to.

Well, here are the numbers below. I used this video as reference :: TAMU vs. ALABAMA 2020

Unfortunately Woodlands Aggie only makes a no-huddle video if we win... so he usually is on vacation for Alabama weekends.

CONCLUSIONS:

1. Still no downfield threat. No passes of even 20 yards attempted.

2. For passes >10 yards, Mond was 4-14 with a Pick-6. (This is still bad)

3. Pass protection was OK. When no pressure was in the pocket, Mond was 17-22 193 yds. That included 2 "misses" that were clearly Pass Interferences that weren't called.

4. When under heavy pressure, Mond was 5-14 including the Pick-6.

5. Speaking of the Pick 6, this was a terrible throw off the back foot across the field that a Senior QB should not be making.

5b. I counted 3 other passes that could have been INTs. They were rifled through at least one Defender's hands.

6. You can only throw long if you have time. Again, Mond tends to get happy feet and throw without power / accuracy when there is any pressure.

• 'bama rushed 3 DL's3 times and was 1 for 3 on pressures
• They rushed 4 DL’s 25 times and were 10 for 25 on pressures
• They rushed 5 Def 14 times and were 11 for 14 on pressures
• They rushed 6 Def 4 times and were 2 for 4 on pressures
• Overall, that’s not TERRIBLE pass protection. There was only one "sack" and it was for -1 yards when Mond stepped into the pressure (same as against Vandy)
  

7. Mond didn’t run much. Some of that has to do with being behind (again). When he did try to run, he usually fell after first contact. He’s simply not a hard runner on contact. We saw King try to decapitate himself with Alabama defenders later in the game, whereas Mond tends to flutter out of bounds or crumple when contacted.

8. About 50% of the yards were after the catch, slightly down from the Vandy game. That’s likely due to the tighter coverage on our WR’s

9. We tried 4 50/50 touchdown jump balls (2 on first drive, 2 on the last scoring drive) that all went INCOMPLETE. We don’t have the tall receivers to do this (not that we used – Chapman and Demas are tall, but we used 6’0 receivers to try 50-50 balls, and twice with Renick. Weird.

10. I only counted 7 out of the 44 pass attempts where Mond checked to his 2nd receiver. That may be a few under-counted, but it shows he knows where he is going before the play and sticks with it. There was one time he pulled down a pass attempt and ran instead of throwing a n INT.

I feel whelmed… neither over or under. Our QB play is about as ineffectively effective as it could be. Not enough to win the big games. Enough to be an average football team. We don’t have a championship level QB, OL, or WR’s that can get open. We still drop the ball at critical times, make enough mistakes, and allow the opponent to still make big plays. That’s an all-around average SEC team.

I don’t see us changing QBs for FL, but if FL goes awry, then I would demand changes after that. I thought King was competent, but almost killed himself trying to actually scramble for yards. He wasn’t afraid to throw downfield (only completion was for 17 yards). Therefore, I’d be much more willing to see a Freshmen make the same mistakes Mond makes as a senior.

69. That’s the number of 4-5 star players on Alabama’s roster. TAMU has 42,e ven though we may have top-10 recruiting classes, We know Alabama is in another league, but Clemson figured out how to beat them with 12-16 ranked classes. We haven’t. One key is having an elite QB that can throw downfield and stretch the defense. We don’t have that in Mond. I'm OK moving on, regardless as to the crush that Gary has on him.