A&M/SHSU: By The Numbers

Was it perfect? No. But there were plenty of positives to take away from Texas A&M’s shutout win over Sam Houston on Saturday. A few numbers to consider...

• 0: Points allowed. Even against cupcake opponents, shutouts are a rarity in college football today. This defense’s dominance was a great sign for the future, especially in game one for new coordinator D.J. Durkin.
• 1: The number of wins A&M got in Week 1. As trivial as that sounds, never take it for granted, because some heavily-favored teams this week weren’t so lucky.
• 2.3:1- The bad news is this was Devon Achane’s yards per carry. The Bearkat defensive line seemed to confuse our guys with a lot of twists and stunts, and the Aggie OL was not at full strength, but you still would hope for a better running attack than this. The good news is this same ratio represents how many first downs the A&M offense racked up compared to Sam Houston.
• 3- The number of 40+ yard completions A&M had on Saturday, which matches their total for the entire 2021 season. 3 is also the number of hours the weather delay lasted.
• 8.3%- Sam Houston’s third down conversion rate. A lot of this can be attributed to A&M forcing them into a lot of third-and-long situations, but nonetheless, it’s a positive sign to see them getting off the field when they needed to.
• 9th- Haynes King’s national rank in yards per attempt after Week 1 (11.7 YPA). King has room for improvement, but after an offseason where so much talk centered around A&M getting more downfield attempts, this was welcome sign.
• 299: The yardage advantage for A&M (497) over Sam Houston (198). The 31 points may not have been ideal, but yardage totals are generally more predictive of future success than points.
• 364: Passing yards for Haynes King, which is the most by an Aggie QB since Kellen Mond threw for 420 against Clemson in 2018.