Looking back past couple years it seems like we get out of the gate slowly, even last year with a senior Qb, at home against Vandy, we were sloppy and then picked up steam.

Colorado wasn't our first game, but it was once Calzada stepped in… I do think it will take us a few games to get rolling under him. Hopefully we get it together for Arkie, but this is kinda the recipe under Jimbo.

Sumlin? Opposite… gas early and run out of steam mid season.

BUT - this may also be by design. Let the kids pace themselves early so they are strong mid and late season.

Deus Vult said:

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I would suspect that if A&M ever gets a really strong first game opponent you would see a very different approach to that game.

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I hope you're right.

Hey we don't blow a lot of people out but we know which team is gonna dominate the 4th quarter. That's all I'm worried about.

Maroon Flash said:

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Hey we don't blow a lot of people out but we know which team is gonna dominate the 4th quarter. That's all I'm worried about.

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You're talking about winning' time? I'm good with that.

Maroon Flash said:

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Hey we don't blow a lot of people out but we know which team is gonna dominate the 4th quarter. That's all I'm worried about.

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Same

And I love watching this team play under Jimbo. It's not always pretty, but when it's all said and done, go back and look at the stat sheet for the game (minus the CU game); we will have 500+ yards of offense, a nearly even split of yardage between run/pass, a100 yard rusher (or two), a 100 yard receiver, and handily win the time of possession. I love it.

yep, the one overarching trait of this team now is that
it dominates 4th quarters. I'll take that.

Would you rather have Sumlin or Sherman who got out gate faster than they finished? Jimbo finishes games and seasons string!

I suspect that a lot of teams start flow in the early season and then get better

One thing that's a major difference between college and the nfl is no preseason games

It's why so many teams play patsies OOC early on

I've long said that we should hire Mike Sherman to be a 1st half OC. then let Jimbo and crew make adjustments and let us come out in a second half beat-down. Sherman was a inverse Jimbo he couldn't adjust, but he could script like no OC that we've had.

Yes, Jimbo always starts off slow.

2018: 41-8, should have beaten Clemson 26-28, 48-10
2019: 41-7, L to Clemson, 68-3

Then, we start slow in 2020. Maybe Covid kept parts of the team from practicing - who knows.

So many teams started slow this year that I am not sure what to make of our game other than we won 41-10, and that Kent St appears to be better than we all think. For the last few years, Bama has started slow against us if you look at the first half only.

Another possible factor is that Jimbo has upgraded the talent level with each recruiting cycle. This means there are usually a bunch of new guys playing. Perhaps that would explain sloppy play and slow starts as the new guys learn the ropes.

Once the talent level evens out across all the classes (at a high level) , I would expect early seasons to start going smoother.

I'd say that Bama is the only team that hasn't started off sloppy this year. Been a weird start to the season.

After a very uninspiring 17-12 win over Vanderbilt at home and a 52-24 drubbing at Alabama, we won 8 consecutive games and the last 7 by 11+ points. That includes 4 road games against Mississippi State, South Carolina, Auburn, and Tennessee. We not only finished 8-1 in an all-SEC regular season schedule, but we also significantly improved our average margin of victory in these wins.

Hopefully, our offense will get their act together by the Arkansas game. I can see us winning another defensive slugfest, such as 17-14. If we finish 9-3 or better, that would mean a 2nd straight SEC winning record (5-3 or better) for the first time sine joining the conference. Since Kevin Sumlin went 6-2 in SEC games in his first year, he never posted another winning SEC record, not even with Johnny Manziel in 2013. He posted a 4-4 SEC record 4 times (2013, 2015, 2016, and 2017). and a 3-5 SEC record in 2014.

I think everyone knows Jimbo knows what he's doing, but let's revisit if we're getting return on investment after the bama game.

Jimbo goes very vanilla and works on the basics through the supposed cream puffs at the beginning of the season. It allows him to make sure everyone can perform the techniques they teach, keeps the pressure on the players to outperform the opposition, and doesn't show our playbook to the SEC competition.

This approach is for preparing the team for winning future games, it's not for the fans.

Guessing, but I think its attributed to his 'confidence'. Under Jimbo, the team feels confident...perhaps too much so and thus comes out with too little adrenaline.

With Sumlin, the team was hyper pumped...too much to maintain and lost confidence as the season progressed???

ClearlyJustSomeAg said:

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I'd say that Bama is the only team that hasn't started off sloppy this year. Been a weird start to the season.

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True, but I bet their fans were complaining of only beating Mercer 48-14. Mercer won the time of possession, and held the all incredible Bama offense to 424 total yards, which was about 80yds better than Miami did.

Bama doesn't seem a reasonable gauge to check ROI.

I'd rather start a little slow then finish strong as fucc than fade late

How can we arrive at such a conclusion with a limited sample size(3 seasons), especially considering 2 of the first 4 opponents in 2018 were #1 Clemson and #2 Alabama. In 2019, 2 of the first 4 were #2 Clemson and #14 Auburn. Are we saying that coaches who start fast would have dominated these games?

I fired a guy like that one time. He kept setting quarterly sales records but he never brought the office any kolaches or tacos or anything for breakfast.

DamnGood86 said:

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I fired a guy like that one time. He kept setting quarterly sales records but he never brought the office any kolaches or tacos or anything for breakfast.

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What a *****….(I love kolaches)

ClearlyJustSomeAg said:

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I'd say that Bama is the only team that hasn't started off sloppy this year. Been a weird start to the season.

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Auburn's 122 points says Hi.

Bryanisbest said:

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Would you rather have Sumlin or Sherman who got out gate faster than they finished? Jimbo finishes games and seasons string!

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I'd hire Sherman as an OL QC coach and 3* Recruit talent scout because he really did find some hidden gems (not sure if it was by choice, but giving him the benefit of the doubt).

Jackie Sherrill was the worst coach in the last 40 years when it came to winning opening games, as he went 1-6 in his 7 years here

Our games under Jimbo remind me a lot of watching some of the big games on youtube under Sherrill

whatthehey78 said:

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Guessing, but I think its attributed to his 'confidence'. Under Jimbo, the team feels confident...perhaps too much so and thus comes out with too little adrenaline.

With Sumlin, the team was hyper pumped...too much to maintain and lost confidence as the season progressed???

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Sumlin's teams were soft as tissue paper (exception being 2012). We always looked really good until the first loss. After that we were a completely different team. Absolutely no backbone. Same for in games. Comeback wins were almost non existent under Sumlin. If the team started slow you could pretty much count on them laying a turd.

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We seem to start games slow also.

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This is definately by design. Jimbo wants to spend the first quarter showing different looks to see how they defend them. He also wants to show the defense certain looks, b/c he has wrinkles prepared off those initial looks for later.

He brings a sack full of plays he likes against an opponent, and only lets them out as needed.

The only time he has let it fly coming out of the gate has been Bama. He knew that we needed to score early and often to have any chance.

It will be interesting to see what he does this year. Our DBs are improved and they lost some great (even by their standards) WRs.

SilverTongueDevil said:

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Sumlin's teams were soft as tissue paper (exception being 2012). We always looked really good until the first loss. After that we were a completely different team. Absolutely no backbone. Same for in games. Comeback wins were almost non existent under Sumlin. If the team started slow you could pretty much count on them laying a turd.

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User name checks out

Jimbo's system is also much more complex than Sumlin's. It takes a while to learn, but it also makes it very difficult for other coaches to scheme for.

Sumlin's schemes were simple, so we were proficient early on, we were toast when good coaches got some film on us.