Texas A&M's option success proves 2 things: Mond can run it, and Arkansas' new defense still needs work

In its 2016 showdown in Dallas with Texas A&M, Arkansas was blistered by an Aggies offense that made the most of an explosive running QB leading a questionable passing attack. The Aggies’ option run schemes resulted in 366 rushing yards at 9.9 yards per carry in a 45-24 victory.

So the Razorbacks made some changes on defense to feature their linebacker corps and hopefully produce better results against spread attacks and spread run games in particular. In its 2017 showdown in Dallas with Texas A&M, Arkansas was blistered by an Aggies offense that made the most of an explosive running QB leading a questionable passing attack. The Aggies’ option run schemes resulted in 285 rushing yards at 6.8 yards per carry in a 50-43 overtime victory.

I suppose we could call that marginal improvement.

Texas A&M’s offense these days functions best when it can run the ball from spread sets with a TE by involving freshman QB Kellen Mond as a runner and forcing difficult decisions from the defense in where to allocate numbers. Here’s how they took apart the Hogs defense.

The counter-trey in the spread

Florida re-popularized the counter-trey play as a spread concept back in the Urban Meyer days and would regularly employ it to spring Percy Harvin or to get Tim Tebow going downhill. Nowadays the play has been updated to feature a QB-run read and is a foundational play for the Texas A&M offense.

They shredded the Hogs’ defensive structure with it. Here was an early example that should’ve been a TD but was ruled out at the 10 by a whistle-happy official.

Arkansas is really in a lot of trouble defending the intended design of this play, which is a hand-off to the back running behind the pulling guard and tackle. The A&M guard is coming to kick out the “hog” linebacker, who’s supposed to be the “free-hitter” for the defense who doesn’t have a blocker to worry about, while the tackle is pulling for the middle linebacker.

To get a free hat to the ball, Arkansas is relying on the free safety, which is why that player can be seen firing downhill and thus unavailable to tackle Mond.

The reason A&M has a numbers advantage is the option read on the backside “Razor” linebacker. That defender chooses to chase the running back, leaving Mond with a very soft edge and then no linebackers or deep safety to worry about.

The Hogs had a great deal of trouble figuring this play out and the Aggies ran a few different versions of it for several key gains.

On the latter example the Aggies use the threat of a RB lead sweep to set up Mond as the featured runner behind the pulling guard and tackle. The Razorbacks were totally flummoxed.

The traditional zone-read

The Aggies also did a fair amount of damage with the traditional dual-threat spread play, the zone-read. Late in the game the Aggies lined up in a very classic 2 x 2 spread set and used the play to punish the Razorbacks’ unsure LB play in the 3-4 defense:

Arkansas at least has this one beat on the chalkboard, unlike some of the counter plays, but the DE and the LB both try to fill the B-gap while the outside LB is trying to protect against a bubble screen and is late to clean things up in the C-gap.

Using the 3-4 defense to get linebackers running around in space doesn’t work if they are all frozen in place by confusion against spread-option plays.

The Aggies used a few varieties of inside zone throughout the day to gash the Arkansas defense before finally setting up the coup de grace which won the day.

At last the Arkansas linebackers are filling their assignments with precision and aggression, only for Mond to pull the ball away and fire a flag route to Christian Kirk for the winning touchdown.

This is a tough one because the Aggies are executing downhill run blocking and are almost guilty of an “ineligible man downfield” penalty before Mond gets the pass off. Instead the Hogs are left to try and force the issue on their own OT possession, which ended in a walk-off interception by the Aggies.

From here the Razorbacks will have to get back into the classroom and work on their run fits from the new defense before they face more spread running games from Auburn, Alabama and Mississippi State in conference play.

The Aggies on the other hand have a nice foundation for their offense to allow Mond to ease into executing the passing attack throwing to star receiver Kirk against favorable coverages.