IN THE CROSSHAIRS

A&M moves forward in thrashing of South Carolina

Ken Cross

August 30, 2014 at 12:32 am.

Kenny Hill had time to pass and he was on target all night against South Carolina. (Jeff Blake-USA TODAY Sports)

The demise of the Texas A&M Aggies football fortunes in the post-Johnny Manziel Era was greatly exaggerated.  We should have been able to look at the inexperience in South Carolina’s s secondary and defensive front and know that their No. 9 ranking could be a bit much. 

Highly-rated recruits taking over for the likes of Jadeveon Clowney, Kelcey Quarles and Bruce Ellington still take time to marinate. Matching up against a fortress on offense like Kevin Sumlin’s scheme is a rude introductory to the world of the SEC.

Redshirt sophomore quarterback Kenny Hill showed the nation just how much a product of the Sumlin system that Manziel was as he passed for 511 yards in completing 44 of 60 passes.  His effort broke Manziel’s single-game passing record, ironically in his first start.  When the blood-letting was over Texas A&M rolled to a 52-28 win as 12 different Aggies caught passes, led by a 14-137 performance by Malcome Kennedy.

“Well, I think we are making the right decision, I’ll put it that way,” said Sumlin of naming Hill the starter, “There’s probably a little more to what we do, the coaching staff does, we think there are probably some coaches, including myself, that took some comments personal in the offseason about how we prepare our team, what our program is all about, and I think our team took that personal. They played that way tonight.”

The Aggies certainly had a chip on their shoulder although Hill was a calm, cool, and collected force that was never rattled by an 80,000-plus Gamecocks crowd that sat stunned after A&M so readily ended South Carolina’s 18-game home winning streak by ravaging the Gamecocks with 680 yards of total offense. 

The son of former MLB pitcher Kenneth Hill, the newest signal-caller to run the Sumlin system, proved right away that the Aggies were more of a unit this year in the first game than they were all of last year when Manziel made Texas A&M football about himself.  Hill is not auditioning for anyone and he certainly has the Aggies football program first on his agenda.  He read the South Carolina defense perfectly on nearly all 60 drop backs, and found the usual bevy of Aggie wideouts on a myriad of pass routes that left the inexperienced Gamecocks defensive backs wandering and wondering.

“We came out quick and threw just a couple of little screen passes out there and made plays out there,” said Hill, who served notice with a nine-play, 67-yard drive that ended in a Tra Carson touchdown in the first 3:33 of the game, “It got my confidence up and we just rolled.”

The intricacies of the Sumlin offense have spelled doom for the toughest defenses in the nation.  Thursday night, Hill and his plethora of wideouts were sharks in water as they broke off pass routes under the cushions that USC had given them.  Once the Gamecocks came up to try to challenge, Kennedy, Josh Reynolds, Ricky Seals-Jones, and Speedy Noil made down field plays that resulted in huge chunks of yardage.

After South Carolina cut the Aggies lead to 17-14 midway through the second quarter, Hill led an 8-play, 75-yard drive where five of the eight plays were passes for first downs.  This ended in a 14-yard touchdown pass to Edward Pope.  He finished the half on the next drive by hitting Kennedy on four pass plays which resulted in another two-yard run by Carson.  Going into the half, the Gamecocks were a broken team, physically and mentally and never really showed they could challenge in the second half.

“We had to throw the ball way too much to try to make some yards,” said South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier, “We didn’t run the ball well at all, and we didn’t have a chance to even stay on the field very long. We got into a throw every down type of contest, and we’re not good enough pass blockers, or throwers to get into that. That’s the way it happened. Give Texas A&M their coaches and their players credit. It was a mismatch tonight.”

 

 

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