I’m really comfortable with where this Texas A&M football team is right now.

New defensive coordinator John Chavis has made A&M better not just on defense but on special teams as well with his physical approach

They’re not where everyone wants them to be or thinks that they should be but they’re certainly better than last year’s outfit that went 7-5 during the regular season and had issues with a myriad of items. Head coach Kevin Sumlin understood that without the offensive talent that marked the first two seasons of his tenure at Aggieland that he was going to have to play a style that was more akin to that of the remainder of the SEC. He was going to have to find ways to run the ball, play better defense, and use his special teams to flip field position and generate points when his offense couldn’t.

For the most part, those things were in evidence during the Aggies’ season opening victory over Arizona State last Saturday night. The Aggies didn’t necessarily run the ball better but they stayed on the ground when their quarterbacks struggled with turnovers and didn’t try to force things through the air. Their special teams averaged ten yards more per punt, avoided costly penalties, forced the Sun Devils to start most of their drives inside their own 25 yard line (thus facing a long field), and had a 79 yard return for a touchdown. Most of all, the defense suffocated Arizona State, not only registering 14 tackles for loss but also allowing just two plays over 20 yards.

A&M has some things to work on offense but these are items that shouldn’t be unexpected. The Aggies faced a team that likes to blitz and in many ways they were the type of offense that ASU wanted to face…inexperience at quarterback, inexperience on the left side of the offensive line, and lacking a presence at H back or tight end that could help in blitz pickup or in the running game. I wrote prior to the game that they played hard and were pesky and both of those attributes were in evidence Saturday night. The Aggies eventually made some big plays but they had to let the Sun Devils wear themselves out to an extent before they finally put them away. Sometimes, that’s all you can do when playing a team like that.

Some of these issues will get better. One of the reasons that people backed Kyle Allen at quarterback going into the season was his experience but that consisted of all of five games. He is still young and learning and struggled for much of the game versus ASU which has much better athletes and size than a West Virginia in the bowl game last season. He eventually made some of the same types of plays that he made against the Mountaineers but those plays were fewer and far between and didn’t come until late in the game. He is going to get better as the offense gets better.

Kyler Murray is a freshman and yes he made a difference with his legs when Allen couldn’t do so with his arm. However, he looked very much like a first timer in dealing with the speed of the game and secondary players who could disguise coverages. He too will take some time to get better and he’s going to need snaps in order to learn to deal with college players who are bigger and faster than those at the high school level.

The biggest problem is that both of them need as many reps as they can get and the best they can is split those reps in practice and in games. It’s not an ideal solution but it’s the only one available to A&M right now.

But when you’ve got a defense and special teams that are very close to championship caliber units, you can compete at a relatively high level in the SEC. You may not win the conference or even ten games but unless you turn the ball over you’re going to be in every game. The biggest criticism of A&M’s program in the first couple of years of Sumlin’s tenure was that the Aggies seemed to be more about style points at times but those days are over. People like Myles Garrett, Daeshon Hall, and Justin Evans are diverting attention to the defensive side of the ball. John Chavis has made his players more physical overnight which doesn’t just help his unit but also Jeff Banks’ special teams because so many of those units employ defensive players.

Overall, A&M isn’t where they need to be and they may not get there this year but it’s apparent that they took the right fork in the road and they’re headed down a better path in the long term as they move into the mainstream of the SEC landscape.

That's why I like where they're headed even if they're not there yet.