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Texas A&M: Kevin Sumlin needs to adapt for John Chavis to fix Aggies defense

By Jake Wimberly

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Defense has been the Achilles heel for the Texas A&M Aggies under Kevin Sumlin but will the hire of defensive coordinator John Chavis be the cure the team needs?

Texas A&M made waves around the SEC when Aggies head coach Kevin Sumlin was able to lure then LSU defensive coordinator John Chavis to College Station. Instantly you saw article after article about how John Chavis can cure the Aggies defensive woes.

There is no denying Chavis’s ability to coach defense, game plan and make an impact in a college football game, as he has done so for more than three decades. But, what if I told you Sumlin and Chavis are like oil and water and Sumlin has already indirectly, set Chavis up to fail in College Station?

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Before you go sending me tweets or messages and calling me crazy, hear me out, and let’s take a look at Sumlin and the big picture. I want to go back to his days at Houston and the alarming trends how Sumlin’s offenses will ultimately cripple Chavis, like other Sumlin defensive coordinators in the past, if Sumlin doesn’t change.

First, let’s examine Texas A&M recruiting since Sumlin arrived in College Station. The Aggies per 247Sports have a four-year recruiting average of No. 10 in the country so they have elite talent based on recruiting rankings.

Between the Texas A&M endowment, donor dollars, boosters and recruiting, the Aggies are set up as well as anyone in the SEC. Simply put, resources are hardly the problem in College Station. So after a very below average showing defensively in his first three years at College Station, Sumlin was left to go find another defensive coordinator after Mark Snyder didn’t work out.

But after a review of Sumlin’s track record, I am of the opinion it doesn’t matter if Sumlin hired Buddy Ryan, John Chavis, Dom Capers, Bill Parcels or Bill Belichick as his defensive coordinator; unless Sumlin tweaks his offensive strategy, it won’t matter who is coaching the defense for the Aggies.

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    • Sumlin, like many college coaches prides his offense on explosiveness, number of plays and running a high tempo spread offense, as evidenced in the 77 plays per game average over his seven years as a head coach. There is no questioning the Aggies ability to score as Sumlin is one of the best in the country when it comes to offensive strategy and getting in the end zone.

    But it is that same philosophy that’s handicapping his defense and has done so since his days at Houston.

    Over a seven-year review of Sumlin teams, his defenses (regardless of coordinator), have allowed an average of 28-points per game and 427-yards per game. Sumlin typically overcomes the points per game stat by just outscoring his opponent, but it’s the yards per game that we have seen climb over the years.

    The biggest stat of them all is how much more time a Sumlin defense stays on the field compared to their offensive counterpart. Over seven years, at Houston and Texas A&M, his defense has been on the field almost 45 hours more than his offense. That’s a little more than six hours more per year than his offense, which is baffling.

    The first train of thought is well; his defense can’t get off the field so Chavis will help his team do that. While that might be true, odds of that actually happening are slim due to Sumlin’s offense.

    Per teamrankings.com, Texas A&M ranked at the bottom of FBS teams in terms of average offensive time of possession. Below you can see the top-10 vs. the bottom four over the last few years when talking about average time of possession.

    Michigan State led the FBS in time of possession, held on to the football almost nine minutes more per game than the Aggies, who ranked 126th and that is a huge deal.

    Credit: Teamrankings.com

    At face value, the average fan would say, “that’s awesome, we must be scoring quickly”, and while there is a lot of that going on, there is also a lot of three-and-outs or shorter drives taking place.

    Be it a quick score, a three-and-out or a short drive, all that adds up to more minutes played by your defense that is getting worn down and beaten up by a fresh offense. Over the course of a season the physical effects add up and mentally it just wears on a unit when they are gashed left and right.

    I cannot imagine a closer in baseball having any more pressure on them than a defensive player on a Sumlin-led team. The only way to curb this trend is by fewer plays per game by Sumlin’s offense and dialing it down just a bit. We have seen a drop recently in plays per game by Sumlin as he hit a seven-year low just this past year at 72-plays per game.

    More emphasis on the run game and controlling the clock instead of looking like a basketball team on a fast break could be a simple solution.

    If Aggie fans want Chavis to succeed in College Station, they better look for Sumlin to tweak his offense, because from now on, the faster Sumlin wants to go offensively, it only sets Chavis up to fail in the end and the numbers prove that.

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