Tim DeRuyter is more popular right now than Rick Perry. And if Texas A&M's defense continues to play like it did in Saturday night's 48-7 season-opening victory over Stephen F. Austin, he'll have a job worthy of a Governor's Mansion.
DeRuyter's highly anticipated 3-4 attacking defense lived up to the hype. The numbers were impressive. SFA had only 266 yards, 61 of them coming on the last possession against reserves. The longest play SFA's offense produced was a 38-yard interception return by A&M cornerback Dustin Harris for a touchdown. SFA converted only 3 of 15 third downs.
The Aggies did that basically without All-American Von Miller, who left early in the second quarter after spraining an ankle. Miller had only an assisted tackle.
Yet, the most impressive thing about A&M's defensive performance wasn't any of the statistics. It was that A&M's defense looked the part.
The Aggies knew where to line up and what to do, and did it with the kind of reckless abandon that hasn't been seen around here since the Wrecking Crew defenses of the 1980s and '90s.
Many things were impressive about the defensive effort, but there's no way of knowing if this is a Top 25 defense or one that might be just somewhat better than last year's unit that finished 105th in total defense. That's because SFA is an unknown commodity.
FCS teams can be great one season, lousy the next. They have only 63 scholarships to give and work with players the bigger schools didn't recruit along with the ones they cast off. SFA won the Southland Conference last year at 10-3, but the previous two seasons the Lumberjacks were a combined 4-19.
SFA is picked to win the Southland Conference in large part because of that and record-setting quarterback Jeremy Moses, who had a rather pedestrian game -- 19 of 37 for 171 yards. Then again, SFA's other starters on offense included five sophomores and two freshmen. They struggled mightily facing an A&M unit that started three seniors and six juniors.
This season opener wasn't much different than last year's. A&M easily scored on its first possession against New Mexico but managed only 8 yards on its next three drives to struggle its way to a 20-3 lead. The Aggies' offense kicked it in gear in the second half, with three straight impressive touchdown drives en route a 41-6 victory.
New Mexico, though, was a horrible team. The Lobos went 1-11, including a 37-13 loss to Air Force, which had four turnovers under defensive coordinator DeRuyter. That was a typical game for Air Force's defense, but A&M's effort against the Lobos ended up being an exception.
A&M allowed 521 yards the following week against Utah State and held only one other opponent under 300 yards.
Again, the most important thing about Saturday night wasn't A&M's opponent or the 3-4 alignment. It was the effort and attitude that went into what the defense did for 60 minutes.
This is a much better unit. DeRuyter and his staff deserve a ton of accolades. There's also more talent and much more experience, which leads to smarter play.
Former A&M defensive coordinator Joe Kines had to be smiling somewhere Saturday night. He had a tough two years in Aggieland, taking the fall by many for the unit's shortcomings when the primary culprits were a lack of talent and little experience. But one thing Kines was a stickler about was tackling, and A&M had a great game wrapping up. That has been a problem during the unit's decline in the last decade.
The Aggies had 16 defenders with at least two tackles, which was impressive because 19 of SFA's 62 plays were incomplete passes.
The only thing A&M's defense didn't do was force a lot of turnovers. Other than Harris' interception, the other takeaway was a fumble recovery by the kickoff team.
It was an inspiring effort before a school-record crowd for a home opener. Those fans will expect the unit to take another step toward becoming the Wrecking Crew against Louisiana Tech, which could manage only 336 yards in a 20-6 victory over Grambling State.
If the defense wants to see what happens when expectations rise, just look at quarterback Jerrod Johnson and the offense. Johnson was 28 of 40 for 322 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. The offense ran 99 plays for 539 yards with no turnovers and only one penalty.
Yet there was a sense that the offense underachieved, because it seemed that A&M should have hung at least 60 points on the board.
Those are good problems to have, though.
*
It was a great weekend for DeRuyter's relatives visiting from California. They enjoyed some Texas high school football, attending A&M Consolidated's 38-24 victory over Cypress Woods on Friday night. Jake DeRuyter is a senior quarterback/deep-snapper for the Tigers, who had a huge crowd for their season opener.
*
Louisiana Tech's coaching staff includes a pair of former Aggie assistants under Dennis Franchione -- defensive line coach Stan Eggen and special teams/inside receivers coach Mark Tommerdahl.
Notice about comments:
Theeagle.com is pleased to offer readers the ability to comment on stories. We expect our readers to engage in lively, yet civil discourse. theeagle.com cannot promise that readers will not occasionally find offensive or inaccurate comments posted in the comments area. Responsibility for the statements posted lies with the person submitting the comment, not theeagle.com. If you find a comment that is objectionable, please click "report abuse" and we will review it for possible removal. Please be reminded, however, that in accordance with our Terms of Use and federal law, we are under no obligation to remove any third party comments posted on our website. Full terms and conditions can be read here.
Aggiesports.com is proud to offer our users enhanced commenting features. You can now build user-to-user connections, follow friends’ recent posts, add an avatar that fits your personality and more. If you have posted here before you’ll need to sign up again, and if you’ve never posted start now by signing up! If you've already registered for the new comments on www.theeagle.com then just use your Eagle username to log in and start commenting.