A&M put the clamps on Taylen Green running, much more

FAYETTEVILLE — Texas A&M did an outstanding job containing quarterback Taylen Green on the ground in Saturday’s 21-17 win over the Razorbacks.

Green rushed 13 times for six yards. He was 23 of 41 passing for 279 yards, a touchdown and one interception. Sam Pittman was asked on Monday what A&M did to limit Green on the ground?

“They just, they were messing with him,” Pittman said. “They were running at him, running at the mesh, and they were sitting there and reading the mesh. First play of the game, and then the same play comes along and he gets around that later in the game. The looks, I think, were a little bit difficult for him. But, he’s got a lot on his plate. I think he’ll be fine. I know he’ll be fine, but that’s what they were doing. They were continuing to mix up the looks for him, and I think the other thing is, our snap, when we’re going to the left snapping, we’re snapping it to the right. I think that has a lot to do with the timing of our run game. When he’s reaching back here, and reading over here, I believe it becomes difficult, and we’ve got to help him get the snap down the middle where it’s supposed to be so he can have a little bit more time to make those decisions.”

Green has rushed 72 times for 331 yards and four touchdowns this season. A running back who is gaining trust from the coaches and getting more carries is true freshman Braylen Russell.

“We’ve been comfortable playing him,” Pittman said. “It’s just we had those other backs early that we felt like could make yards for us. We’ve always had trust in him and he’ll continue to get more and more reps as the season goes. I think he’s a really good back. He runs extremely hard. Most of him not playing early was his ability to identify in pass pro, and he’s gotten a lot better with that too.”

On Saturday against the Aggies, Russell rushed three times for 15 yards. On the season he has 16 carries for 62 yards and two touchdowns.

On the other side of the ball, Pittman was asked if he saw anything different from his defense on A&M’s final two or three drives?

“I mean, not really,” Pittman said. “We got them down to the six-inch line, they threw a 12-yard out, or roll pass out. The next play, we broke, and they got a 35-yard run on us. The problem is, at the end of the run, we’ve just got to knock him out of bounds. We give a 15-yard (penalty), so it’s a 50-yard play. Well, that changed… What we were trying to do was change field position, well they just did, too. It came at the most in-opportune time. We got stuck a little bit on personnel on a drive, and then probably the most disappointing thing was we had an opportunity to get the ball back, and they ran right up the middle for eight, and then they converted the first down and we didn’t have, really, a chance to get the (ball). We probably had a chance to get the ball with 45, 50 seconds left there at the end, and we didn’t. We played a good game, but we allowed the same thing that hurt us a little bit against Auburn. Big plays, we’ve got to eliminate those for us, right now, for us to win. They played an excellent game, but we’ve got to be a little bit better on those big plays.”

As far as Green in the passing game. On the season, Green has completed 88 of 162 passes for 1,236 yards, five touchdowns and five interceptions. Green has been sacked 12 times and had to run for his life much of the time when trying to pass. Is it fair to expect him to make good decisions when under constant duress?

“Yeah, I think so,” Pittman said. “I mean, it’s not fair to ask him to be perfect, but I think so, and he’s working at it. I think he’ll get a lot better with it. There’s a lot out there on his plate, but yeah, I think if you asked him the same question, he’d say yes. So he’s certainly working at it. Bobby’s (Petrino) working with him on it. I’m not really concerned about him getting better at it. I think he’ll get better at it and have a good week.”

Arkansas and No. 4 Tennessee will kickoff at 6:30 p.m. Saturday night and televised on ABC.