No. 20 Texas A&M’s hopes at a trip to Atlanta for the SEC Championship were slashed in a 17-7 defeat to No. 3 Texas in the long-awaited return of the Lone Star Showdown.
“Losing our last three conference games and not being able to close the deal and going to Atlanta,” coach Mike Elko said. “Yeah. I mean, it sucks. There’s no sugarcoating it. There’s no soft words around it. We had our opportunities, and we didn’t get it done. And so it’s disappointing.”
Offense gets shutout, fails to capitalize in second half
The Aggies’ offense wasn’t without chances in the second half.
Senior wide receiver Jahdae Walker resurrected the Kyle Field crowd when he blocked a punt that allowed A&M to set up shop at the 19-yard line. Redshirt freshman quarterback Marcel Reed managed to string together a couple passes that made it first-and-goal at the five-yard line.
The Aggies spent the first three downs inching their way closer to paydirt, but Elko’s fourth-down gamble didn’t pay off when junior running back Amari Daniels was stuffed three yards behind the line on A&M’s last real chance at points.
“I hold to the fact that if we want to be the team that we need to be, we have to be able to convert fourth-and-ones,” Elko said. “You have to, and obviously we didn’t but we have to.”
That possession came directly after the offense flamed out following a junior JACK Cashius Howell-forced fumble that kept the Aggies in it.
All night long, Texas’ top-flight defense made A&M’s offense seem powerless.
A&M’s rushing offense could only muster 2.9 yards per carry, leaving Reed to try and overcome difficult situations with his arm. The quarterback threw for 146 of the team’s 244 yards of offense as the offense went zero-for-two in the red zone in its scoreless performance.
A&M’s defensive line takes the night off
When A&M brought junior defensive end Nic Scourton in from Purdue to his hometown to play for the Aggies, it expected to be able to lean on a ferocious pass rush to dictate the tempo of games.
Pair him with junior DE Shemar Stewart and senior defensive tackle Shemar Turner, and the Aggies should be able to get after the passer without having to blitz additional defenders.
It turned out that redshirt junior quarterback Quinn Ewers would have enough time to set up camp in the pocket unimpeded and find his receivers open down the field all night long.
Even after standout junior left tackle Kelvin Banks Jr. left the game for the Horns with a leg injury, the Aggies failed to take advantage of a backup tackle and didn’t record a sack from straight pressure. The lone first half sack for A&M was courtesy of a schemed-up blitz where sophomore linebacker Taurean York got home.
Well, maybe the pass rush was strategically sacrificed to shore up the Horns’ rushing attack? Nope.
Texas repeatedly gashed the A&M defense on the ground, averaging five sack-adjusted yards per carry on its way to a 244-yard night. Texas sophomore RB Quintervion Wisner salted the game away with 48 rushing yards in the fourth quarter.
“Tonight we just got way too many misfits, way too many lack of leverage, way too many just simple execution errors,” Elko said. “They’re good, they’re talented, and hats off to them because they physically annihilated us.”
The Longhorns’ quarterbacks also maximized their legs, converting three different third or fourth downs on the ground, on their way to racking up 43 yards.
Taurean York put the defense on his back
York was able to leave the field knowing he left it all out there.
“[The program has] come a long way,” York said. “I always tell people, it used to be a circus around here. Now it’s a college football program. It feels like home for a lot of people. We have a really good locker room. Nobody in our locker room, in all of our losses, nobody has been pointing the finger, because we understand it’s a cumulative effort with the team…It stings, bro. It really does.”
The Temple native began the game with his hair on fire, flying to every ball carrier and often being the first to make contact before a horde of Aggie defenders could get them on the ground.
His true impact was felt in the second half, when the team captain slithered his way through the interior of the Longhorns’ offensive line and hurried Ewers into a tipped pass that junior cornerback Will Lee III took 93 yards to the house for the pick six.
Then, on the very next drive York managed to pop up in the right place at the right time to fall on a Ewers fumble that was forced by Howell.
The defense was a sieve for the majority of the game — and, as the middle linebacker, York played a role in that — but a few timely impact plays from York allowed the Maroon and White to hang around long enough to make it a game. The linebacker finished his day with 10 total tackles, a sack, 3.5 tackles for loss and a fumble recovery.
Self-inflicted errors mar first quarter
After Texas won the kickoff and deferred to the second half, A&M nearly took advantage to get an early score. Reed hit a big play to freshman athlete Terry Bussey down the left sideline on the game’s second play to kickstart a drive that brought the Aggies to the Longhorns’ 10-yard line.
Staring at a fourth-and-one, Elko elected to go for it, much to the Kyle Field crowd’s delight. The Aggies handed it off to Daniels up the gut, where he got stuffed for no gain to give the Longhorns a turnover on downs.
After a quick three-and-out forced by the defense, A&M’s offense again had the ball in plus territory. Reed rolled right and found Walker for six yards to move the chains. But, on the next play Reed got over-ambitious and heaved an unneeded deep shot while rolling right again, only to be picked off by a toe-tapping junior safety Michael Taaffe.
On the subsequent drive by the Texas offense, A&M had it dead to rights with a third-and-ten. Sophomore JACK Rylan Kennedy had Ewers in his grasp, but the Southlake product wriggled free and scampered down the right sideline, bum ankle and all, for a 26-yard gain to keep the drive alive.
Later on the same drive, Ewers lobbed up a pass in the red zone that junior cornerback Will Lee III leaped in front of, but the ball fell through his hands and harmlessly to the ground on third down. On the next play, redshirt freshman QB Arch Manning entered the game and took the keeper in for a 15 yard score to put the Burnt Orange up 7-0.
The Aggies could have built a seven-point lead if they had capitalized on their opportunities, but a few mistakes left them staring at a 7-0 deficit after the first 15 minutes.
The Aggies finished their regular season at 8-4 with a 5-3 conference record in Elko’s first year at the helm.
“I continue to say that this place is special, and this atmosphere is special,” Elko said. “And what we need to do is find a way to build a team that matches that, and we’re going to continue to work to do that.”