The No. 7 Texas A&M football team downed the Rice Owls 38-10 Saturday. With the win, the Aggies recorded their first 3-0 start since 2010.
A&M scored one touchdown in the first quarter, a 14-yard pass from sophomore quarterback Kenny Hill to Speedy Noil, the first touchdown of Noil’s career. The Aggies struck twice through the air in the second quarter, once on a 13-yard strike to Ricky-Seals Jones and again on a 48-yarder to Josh Reynolds, and took a 21-7 lead into halftime.
Hill would throw another touchdown to Reynolds in the third quarter, and finished 20-for-31 with 300 yards and four touchdowns on the night. With the performance, Hill became the first A&M quarterback to pass for over 1,000 yards in three games.
A&M’s running back corps was also effective, averaging above five yards per carry as a group on 21 attempts.
Despite the accolades, the Aggies didn’t score on their opening drive and were not pleased with their first half performance.
“I think we started off slow,” Hill said. “We just came out sloppy, not focused, not ready to go. We’re going to work on that, and we’ll be better next week.”
Freshman defensive end Myles Garrett totaled 2.5 sacks during the game, tying A&M’s freshman sack record of 5.5 through just three games. Garrett is tied with former players Sam Adams and DaMontre Moore.
“The future’s bright for that young man I would guess,” said head coach Kevin Sumlin. “He’s definitely a guy that creates some havoc, particularly in passing situations. He’s doing a good job.”
Despite holding Rice to 10 points, the Owls outgained the Aggies in total yards for the second straight year, outpacing A&M 481 to 477.
“It was decent, but I felt like we could’ve played better,” said linebacker Justin Bass. “We need to be sharper on our assignments, better execution — just be a smarter defense overall.”
Sumlin said that though his team felt they didn’t perform up to expectations, there is still satisfaction to be taken in the four-touchdown victory.
“To be able to win in the fashion that we did and not play as well right off the bat, I think there’s some negatives to that but there’s some positives too,” Sumlin said. “There are a lot of people that would have liked to have won 38-10 today and not be happy with how they played.”
The Aggies will travel to Dallas next weekend to face the SMU Mustangs. Kickoff is at 2:30 and the game will be televised on ESPN2.