BATON ROUGE, La. — The Aggies’ trip to Death Valley led to a disappointing end to the 2019 regular season.
With LSU scoring in the first four minutes of the game, the Aggies were off to a rough start. Junior running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire began the first quarter with a five-yard rushing touchdown. The next drive began a series of incomplete passes for junior quarterback Kellen Mond, testing the offensive line.
“They got out there fast and started quickly,” A&M coach Jimbo Fisher said. “We had a couple of plays and a couple of penalties early that stalled our drive and you can’t do that against a good team.”
As A&M’s offense and defense struggled, Heisman frontrunner and LSU senior quarterback Joe Burrow capitalized on the weakness of the defensive line, completing every drive in the first quarter with a touchdown.
“I’ve said it all along after watching the tape that [Joe Burrow] is playing as good as anybody,” Fisher said.
The second quarter started with LSU up by 21 points, which quickly became a 28-point lead with freshman running back Tyrion Davis-Price’s four-yard rushing touchdown on the play.
The Aggies had four sacks in this game, matching their season-high. Although the defense stepped up at some points, the offensive line was unable to give Mond adequate time to complete passes while he faced pressure from the LSU defense and was sacked five times.
“I know that I was not on point,” Mond said. “We had a couple of bad drives and some stuff with protection, so I feel as a whole offense, we gotta do better.”
Seven minutes into the third quarter, freshman running back Isaiah Spiller finally put some points on the scoreboard with a one-yard rushing touchdown, bringing the score to 34-7.
The night continued with the Tigers completing two more touchdowns against the Aggies. In the last three minutes of the game, freshman quarterback James Foster fumbled the ball, allowing for a successful safety for the Tigers and setting the final score to 50-7.
Looking forward to the bowl game, Fisher said the team will take this loss as a learning experience and look toward a successful bowl game.
“Make corrections, put them in our memory bank, work on them, then move forward,” Fisher said.