From the very start, this game was a total disaster for the Texas A&M football team. The Aggies looked terrible on offense — only managing three points by halftime. That said, their late second-quarter field goal was huge, giving them some momentum to finish out the half.
To begin the second half, the offense still looked stagnant though. They’d kick off the first drive of the second half with a drive that netted -3 yards in total. Thankfully, this would be followed by a huge three-play, 75-yard touchdown drive.
And that would be all of the scoring that this offense did on Saturday en route to a 20-10 loss. It was an extremely depressing loss and nothing will help in that regard. Still, a few players played strong games. Today, I’m going to go over winners and losers from Texas A&M’s brutal loss on Saturday.
Winner No. 1: Texas A&M Football DB Antonio Johnson
If the Texas A&M football team. had won the game, Antonio Johnson would have been the player of the game. The Aggie defensive back seemed like he was the only player on the team who was bringing energy to the field. After he made a big play, he’d pop up with a celebration that hyped up the entire team.
Outside of just energy, however, Johnson had the best game of his career. The sophomore defender deflected two passes and had 1.5 tackles for loss in timely situations. He also had eight tackles on the night, as he was all over the field.
Unfortunately, this didn’t help an A&M team much, which struggled early on defense and late on offense. If everybody played as well as Johnson, it would have been a blowout victory.
Loser No. 1: Texas A&M Football QB Zach Calzada
I’ve held out long enough — it’s time to start bad-mouthing Zach Calzada. The Aggie backup quarterback has looked unimpressive in multiple games this year but his most recent game against the Arkansas Razorbacks takes the cake.
I’d like to get some excuses out of the way first though. For starters, the offensive line was absolutely terrible. An already dinged-up unit saw an injury to Jahmir Johnson early in the game, which only compounded the Aggies’ issues. The unit as a whole allowed eight QB hurries, nine tackles for loss, and three sacks.
Heck, even the receivers were dinged up, with starters Caleb Chapman and Chase Lane sidelined with injuries.
Still, Calzada didn’t help anybody’s cause. The redshirt sophomore quarterback looked like he had glued the football to his hand before the game. What initially appeared as the receivers’ inability to get open quickly became more obvious. Even when receivers were open, Calzada was not throwing the ball.
We saw it in a replay too many times — Calzada has a guy open in a tight, but open window and decides not to hit the guy that the play was designed for. It was truly difficult to watch.
He’d finish the game with a 29.9 QBR according to ESPN, passing for just 151 yards on 20 completions. He wouldn’t hit a receiver in the endzone and tossed a single interception in the game.
Winner No. 2: Texas A&M Football RB Isaiah Spiller
When you look through the box score on offense for Texas A&M, there are little-to-no statistics that will make you feel good about this game. Zach Calzada seemed like he was afraid to throw the football. When he did throw it, his passes didn’t look great.
The offensive unit as a whole looked terrible.
Thankfully, the offense did have a saving grace. Or at least the semblance of one. I’m referring to Isaiah Spiller.
Spiller did what we’ve been expecting of him all season long. He ran the ball efficiently behind a subpar offensive line. He didn’t necessarily have any space to run, but he was able to slither out of tackles with ease and gain more yards than he was due. Because of how awful the offensive line was, his numbers didn’t look flashy.
Spiller finished the game with just 12 carries for 95 yards and a touchdown, leading to the question — why didn’t Jimbo Fisher run the ball more frequently?
Spiller also had 26 receiving yards on five catches. Sadly, this was third-most on the team and only nine yards away from leading the Aggies on Saturday.
Loser No. 2: Texas A&M’s Offensive Line
I don’t even want to write this slide.
The Texas A&M Football team’s offensive line looked awful last night. If you didn’t watch the game, you may not fully understand just how bad it was.
There was no room for Spiller and Achane in the running game. Heck, a large portion of Spiller’s rushing yards, which look somewhat impressive, came from a single 67-yard rush. All night long, Spiller was turning water into wine. Unfortunately, Achane is a more north-south kind of guy, which is why he had such a rough performance.
In the passing game, the offensive line was somehow even worse. The Razorbacks were able to rush three guys and apply heavy pressure on Zach Calzada. That’s not a joke, unfortunately.
I threw these stats up earlier in the article, but here they are again. Arkansas managed to hurry Calzada eight times, record nine tackles for loss, and notch three sacks. If anything, it feels like a small miracle that the Aggies managed to hold them to such modest numbers.
Winner No. 3: Texas A&M Football LB Aaron Hansford
Aaron Hansford doesn’t get off scot-free. The Aggie linebacker had one of the worst plays that I’ve seen in a long time on Saturday.
At the start of the second quarter, KJ Jefferson completed a short pass to AJ Green on 3rd and 3. It was disappointing, but shouldn’t have gone for more than five or six yards. This defense had other plans. After two missed tackles, Aaron Hansford had Green dead-to-rights. Rather than tackling him to the ground, he pushed the Razorback receiver toward the endzone. This gave Green enough of a boost to run for a touchdown.
Three separate Aggie defenders missed easy tackles, including arguably the team’s best two defenders in Leon O’Neal and Aaron Hansford.
Thankfully, Hansford made up for this awful play by having a strong game after this point. Granted, that was a devastating second-quarter play, but Hansford led the team with one sack, 1.5 tackles for loss, and eight tackles.
He was all over the field, playing particularly well in a dominant second half.
Loser No. 3: The Texas A&M Football team’s College Football Playoff chances
I do already have a post published on why the Texas A&M Football team is still a College Football Playoff contender. Casual fans will argue that they’re not any longer. I’ll tell you right now — that’s an extremely stupid opinion to have.
There is some truth to this though — Texas A&M’s College Football Playoff chances took a huge hit on Saturday. The general belief around College Station is that the Aggies can afford just a single loss this season. Heck, a single loss last year kept them out of the four-team competition.
Still, this is a team that lost to a ranked SEC team away from home with a banged-up offensive line, two starting receivers out, and their backup quarterback under center. Jumping to conclusions about this team, specifically the offense, is extremely premature at this point in time.
Still, even if they got unlucky, Texas A&M no longer has any room for error. They won’t beat Alabama with the way they’ve been looking lately, but if they did, they’d be right back in the College Football Playoff race.
They’re not out right now, but things just got a lot trickier for Jimbo Fisher to give his program its first playoff appearance.