Why this analyst gave the Texas A&M football team an “F” for Week 11

I’ll be the first to admit that the Texas A&M football team played an extremely rough game on Saturday to Ole Miss. Their 15-0 halftime deficit made that clear, as A&M couldn’t create offense if Jimbo Fisher’s life depended on it.

I’d even go so far as to call it an “F” first half.

But A&M bounced back in the second half. Nobody will deny it — the Aggies outplayed the Ole Miss Rebels in the second half, even if it was too little too late. Even Zach Calzada’s back-to-back interceptions likely would not have happened if the Aggies weren’t fighting an uphill battle.

Why did CBS Sports’ Barrett Sallee give the Texas A&M football team an “F” for their Week 11 performance?

Again, I will admit that the Aggies played a terrible first half. Still, they bounced back with an undeniably dominant second half. So why did this CBS Sports analyst give the Aggies an “F” for their overall performance? Here’s what Barrett Sallee said.

"No. 11 Texas A&M fell 29-19 to Ole Miss for its third loss of the season. The Aggies had a very faint chance at making the CFP and winning it all, but that disappeared faster than a bottle of champagne in The Grove."

I’m always annoyed with CBS Sports’ team grades after any individual week because they have bold takes with little to no explanation. The closest thing Aggie fans got to an explanation this time around was an underwhelming metaphor involving The Grove and a bottle of champagne.

This leaves us with no answers as to why somebody would give A&M an “F” for a close loss against a top-15 college football team. Here are some significant stats from Saturday’s loss against Ole Miss.

• Yards: TAMU 378, Ole Miss 504
• Yards Per Play: TAMU 5.32, Ole Miss 5.42
• Time of Possession: TAMU 30:03, Ole Miss 29:57
• Turnovers: TAMU 2, Ole Miss 1

I could go through every stat from the entirety of the game and one thing would become abundantly clear — the Aggies weren’t far off from victory. It’s always a ridiculous argument to make when saying this, but if you put another 15 minutes on the clock, A&M wins this game.

I say all of this to make a simple point — giving the Texas A&M football team an “F” only proves that you turned the game off after the first half.

For perspective on how illogical these grades are, Alabama only received an A (as opposed to an A+) for a 59-3 victory. I guess they shouldn’t have allowed that field goal.