Texas A&M Football vs. Auburn: Instant Reaction

Texas A&M Football Defeats Auburn, 27-10

This game for Texas A&M football was a tale of two halves.

I can’t stress enough how strongly the 2022 vibes were coming on in the first half. Not only were we seeing an offense that couldn’t get out of its own way (including penalties in key moments and clock management issues) and a defense looking all too porous against the run, but an injury late in the half to Conner Weigman had the Maroon and White faithful more than just a little concerned headed into halftime. The Aggies barely clung to a lead at a 6-3 mark. This wasn’t helped, too, by an overturned scoop-and-score by the defense—though the Aggie D certainly could have folded in response, they stood tall and forced a Tiger punt. Regardless, though, the feelings weren’t great at halftime if you were an Aggie fan—they had failed to get even one first down in the second quarter.

But then, coming out of the halftime break, everything started going great for the Aggies. Max Johnson was on point, throwing two touchdowns in the third quarter—one to his brother, and one to Evan Stewart that was absolutely beautifully placed. The defense was playing with their hair on fire, shutting Auburn out from gaining a single first down in the third quarter, and the score was 20-3 before you knew it.

Early in the fourth quarter, Auburn returned a fumble for a touchdown on a Rueben Owens carry. This felt like another huge momentum swing, as the Aggies only managed one first down on the next possession, and the Tigers started to get some momentum against the Aggies in the ground game. Once they approached the red zone, however, the Aggie front enforced their will, moving the Tigers back out of field goal range. What a statement for the defense for Texas A&M football.

The offense answered the bell at that point, with Amari Daniels busting open an absolutely huge run—both in terms of yardage and momentum—to get the Aggies down to the four yard line. Le’Veon Moss would get across the goal line one play later to put the Aggies up 17.

Two things, quickly—I think a huge reason that the Aggies looked so good offensively in the second half compared to the first was the adjustments by Bobby Petrino. This was very similar to what we saw against the Hurricanes, with an aimless Aggie offense in the second quarter looking much better in the third and fourth periods. The other thing… how about that defensive front? I think the official total was seven sacks on the day (though you could make an argument for it being eight). It was spread all around, too—no one player had more than 1.5 sacks.

Now we await word from Jimbo on Weigman. We may not hear anything until later in the week, but if we learned one thing today, it’s that we’re in good hands with Max Johnson. All the same, we hope Weigman gets well soon.