3 Takeaways from Infuriatingly Close Loss to Bama

Texas A&M Football hung in with most talented team on their schedule

Let’s close this article with a positive here: this Texas A&M football team, even without their star starting QB, hung in with the most talented team they will face for the next year-plus (Texas A&M avoids Alabama as the SEC moves away from divisions next year). This was a game they doubtless should have won, for many reasons. The absence of Weigman was evident much of the time, as there were several times receivers were streaking open downfield that Max refused to throw to. Those are the passes that Weigman has a proclivity for connecting on. Max, though, has enough data for us to now pretty conclusively say that he just doesn’t make them.

That said, though, this is the toughest defense that Max Johnson will face this year. Now, he is going to face some solid defenses in less friendly confines moving forward (namely next week), but there is no unit that’s as intimidating as the Bama D that he just faced down. That’s the good news.

The frustrating thing about this game is also the thing that is encouraging moving forward: this team had a lot of chances to take down the Tide. There were more than the Aggies’ fair share of mistakes to prevent them from taking advantage of those chances, but it’s not like these were two teams that didn’t even belong on the same field. The Aggies found relative success on offense at times against this Alabama defense, and the defense for Texas A&M football held the Tide to their worst rushing performance in years. There are areas that need work. There are things that need to be fixed. But this is a team that still has all its goals in front of it. Achieving them starts next week at Neyland Stadium.