“The Pulse: Texas A&M Football” Recounts Painful Tennessee Loss

The Pulse: Texas A&M Football Highlights Nolen; Recaps Painful Loss

As always, Wednesday night following a game means an episode of “The Pulse: Texas A&M Football.” This episode recaps everything that went on in the game against Tennessee, and highlights former Powell, TN resident Walter Nolen, now wearing #0 for the Aggies. You can watch the episode at this link or below:

As I mentioned, this episode starts by talking for a while about Walter Nolen, who played a year of high school football in Powell, Tennessee. Powell is located very near by to Knoxville, so the game this past weekend was a veritable homecoming for big Walt.

The episode also featured interviews with players talking about the experience of road games. With the struggles that Texas A&M football has faced on the road recently, this was an interesting segment to see. It certainly doesn’t seem as though the players have any sort of mental block when it comes to playing on the road; in fact, judging from this episode, it seems just the opposite.

Another thing that was interesting here, and will always be one of the top things that I personally watch for on episodes following a loss or when adversity strikes, is seeing the attitude and reaction from the players, both in the middle of the game and in the locker room. As fans, we can get really lost in the day to day and emotional rollercoaster of the season. What matters is the players’ attitude. From what we saw in the pregame, the players looked locked in. That’s what played out on the field as well, too, with Texas A&M football coming out of the gate strong on both offense and defense.

How you sustain that kind of juice, though, is extremely important—especially on the road. It’s hard to tell if there was one single moment that felt like a turn of the tide for the Aggie offense—you could point to the sack where Chase Bisontis was pushed right into Max Johnson, or maybe the fourth down stop late in the half—but whatever it was, something happened. Credit to Tennessee’s defense for turning up the intensity as well, of course.

In any case, this Texas A&M football team still seemed locked in at halftime, judging from what we saw in the locker room. The underthrown ball to Moss out of the backfield was huge, as was the special teams touchdown for the Vols. But even then, the Aggies’ talent was making plays, with Owens picking up a huge chunk that they needed and Noah Thomas making an amazing catch downfield. The consistency, though, just wasn’t there. Hopefully the next time we review one of these, the outcome will have been different.