Instant reaction: Sloppy game aside, Texas A&M football vanquishes MSU with attitude

Texas A&M football dispatches Mississippi State despite perennial Starkville voodoo

There's just something about when Texas A&M football plays in Starkville that always seems to trip up the Aggies. Watching this game down to down, there was absolutely no doubt of who the better team was—even so, fans were always on the edge of their seats.

Let's be clear here: good A&M teams have lost to worse MIssissippi State teams than this. As the announcers said, the Bulldgs, ever since their game in Austin a few weeks ago, have looked like a different team.

Michael Van Buren in particular has really settled in as the starting QB for MSU. Watching the tape from before this game, he was struggling mightily to complete normal, intermediate-depth throws. No such inaccuracy in this one—you can see the growth in his game.

I don't think many people would have predicted that Mississippi State would be A&M's highest-scoring opponent of the year, but there you have it. We should give the flowers where they are due.

Of course, this has as much to do with the Aggie defense as it does with the State offense. When you're in a game like this—one where an upstart underdog is seeking mightily to create their own energy in order to pull off an upset—you have to shut things down early. Instead, the Aggie defense seemed porous in the first half, giving the Bulldogs too much belief.

It didn't end up mattering a whole lot, since the Aggie offense was scoring on nearly every single drive. Conner Weigman was on point for much of the first two quarters—he sailed one pass that got intercepted, but every other drive ended in the end zone.

The second half felt a little dicier for the offense, but the defense did their part to step up, holding MSU to only 7 points over the final 30 minutes—and even that came on a very short field.

The fight and the attitude that the Aggies showed in the second half was impressive to me as well. It would have been pretty easy to throw up your hands when things were going a different way than you wanted—especially when it seemed like every big play the Aggies made was wiped out by a flag.

Instead, the team fought back. Things certainly got overly chippy at times, and players should have kept their cool. It was clear that, to a degree, the Bulldogs were hoping to act as an irritant to the strongly-favored Aggies.

But that kind of attitude has been lacking in this program for quite some time. It only ended up boiling over one time, and honestly looked as though MSU themselves took it too far more than A&M did. For the most part, I mean, the Aggies played with a chip on their shoulder, yet controlled at the same time.

It was uneven. It was bumpy. But it was a road win in Starkville—only the third such result the Aggies have achieved since joining the conference. The rarest of jewels for the Aggies.

Clean things up, and be ready for LSU next week.