Texas A&M dropped an extremely ugly game today to the South Carolina Gamecocks, losing 17-9 despite a late drive that looked like it may have a chance of scoring. The Aggies missed many chances in this one, but in a game when a lot of fans felt like they were going to get blown out, they kept it very close.
This was one of the ugliest games we've seen from this Texas A&M football team this year— but also, in a strange way, one of the best. There were moments where the ugliness entailed a complete lack of execution by A&M, but there were also a lot of moments where it was grittiness by this team to make the play that they needed to.
Marcel Reed was playing one of his best games of the season early on in this one. He looked decisive with his quick throws and was on target for the most part, with one notable exception when he airmailed it on an early third down. He used his legs effectively in key situations, though it wasn't something he was doing with regularity.
Texas A&M drops disappointing game to South Carolina to go below .500
This was despite a really tough game injury-wise for the Aggies; Mario Craver got hurt early on and was in and out of the lineup the rest of the game, making him the third A&M starting receiver and fourth receiver overall to be dealing with an injury. Aaron Gregory, TK Norman, and Isaiah Horton stepped up in some key moments, but missing three of your top four guys is cause for any team to struggle.
On defense, Texas A&M was extremely effective in containing what had been one of the best rushing offenses in the country so far this season right up until the very end. That effort was helped a lot by the fact that Carolina was missing their starting running back in Matt Fuller, and LaNorris Sellers got injured in the second quarter which severely limited him on the ground, but it was still impressive nonetheless.
The second-half penalties were absolutely killer, though. There's no guarantee that the Aggies were going to score on that red zone possession late in the third quarter, but after a perfect pass from Marcel to Isaiah Horton that the big receiver was just unable to pull in, they got moved so far back that it led to an eventual miss by David Olano. Likewise, with the Gamecocks on the edge of field goal range, the Aggies had gotten a stop— until a defensive holding against Tawfiq Byard kept the Carolina drive alive and positioned the Gamecocks to eventually take the lead.
On the subject of drops, if we're going to discuss Marcel's performance this game, we have to talk about the drops from Horton in particular. The huge receiver transfer that the Aggies were so excited about throughout this year really let them down in this game, as had he brought in that touchdown pass, the Aggies would have taken a 16-7 lead, and then two drops later in the fourth quarter ended up with the Aggies giving the ball back to South Carolina— and he nearly gave it right back with the special teams mishap on the ensuing punt.
Not that it mattered, of course, since the Aggies were unable to convert at midfield and LaNorris Sellers scored on his bum ankle seconds later. This game was a perfect summary of this Texas A&M season in so many ways— I predicted this as a loss all week, and it still feels like a huge disappointment. The Aggies will look to get back on track next week against Tennessee at home.
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