Three takeaways from Texas A&M football's frustrating opening loss vs Notre Dame

Three takeaways from Texas A&M football's disappointing loss to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Texas A&M football fell last night to the top-10 Notre Dame Fighting Irish in a back-and-forth defensive battle that was decided in the final minutes. Normally, that wouldn't be a result that leaves so many people feeling so dissatisfied, but there was more going on in this one that drew the ire of fans.

There will be some overreaction, as always, but there are going to be some things that we can take forward as well as some things that we should probably leave behind. In the immediate aftermath, these can be hard to separate out—but with nearly 24 hours of room, now, I think we can begin to distinguish between the two.

Here are three things we can take away from last night's loss.

3 Takeaways from Texas A&M football vs. Notre Dame: Defense looked more physical, but still needs improvement

The Aggies, for most of the night, held up well against a Notre Dame rushing attack that promises to be a dominant one throughout the year—especially with Riley Leonard behind center. I say "for most of the night" because there were two notable snaps where that was not the case: both explosive plays that ended with a touchdown. One went for 47 yards, and another went for 21.

Take those two plays out, and the Aggies held the Irish to 4.06 yards per carry—a really decent number given that there were no sacks. Of course, that's not how it works; as things stand, A&M allowed 5.82 YPC thanks to those two explosives.

Apart from those two displays of poor tackling, though, I was really impressed with the physicality of the Aggies, especially in the secondary. Dalton Brooks getting tossed for targeting was a tough break, but Marcus Ratcliffe played well in his stead; Will Lee and Jayvon Thomas both tackled well at corner, too.

I'm less worried about the lack of sacks, given the play calls from Notre Dame. Leonard never really held the ball to pass downfield, and OC Mike Denbrock did a good job not calling anything with slow-developing routes.

It was a matter of the defense making a few bad run fits at the end of the day. The physicality that you hoped to see was there, and the Ags were able to dominate the line of scrimmage for a lot of the night.