Texas A&M football needs to clean up multiple parts of their game to get to CFP

The Aggies need to clean up a few things before they can think about a College Football Playoff appearance.

Coach Mike Elko talked about what the team could do better after being upset on the road against South Carolina.

By no means did we think it was going to be a pushover. South Carolina has played great this year against the best teams regardless of winning or losing, and the Gamecocks are getting better each week.

However, some internal issues need to be fixed if they want to get to the SEC Championship this season.

Penalties and run defense need to be cleaned up

Seven penalties for 67 yards. That's what the Aggies had to deal with internally when they lost to South Carolina.

This was a frustrating issue for Aggie fans especially in late in the first half when a fumble recovery by the Aggies benefited them on a huge return in deep field goal range. That was negated due to a defensive penalty against Texas A&M.

This could've made it a 23-17 halftime score favoring A&M if Randy Bond was able to kick a long one through. At least, it could've been a 20-17 score. The Aggies weren't given that chance. South Carolina kicked in a field goal to make it a 20-20 ballgame at the half.

This was something that Elko addressed in the weekly press conference early in the week.

"The conversation is, you can't have post-snap 15 yard penalties. They're killers. They're selfish. You can't do it. I got to find a different way to get that message across because it's clearly not working," Elko said.

You can be a great team all you want, but being an undisciplined team will get you nowhere.

In terms of the run defense, the defense just has to tackle better. There were too many missed opportunities to sack LaNorris Sellers, and the Aggies just missed.

The run defense is apart of the missed tackles category. 286 rushing yards for given up by the Aggie defense against South Carolina. Raheim Sanders went for a season-high 144 rushing yards and a touchdown.

There's plenty of depth changes to look at as well. Amari Daniels will now be trusted as the main running back after it was reported that Le'Veon Moss will be done for the season.

There's also still a question day-by-day as to who the starting quarterback will be.

The Aggies have plenty of problems to solve already, they don't need internal issues like silly penalties to add to that.