Texas A&M vs Notre Dame takeaways: Defensive concerns still linger
This is part of the issue for the Aggies. Some of the concerns that A&M fans had about the defense really began to manifest themselves in this game— to be fair, there were some great plays made by Notre Dame, but the Ags had the ability to hold them to far fewer points than they actually got.
The tackling was not the level you want to see out of an Elko-coached defense— on one play in particular, Dalton Brooks bounced off of Jadarian Price for what would have been a TFL, and instead, Price runs the ball for a touchdown.
Those kinds of things need to be cleaned up, but I'm beginning to worry if they can be this season. The Aggies have a bye to start to get things together, but it would take a remarkable in-season turnaround for them to make it happen.
The lack of pass rush with four players was a bit concerning, as well. The Aggies were getting home when they brought blitzes, but they didn't hurry Carr up enough from down to down in the way I thought they could.
Cashius Howell was all over the place early on, but wasn't making as huge of an impact later on in the game. That's something to monitor going forward, as he was the biggest reason I thought the Aggies could generate a pass rush with only four.