Texas A&M vs South Carolina Breakdown

Ahhh this sucks. My first article having to breakdown a loss, as I had not been signed yet by Saturday Morning Shotgun until after the Week 1 loss to Notre Dame. I am in unfamiliar territory, but it must be done. Unlike my previous game breakdown articles, I am going to focus on what went wrong along with what I liked with the game as a whole instead of breaking the game down piece by piece. Unfortunately, some hard truths need to be told. So, let's break it down.

Not to be captain obvious, but this was just a bad performance overall. Sure you came back from an early hole, but it quickly faded away in the second half. Something we have yet to see from the proclaimed “halftime adjustment king” in Coach Elko. What exactly went wrong?

The Bad 

• For starters, this was a very difficult spot for Texas A&M. Coming off your biggest win of the year at home, having to then go on the road in a hostile environment, while they are coming off a bye. That in itself is a tough spot, but it’s not an excuse. If you want to be a contending team in this league you are going to have plenty of spots like this one that you have to overcome. 

• We had 25 missed tackles, which after watching the game feels low. I have never seen an A&M team consistently miss that many tackles. Not just missed tackles, but missed sacks. Countless times we had perfectly dialed up blitzes, got home to Sellers, and simply couldn’t get him on the ground leading to a huge gain. You walked away with zero sacks and you easily should’ve had 4-5. That is beyond game altering and by far what has Elko fuming the most.

• Penalties by the handful. Looking at the box score we had 7, but like the missed tackles, it felt like a whole lot more. The Aggies have quietly been the most penalized team in the SEC by a large margin. Most of them are flat out inexcusable and are completely undisciplined. Whether they are late hits, unnecessary holdings, or false starts in the midst of a solid drive, they have been killing us and that proved so in a big way on Saturday.

• I’m not going to supercoat this, Le’veon Moss might’ve been the last guy we needed to lose to injury. Losing him in the first quarter was a recipe for a poor night offensively. He is what drives this offense and with Marcel’s running ability, it allows them both to be at their best. Without Moss, South Carolina was able to just key in on Marcel’s running threat, causing our offense to be extremely limited in the 2nd half. There were a handful of third/fourth and shorts that I know we would’ve got with Moss. As I write this, Elko confirmed that Moss will be out for the season. Just a giant blow to a team who went into the season without their 2nd option in Reuben Owens. It’s going to be very difficult to navigate the offense without Moss back there, especially against the defense Texas has.

• I’m all for being aggressive offensively. After 6 years of being ultra conservative with Jimbo, I am glad we have a coach with some balls and some sort of brain that isn’t afraid to go for it. That said, going for it in opponents territory is a bit much. Obviously it’s easy to say that when you go 0/2 and I wouldn’t be bringing this up had we converted. I just wasn’t a fan of the calls. First, you tush-push with your 170 pound QB with no push behind him, big no-no. Second, you hand the ball off in a shotgun, also a big no-no. Maybe the second one gets converted with Moss, but I just don’t know if we needed to be that risky. Obviously, hindsight is 20/20.

My Overall Thoughts on the Issues

What Elko said in his press conference after the game is completely true, and not a lot of people want to admit it. It is easy to not look at certain flaws/issues that have been present all year while you are winning. Am I surprised we missed that many tackles, of course. But when I look back at the year we have had, missed tackles and more importantly busted plays have been a glaring issue. They have just been a little overlooked because we were winning games. Penalties have been a giant problem all year, especially after the play. We have shown signs of being undisciplined and we showed we can’t control ourselves at times in which we are getting outplayed, which simply cannot happen. Losing Moss sucks really bad. I knew the risk of playing Marcel was what happens when we are getting stuffed in the run game. We are going to have to get very creative these next few weeks or we are going to look very similar to that second half we saw on Saturday. Bottom line is we got exposed to the fullest on issues that have been present all year. Here’s to being hopeful that this is what the players needed to take accountability and get on the right track.

The Few Positive Takeaways / Where we go from here

To say that our season is over is beyond foolish. Did it get harder? No doubt. But we just got rid of our only mulligan. In an ideal world you win on Saturday and save that mulligan for Texas, but you no longer have that luxury. You now have to win out. The good news is you absolutely can. The only positive I have from that game is the fact that we answered back after quickly being down 14-0. You showed you can still operate against an elite defense (yes South Carolina is an elite defense) without the help of Le’veon Moss, scoring a quick 20 points in the first half on the road. We just have to find more consistency. And like I alluded to earlier, we are going to have to get creative now that we learned Moss will be out for the rest of the way. Thankfully, I still have full trust in our coaching staff to get the issues we saw fixed. Yes you are flawed, but this season has shown nearly everyone is. You still control your own destiny, you are still tied for first in the SEC, but you have to get things fixed in many areas. Let’s hope they do.

• AA / GC