欧博官网No. 14 Aggies Remain Perfect in SEC Play with
STARKVILLE – The No. 14 Texas A&M football team remained perfect in SEC action Saturday afternoon as it secured a 34-24 road win over Mississippi State at Davis Wade Stadium.
With the win, the Aggies (6-1, 4-0 SEC) are off to their best start in league play since winning four straight in 2016.
Conner Weigman finished the afternoon 15-of-25 passing for 217 yards and a score. Le'Veon Moss paced the rushing attack and the Aggies' scoring efforts after making it back-to-back games with at least two trips to the end zone.
On the defensive end, Taurean York led the way as the sophomore racked up a career-high 12 tackles to go along with 1.5 tackles for loss and a 0.5 sack. Dalton Brooks followed with a career-high nine tackles, while Daymion Sanford set a career-high with seven tackles, all of which were solos. Scooby Williams matched Shemar Turner for the team lead in tackles for loss with 2.0, adding the first interception of his career.
After the Bulldogs (1-6, 0-4 SEC) converted a pair of fourth downs on their opening drive en route to a 14-yard touchdown pass, Weigman and the Aggies answered with a 13-play 74-yard scoring drive to even the score at 7-7. The sophomore capped off the drive with a 20-yard dime to Noah Thomas in the back corner of the end zone. The touchdown catch marked the 10th of Thomas' career, which moved him inside the top 20 in program history.
Behind a powerful 9-yard run from Moss, the Maroon & White took their first lead of the day, 14-7, with 10:29 left in the half. Following a 24-yard field goal from Mississippi State, the Aggies stretched their advantage to 21-10 with under two minutes remaining, courtesy of a 6-yard rushing touchdown from Amari Daniels. The score marked the fifth of the season for the junior.
The Bulldogs answered on the ensuing drive with a 4-yard touchdown pass to trim the lead to 21-17 at the break.
In the third, the Aggie defense ratcheted up the pressure as it held Mississippi State scoreless and to just 24 yards of offense. On the offensive end, the Maroon & White tacked on 10 points to their lead, 31-17, behind a 28-yard field goal from Randy Bond and a 3-yard touchdown run from Moss.
Following a Weigman interception to open the fourth, the Bulldogs capitalized with a 12-yard touchdown pass to trim the lead to 31-24 with 13:41 left in the game. After the two squads traded punts, Bond iced the 34-24 win for the Aggies with a 44-yard field as 6:13 showed on the clock. The graduate student has now made multiple field goals in back-to-back games and 17 times in his career.
The Aggie defense held strong to close out the game as Mississippi State turned it over on downs on each of its final two possessions.
Postgame Notes
Team Notes
The victory made it four straight in SEC action to match the Aggies' best start in league play since 2016 when the Maroon & White started 4-0.
Texas A&M tallied three rushing scores on the day, marking the third time this season they have registered multiple rushing scores in a game.
The Aggie offense finished 9-of-14 (64.3%) on third downs, the highest third down conversion percentage this season, while the defense held Mississippi State to just 5-of-16 on third down in the game.
Texas A&M's defense matched a season-high with 11.0 tackles for loss and have now recorded at least 7.0 or more tackles for loss in four straight games.
The Maroon & White secondary has recorded an interception in five of the last six games.
In the third quarter, the Aggie defense held the Bulldogs scoreless and to only 24 yards of offense.
Individual Notes
Postgame: Mike Elko
Well, it's a road win. And those don't come easy in this league. I said it all week. I'm not sure that everyone in my locker room believed me, but we certainly said it all week, and it played out that way today. You know, when you come on the road in this conference, nothing's ever going to be easy. And they certainly didn't make it easy. I gave credit to our guys. I thought we battled and scrapped through some adversity, through some mistakes throughout both sides of the ball. And, you know, just found a way to make enough plays in the end to win the game. And so, happy we got the win. Happy with 6-1, 4-0 in the league. It's been a long time since we've been 4-0 in the SEC. And you obviously set the stage for a pretty big Saturday next week in Kyle.
How have you seen Jabre progress from being injured to now, and what was kind of behind some of the explosiveness he had today?
Yeah, I mean, he's a dynamic player. We've been trying to work back to get him into the rhythm and get him more touches. Obviously Noah's had two very strong games. And so I think that opens up some of the coverage, and then they start leaning a little bit more towards Noah, and that then leans a little bit looser in the middle. And so I think Jabre was able to shake loose for a few things and obviously went back there and did a nice job in the return game with with Terry not being available. It was great for that.
How did y'all tighten things up on defense in the second half?
Yeah. You know, it's funny, I just said this on the radio. The first drive of the game was really poor. The last drive of the first half was really poor. Everything in between that I do think we played relatively well on defense. But that's not...we need to play relatively well all game. We didn't start great. We gave up a lot of third downs on that first drive and just got a little bit loose with tackling. I thought we missed a lot of tackles on the first drive. I thought we did a really poor job playing the entire play in the two minute drive. A lot of that was broken plays and we just didn't keep playing assignment football. We were playing hard, we just weren't playing assignment-sound football and letting things get loose and soft. But then I thought at times in the second half when we needed them, we really stepped up and made plays.
Kind of playing off of that, they had 95 yards rushing in the first quarter and 30 the rest of the game. What did you guys change?
Nothing. We just tackled. Like the first long run that they had, I think they ran that play four other times. The difference was we tackled them on the other three. We missed them with two different people on the first one. And if you miss tackles against that...the challenge with that offense is it's spread. It's sideline to sideline. There's not a lot of rally to the ball, right? That's always been the challenge, whether it's Lebby, whether it's the Tennessee group, whether it's the Ole Miss...they stretch you sideline to sideline. And there's so much emphasis on the one guy who can make the play. And if he misses it, it just looks really bad. And I think that's what happened a lot on that first drive. The guy at the point of attack just didn't make the tackle.
Just how critical was y'all's ability to convert so many third downs and extend those drives?
Yeah it was critical. Obviously I thought we were very choppy on offense. We never really got the run game going quite like we wanted to. They did a good job of mixing up some looks on us and I thought we were just kind of battling uphill quite a bit all day in the run game. And so we got in a lot of third downs. We didn't make a ton of explosive plays on first and second down. And I think that put us in a position where had we not been as efficient on third down, I think it could have created a lot of problems for us today.
What did you think of Scooby Williams overall today?
Overall, yeah, I thought it was our best game at linebacker. Scooby was one of the guys that I signaled out in the locker room after the game. I think he's a warrior. I think, you know, when you look at a place...we talk about this again, I'm going to keep bringing this word up so that everybody hears this...like, you talk about culture, right? We go out and get Scooby and that's as unheralded a get in the transfer portal, right? Then they just kind of go, oh, they got a guy. But we love his character. We love his makeup. We love his talent. We love his athleticism. He's been a huge force for us on defense all year and continues to make play after play filling in for a pretty talented linebacker that's now in Green Bay. And so it's a credit to him. And then I thought Taurean was extremely active today. I thought that was by far and away Taurean's best game. And we put a lot of stress on them. You get a lot of stress on those two kids in that offense to stop the run because you're trying to really spread the perimeter and keep the coverage intact as best you can, especially with their big play ability. And so we needed those two linebackers to make a lot of plays today. And they did.
What's your initial status report on Chase Bisontis?
We'll see. It's a lower league deal. We'll see kind of where it goes.
How would you assess Conner's decision making and just his overall play?
Going into halftime I thought he was in a good spot. You know he missed the one throw early to Noah. Then the pick slipped out of his hand in the first half. In the second half, he just got a little bit fast. What I kept telling him on the sideline was just slow down. I just felt like we were pressing a little bit in the second half for whatever reason. I thought our running backs were pressing on some of the cuts. I thought our quarterback was pressing in some of his decision making. It just felt like we were...again, it just comes back to it...it felt like we were expecting it to be something different and not an SEC road game. And so all of a sudden it felt like we had to press to make plays, and I don't know why we got into that position. We've got to obviously get that corrected and fixed.
What would you say is your primary emotion for a game like this one? I know winning is always a reason for elation, but I wonder if there's a certain amount of relief? How would you describe what's going on?
In this day and age, it's always relief is the first feeling. It's we get to keep this thing going. Opportunities like this don't come along much. And so that's always the first feeling. But the goal is to win, right? All of a sudden you start having success, and then the expectations change and everything starts changing to when was the last time we were 4-0? I don't know. And like, when was the last time we won back to back road games at true road environments? We can't take away from those things. It wasn't pretty. I know it wasn't pretty. We didn't play pretty football today. The kids know that. I know that everybody knows that. They know there's a lot of things we've got to clean up. But let's not take away from some of the real highlights of where this team is right now, coming off of back to back seasons where we won 12 total games.
To that end, I know early in the season it was ending the losing streak at Florida. Here, it's a place that you don't have a lot of success. Does it seem like you're kind of exorcising some demons as you go along the season?
Yeah, for sure. This one reeked of challenge, coming out of a bye week on the road. Everybody knows what's next week. This one reeked of being a challenge. And when you have 18 to 23 year olds you talk a lot but sometimes it's a challenge. And we're learning. Every week we're learning. We're still a work in progress. We've got to go back to work. We've got to have a great week of preparation, and we've got to get ourselves ready to play really good football team next Saturday.
Postgame: Taurean York
What changed in the second half for you guys? It just seemed like the defense was totally different those last two quarters.
I mean, we were just real with each other. Real with the whole team. I feel like the offense was bailing us out a ton, and we want to play complementary football. And we weren't doing that in the first half, but thankfully in the second half we got the job done.
Scooby got his first career interception and he had a pretty big game. What have you seen from his work to get to where he is now?
His maturity and focus has been through the roof as the season progresses, and you wouldn't want it any other way. He's making great strides every day. The linebacker group as a whole has been making great strides but specifically Scooby.
How would you assess the linebackers as a whole today?
A complete game. You know, we still had a few missed assignments, but that's football, and you make up for that by making big plays. I feel like me, Daymion and Scooby made a big and good plays over the course of the game.
What was Mississippi State doing well in the first half? Or maybe you guys weren't doing well in the first half?
I mean, we pulled out the three-man front so they were checking a lot of their plays. But at the end of the day, it's always been about us, like it's been all year long. Like it's been since Coach Elko got hired. It's always been about us. And it was more about what we were doing opposed to what they're doing. That's not a slight to them. But we know the style and brand of defense we play. And it wasn't that in the first half.
What do you think of Michael Van Buren, Mississippi State's quarterback?
He has some fight. And I told y'all that when I did the press conference earlier this week that he was a solid kid. I mean, to go against Florida, Texas and Georgia in your first three career football games, I mean, it takes, a lot, you know? So he did his thing out there tonight and my hat's off to him. He'll continue to get better throughout the years.
This is a place that A&M teams in the past and had a really hard time winning. And you guys knew that, would you learn about this team that you guys were able to withstand some of the ebbs and flows and come away with a win?
I love our ability to find a way and to not fold whenever things get hard. We're a full team, offense, defense, special teams. We always talk to each other. We're so proud of 15 and how much he's overcome through the course of the season, but also just how he came out there today. We had a couple of turnovers, but our number one is to win the turnover margin. And I reiterate that a ton. So we played complementary football tonight, especially in the second half.
Postgame: Jabre Barber
Did you feel like this would be a game that you could break out, with Noah having a big couple of games and with Terry out?
For sure. Yes, sir. I was kind of looking at it like, even the past games, I go in with a mindset like that, just attacking the game and just trying to go out there and give them my all every game.
They looked to you a lot on third downs, what was working for y'all and how critical were the third down conversions to move the chains?
Most of the third downs if I recall we were reading either man or zone. So when I saw the hole and Conner just hit me in most of them on third down, I just knew I had to go out there and execute it.
How fun is it to be able to play your senior season in the SEC and come to places like this, and then walk out with a win?
It's been great. At my old school we were already winning, but like doing it the biggest league it's even bigger and better for me. So I'm just enjoying it, and as we go deeper and go to the playoffs and go deep, it'll only get better.