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The Aggies missed a lot of chances to make this game a game or even win it, no matter how lopsided the stats made it seem. But the players and coaches weren’t up to the challenge.

Marcel Reed took a beating tonight. Unfortunately, one of his mistakes really turned the game in Texas’ favor. He made a huge mistake when he threw a deep pass into double coverage despite having room to run or miss, and that pick completely changed the dynamic. Earlier, A&M had moved the ball straight down the field to the Texas 10 before coach Mike Elko made his first big mistake, attempting it on fourth-and-1 instead of kicking a field goal.

The offensive line was physically dominated. In short-yardage situations, they were unable to get a kick-off and were hamstrung on the two most important plays, the fourth and 1st goal on the 10th and the fourth and goal on the 1st. These plays were absolute killers. Reed often ran, not because he wanted to, but because he had to. It was nearly impossible to pass the ball between tackles, and A&M ended up averaging just 3.5 yards per carry (before sacks). Amari Daniels had 21 yards on 13 carries and a long yardage of 5.

I said this could be a big Tre Watson game, and he ended up leading the team in catches – with three. The chances were there, but he was only targeted four times. Noah Thomas had three catches but struggled to take the lead. Jabre Barber didn’t play a role, especially after getting hit in the face by a Texas helmet – which of course he did not Targeting.

Texas’ edges absolutely overwhelmed Trey Zuhn and Dametrious Crownover. They dominated from the second possession. These guys, especially Zuhn, have been more than solid all season. They were outclassed tonight.

A&M’s offensive plan was stale and predictable, as it was in three of the team’s four losses. But at least it had more movement than Jimbo’s attack. We’ll get into the plot and plan in a moment, but the big story here was that A&M’s O-line was completely humiliated. Man to man, hat to hat, Texas was better. The line has been much better this year, but they showed tonight that they still have a long way to go.

If you hold a team to 17 points, you should win. But I think the score is misleading. Texas could have done more if it wanted to, it just decided that running the ball down A&M’s throat was enough.

That’s three straight conference games in which the Aggies have been beaten on the ground, and this one was the worst. Texas ran for 240 yards on 4.8 yards per carry. And her long was only 26. That means it was just a long, sustained strike forward. And that should be the strength of the team. It’s been a major weakness in the league for a month now, and there’s no way to sugarcoat it. Once the teams were no longer intimidated by A&M’s front, they simply attacked them head-on and won.

I don’t know if you can say anyone had one Good game because there were so many missed tackles that I lost track. A&M would be able to put Quintrevion Wisner on the floor and he would sit back and there would be no one there. They had exaggerated and were a bad fit. Or they would miss a tackle or two or three. And then they didn’t just blast the ball over the line and create big gaps for Wisner to run through.

Cashius Howell had a really turbulent game. He had 6 tackles, 2.5 tackles for a loss, a forced fumble – and two big penalties that kept Texas drives going. One of them was garbage, but two 15-yard penalties still hurt.

Nic Scourton had six tackles. Shemar Stewart had 5. But no one had a sack and Scourton didn’t even have a tackle for loss. These guys are supposed to be able to put pressure on the quarterback and they didn’t. And they didn’t do that for a month.

Rylan Kennedy gave up Quinn Ewers’ 26-yard run in the first half. That can never happen. If you’re in a rush, you shouldn’t be out there.

The linebackers were very guilty of applying too much pressure and missing tackles. Taurean York had 10 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, a sack and a fumble recovery, so all you can say is he had a very good game. I didn’t see him miss many tackles. But Scooby Williams only had one tackle. Daymion Sanford had 3. They were constantly getting out of position and that put them in the right spot where they would drop out or make arm tackles.

Bryce Anderson didn’t have a good game. He let a game-changing pick pass through his hands and then was beaten on Texas’ second touchdown. Frankly, he didn’t have a good season after struggling early on. Dalton Brooks was fine and I think he will be special. But Marcus Ratcliffe really struggled tonight. He missed a lot of tackles and wasn’t good in coverage.

Will Lee obviously had a big play at the corner. He was also hit deeply once. For the second week in a row, Dezz Ricks was beaten up. The Texas receivers were separated from him so often that sometimes you couldn’t tell he was supposed to be with them. BJ Mayes probably had his worst outing in his only season here.

Texas managed 458 yards and controlled the ball for more than 34 minutes. A&M’s offense ran a total of seven plays in the third quarter because the defense couldn’t get Texas off the field (admittedly, they produced the only score of the quarter). But if your offense doesn’t get on the field, you can’t win.

Tyler White struggled to get balls into the end zone instead of the 10 tonight. So I suspect he is mortal. Terry Bussey had some nice returns. The Aggies applied pressure on Texas’ missed field goal, and obviously you have the blocked punt. Maybe their best game of the season.

Texas and Quinn Ewers tried very, very hard to give this game to A&M. And the Aggies gave it right back. And that starts at the top.

At the end of the game, A&M should have fought for the win, not a desperate attempt to recover. But Mike Elko, prone to being overly aggressive when discretion is most of the bravado, took six points off the board by choosing to do so instead of kicking field goals.

It didn’t help that Collin Klein’s play calls were just plain terrible. A&M couldn’t run up the middle all night, and that’s exactly what they tried to do on both fourth-down calls. If your hat is handed to you in the middle of the line, it’s probably not a good idea to go straight back there. You have faith in your people and you realize that what you’re doing just isn’t working tonight. If the Aggies manage to score a touchdown on those two drives (and kick a field goal on the other drive), this game will (potentially) go into overtime. But the play calls were predictable and Texas pounced on them.

I don’t know how you can look at the defense’s performance in the last three conference games and call it somewhat acceptable. Especially against the run. The front line got worse as the season went on, and that’s due to the position coaches and Jay Bateman. Tonight was the icing on the cake as they were simply physically whipped. The secondary probably would have been hurt far worse than they were if Ewers had actually been the quality quarterback he was supposed to be. He wasn’t impressive tonight, but that was still good enough.

The coaching staff needs to take a close look at the last three games and realize there is still a lot of work ahead of them. They may have met or even exceeded expectations, but further down the line they were exposed. And limitations or not, this is still too talented a team to allow themselves to be humiliated on their own field like they did tonight.

You learn by doing. Elko and Klein in particular are still growing into their roles. But the growing process hurt a lot in this game.

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