The Texas A&M Aggies’ greatest strength all season has been their impressive ground game. Through 11 games, the Aggies ranked second in the SEC with 208.4 rushing yards per game and looked to keep the train going until the highly anticipated regular season finale against the Texas Longhorns.

Unfortunately, their greatest strength became a weakness in their biggest game of the season.

A&M couldn’t get anything going on the ground, finishing with just 102 yards on three yards per attempt. The Aggies only had one run of more than 10 yards on the night, a 24-yard dash by quarterback Marcel Reed early in the third quarter.

After the game, Aggies head coach Mike Elko attributed the problem to the Texas defense’s mistreatment of A&M’s offensive line.

“On offense, we just lost the front line all night,” Elko said. We couldn’t get anything going. Really disappointing. We just didn’t play well enough offensively to have a chance of success.”

The offensive line’s problems were most evident in short-yardage situations. Most notably, the Longhorns stuffed Aggies running back Amari Daniels on a fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line, nearly ending A&M’s comeback hopes late in the fourth quarter.

The Aggies were also physically overwhelmed on the other side of the ball. The Longhorns ran the ball at will and finished with 243 rushing yards on 5.2 yards per carry. Quintrevion Wisner did most of the damage with 186 rushing yards (5.6 yards per carry), but other Longhorns also celebrated. Texas also converted seven of its 15 third-down chances, and that makes a big difference in a hard-fought defensive game.

“Defensively, just not good enough in the run game,” Elko said. “Way too many rushing yards. Didn’t win the line of scrimmage. Didn’t fit particularly well. Were not good enough on third down. Didn’t do the things we needed to do to get off the field. “But I think we showed tremendous heart and fought to keep fighting and gave ourselves a lot of chances to win in the second half, just with grit and hardness.”

Unfortunately, that was a trend for the Aggies in a difficult November. They averaged 3.4 yards per carry against South Carolina, 3.2 against Auburn and now just three against Texas. Meanwhile, they allowed 6.7 yards per carry against South Carolina, 4.1 against Auburn and now 5.2 against Texas. There is no way around it, it is not a recipe for winning football.

With the Aggies’ playoff hopes officially dashed (in fairness, they survived longer than expected), all they can now focus on is fixing the problem next season.

“Tonight we just have way too many underdogs, way too many lack of leverage, way too many simple execution errors,” Elko said. “And they’re good, they’re talented and hats off to them for destroying us physically.”

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