Texas A&M left Tiger Stadium with more questions than answers after LSU rolled to a 35-6 win Saturday night, and the problems ran deeper than one bad half.
The Aggies never found much rhythm on offense, and the defense didn’t hold up once the game started slipping away. What looked like a competitive night for stretches turned into a lopsided finish, with Mike Elko’s team exposed in a few areas that have been nagging it for weeks.
The run game never got off the ground. That’s been a theme for A&M when the line of scrimmage gets tight, and LSU made sure it stayed that way.
Injuries have thinned out the backfield, with Tiger Riden Jr. out for the season and Jamarion Morrow missing the LSU game. KJ Edwards has also been dealing with injuries, which pushed more of the load onto Rueben Owens and freshman Carsyn Baker.
Those two handled most of the work Saturday, combining for 18 of the Aggies’ 33 rushing attempts. Owens led the way with 62 yards, while Baker added 15. As a team, A&M finished with 91 rushing yards and averaged 2.8 yards per carry.
That marked a steep drop from last week’s 187 rushing yards against Kentucky. It also followed the Week 2 showing against Arizona State, when A&M was held under 100 rushing yards. If this offense is going to look the way Elko wants, the ground game has to become much more reliable, and fast.
Marcel Reed’s passing numbers took another hit, too. He opened the season by completing 70 percent of his throws in Week 1, then dipped to 60 percent in Week 2 and 53.1 percent in Week 3. Against LSU, that number slid to a career-low 38 percent, with Reed finishing 10 of 26 through the air.
The box score only tells part of the story. Reed had a few completions erased by penalties, and the offense around him didn’t help.
There were drops. There were throws that sailed well beyond his targets.
The result was a night that never really gave him a chance to settle in.
Through four games, the Nashville, Tennessee native has a 50.9 QBR, 738 passing yards, six touchdowns and four interceptions. The season is still young, but Reed has plenty to clean up if he’s going to steady this offense moving forward.
The defensive side wasn’t any cleaner. Elko and his staff came into the season believing this could be one of the best secondary groups of his three-year run in Aggieland, but that hasn’t shown up on Saturdays. The group has veterans, experience and time in the system, yet the breakdowns keep coming.
There have been blown coverages, missed assignments and too many explosive plays allowed. LSU quarterback Sam Leavitt played through one good leg and still threw for more than 300 yards, taking control of the game anyway. Whether it was Dezz Ricks, Marcus Ratcliffe, Dalton Brooks or others, the Aggies never seemed to settle in.
The tackling has been off, too, and A&M has struggled to answer after taking a hit. The numbers tell the story: 848 yards surrendered, an average of 212 per game. That’s not the standard this defense expected to meet, and Saturday made that gap look even wider.
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Marcel Reeds uneven performance only added to the frustration, but Elko said he is not changing the starting quarterback for now. For a fan base already uneasy about the early conference skid, the bigger concern may be how many areas need fixing at once, from protection and execution on offense to a defense that could not generate pressure or keep LSU from piling up passing yards. [Read more 🡒]