Jamal Roberts turned Missouri’s day in St. Louis into a downhill grind Texas A&M never solved.
Roberts piled up a career-high 222 rushing yards on 34 carries and scored twice, including a 54-yard burst with 2:49 left that put the game out of reach, as No. 14 Missouri rolled past the Aggies 27-6 on Saturday. Cayden Lee added seven catches for 94 yards and a touchdown, while Blake Craig drilled a pair of field goals from beyond 50 yards to help the Tigers improve to 5-1 overall and 2-1 in the Southeastern Conference.
Missouri also got a solid enough day from Austin Simmons, who completed 14 of 28 passes for 147 yards and a touchdown. His top target was Lee, and the pair hooked up for a 32-yard score early in the second quarter to push Missouri in front 7-3 after Texas A&M had briefly grabbed the lead on David Olano’s 53-yard field goal late in the first quarter.
“It wasn't my best game,” Simmons said. “I've got to give the credit to the O line.
They battled their tails off throughout the entire game, especially in the run game. You look at Jamal’s little muddy runs.
It was a gritty little game we had today.”
The Tigers’ offense never looked flashy, but it kept leaning on Roberts until the Aggies cracked. Missouri’s lead was still just 13-3 after Olano’s kick and Lee’s touchdown when the Tigers strung together the decisive second-half stretch. Roberts finished it with a one-yard scoring run at the end of the third quarter, a play that was originally ruled short before video review awarded the touchdown.
“You’ve got to see it as a boxing match, and you’ve got to see the body shots wear people down,” Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz said. “When you have an identity, you just keep playing to your identity and figuring it out.
You really trust your scheme and who you are when the game’s on the line. That’s what we do.”
Roberts wasn’t done. He broke free again for the 54-yard touchdown run that closed the door.
Texas A&M, meanwhile, never found enough rhythm to threaten Missouri for long. Marcel Reed completed 19 of 39 passes for 189 yards, but he threw two interceptions and was held to minus-18 rushing yards on seven carries. The Aggies’ best chance to reach the end zone came early in the fourth quarter, but Nicholas Rodriguez stopped Ashton Bethel-Roman for a two-yard loss, forcing Texas A&M to settle for another field goal, this one from 27 yards by Olano.
The first Missouri turnover gave the Aggies a brief opening. TJ Searcy tipped a Simmons pass to Daymion Sanford, who returned it to the Missouri 14-yard line with 9:53 left in the opening quarter. It was Simmons’ first interception after opening his Tigers career with 139 straight pass attempts without a pick.
Missouri’s defense kept tightening after that. Reed was sacked three times and hurried 13 more times as the Tigers made life miserable for the Aggies throughout the afternoon.
“We thought we had a decent plan of some things we felt like we could execute well but clearly we didn't,” Aggies coach Mike Elko said. “It was a huge missed opportunity not converting early to get the lead and playing from behind again.
We're not built right now to play from behind. Again, it's me.
It's nobody else. It's me.”
Elko also said, “We have to find ways to get better,” Elko said. “I said that to them, I said that to our coaches, I said that to myself. Our job is to put a better product on the field.”
Missouri wore a heart-shaped sticker with the initials “DJ” on its helmets to honor freshman offensive lineman Johnnie “DJ” Jones, who underwent a heart transplant at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville on Wednesday.
The Tigers got their biggest offensive push from Roberts after halftime, when he accounted for 157 of his 222 rushing yards. Lee, meanwhile, was the clear favorite in the passing game, drawing 13 of Missouri’s 27 targets.
For Texas A&M, the loss dropped the Aggies to 3-3 overall and 1-3 in the SEC. Missouri has now won two straight.
Texas A&M hosts the Citadel next Saturday. Missouri travels to No. 9 Mississippi next Saturday.
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