COLLEGE STATION – Coaches push a myriad of strategic buttons during games.
Some result in liftoff toward a victory orbit. Just ask Texas A&M first-year head football coach Mike Elko.
“We couldn’t get the passing game called right, I couldn’t get them to run it right, we couldn’t get open, we couldn’t throw well at times,” Elko said. “We felt we just needed a spark and I pulled the trigger (on a quarterback change).”
On the opposite end of the spectrum, little or no decisions often lead to launching pad implosions. See LSU’s third-year head coach Brian Kelly for details.
“We didn’t have the answers necessary on defense nor offense to help our guys,” Kelly said of him and his coaching staff. “We’ve got to have those adjustments handy for them.”
In a battle of the SEC’s last two unbeaten teams in league play here Saturday night in a packed Kyle Field, Elko made the necessary tweaks for the 14th-ranked Aggies to flip a 10-point halftime deficit into a 38-23 victory that put the 7th-ranked Tigers’ College Football Playoff hopes on life support.
Elko’s insertion of backup redshirt freshman quarterback Marcel Reed near the halfway point of the third quarter, plus A&M’s defense rendering LSU’s rushing game useless, allowed the Aggies (7-1 overall, 5-0 SEC) to gleefully beat the Tigers’ rear end like an old school principal issuing corporal punishment licks.
All the Tigers could do was grit their teeth, bend over, and take it again and again.
After LSU (6-2, 3-1 SEC) led 17-7 at halftime – a cushion that should have been larger but normally automatic placekicker Damian Ramos missed 48 and 49-yard field goals – the Aggies erased the Tigers in the second half.
Once Elko yanked struggling starter Connor Weigman and replaced him with Reed, A&M outscored LSU 31-6 in the final two quarters.
On 26 offensive snaps in A&M’s final six possessions of the game consuming 12:07, Reed accounted for 132 of the Aggies’ 195 total offense yards. He ran for 62 yards and 3 TDs on 9 carries and completed 2 of 2 passes for 70 yards.
“I got a lot of opportunities to get some space and run, and they (LSU’s defense) didn’t really make any adjustments,” Reed said. “I like it when people rush (me). It’s like playing backyard football.
“You go `one Mississippi, two Mississippi’, they rush and that means you can run. So, when they rush, if something’s not open to pass, I’m gone.”
Since he had already appeared in five games this season and started in place of the injured Weigman in wins over Florida, Bowling Green and Arkansas, it’s unconscionable that LSU’s defense acted like they’d never studied one minute of film on Reed.
“Him coming in the game caught us off-guard,” LSU linebacker Greg Penn III said of Reed. “We didn’t think he was going to come in. We didn’t know what runs they would run. We weren’t ready for it.”
Offensively, the LSU rushing attack that ran for 158 yards on 37 carries and provided the Tigers’ necessary balance in last Saturday’s 34-10 victory at Arkansas was vaporized by A&M.
The Aggies lived up to their billing of possessing the SEC’s best rushing defense that had allowed just 86.25 yards in their four previous conference games. LSU managed a paltry 24 yards on 23 rushing attempts vs. A&M, placing the entire success or failure of the Tigers’ offense on starting QB Garrett Nussmeier’s throwing arm.
After he completed 14 of 26 for 259 yards and two TDs in the first half, Nussmeier was just 11 of 24 for 146 yards and 3 interceptions (the most by an LSU QB since Myles Brennan threw 3 in the 2020 season-opening loss to Mississippi State) in the second half. He finished 25 of 50 for 405 of the most inconsequential passing yards you’ll ever see.
“That’s on me, I own it,” said Nussmeier of his trio of picked passes, including one off a scramble, another as he was hit by a pass rusher and another on coverage misread. “I’ve got to do a better job of taking care of the football.”
Kelly didn’t condone Nussmeier’s mistakes, but he understood why they happened.
“We did not get the kind of (rushing game) production that would keep Garrett Nussmeier from having to stand on his freaking head and making plays he feels like he has to,” Kelly said. “I just don’t think we give him enough balance within the offense, and it makes him vulnerable because he has to do so much.”
And to round out a night of complementary football gone wrong, the Tigers’ special teams were horrendous with the two Ramos missed field goals and botched 36-yard attempt with 4:53 left in the third quarter.
It happened when long snapper Slade Roy unexpectedly fired a snap off the chest of holder Peyton Todd who was looking at Ramos to see if he was ready to kick. A&M turned the mistake into a 60-yard drive featuring 7 straight rushing plays and the TD that gave the Aggies the lead for good at 21-17 with 1 minute left in the third quarter.
“That’s twice now (this season) they weren’t ready for it,” Kelly said of the unexpected placekick snap. “It’s unacceptable. We’ll get it fixed. It’s never going to happen again. Ever.”
Heading into its second and final open date of the season this week before hosting Alabama on Nov. 9, LSU is now one of four teams in SEC play with one loss behind unbeaten A&M. However because the Tigers lost their season opener to Southern Cal, Kelly understands the loss to Texas A&M gives his team no margin for error in the final four regular season games if LSU wants to sneak into the newly expanded 12-team playoff.
“We need better balance offensively,” Kelly said. “We need to be really good at a few things, that’s what we do and let’s get really good at it. Defensively, we’ve got to stop running quarterbacks. We’ve got to clean up our field goal team.
“It was a bad half of football for us, and we’ll go back to work. We’ll get ourselves ready to play better football.”
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com