Aggies get a lesson on being elite
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Trevor Knight has seen it happen firsthand.
The A&M quarterback sees no reason to believe his Aggies can’t recover from their 33-14 loss to No. 1 Alabama on Saturday and salvage the season.
He has been on a team that took a bad loss early in the year, bounced back and made it to the College Football Playoff.
Last year, when he played for Oklahoma, the Sooners lost to Texas then won out before making it to the Orange Bowl to play Clemson.
So yes, these things do happen.
What also happened was Oklahoma being exposed in the playoff, losing 37-17 and not looking like it belonged among the top four teams in the country.
The Aggies should try to avoid that.
On Saturday, in front of 101,821 fans at Bryant-Denny Stadium, A&M learned it isn’t good enough to beat the best in the country. That’s the bad news. The good news is the No. 6 Aggies are getting closer to being in the conversation — the conversation that determines which football teams are still standing when the regular season ends.
One loss in college football can kill a season. It just injured A&M’s.
One bad stretch to many
In theory, the Aggies could win out, finish 11-1 with a loss to the No. 1 team in the country and still find a way into the playoff.
If that happens, though, A&M is going to need to be a whole lot better than it was Saturday afternoon.
“There were five or six minutes of that game where we didn’t play very good football,” Knight said.
Now we’ll see if the Aggies learned their lessons. Letting up against the No. 1 team in the country on its home field will get you beat. Badly.
The Aggies owned a 14-13 lead over the best team in the NCAA in the third quarter before suffering a few costly penalties, a lost fumble for a touchdown and a couple of three-and-out possessions.
They had momentum, lost it and never recovered.
Alabama did the opposite. When the Crimson Tide had moments where their play was less than stellar, they regrouped, adjusted and executed. That’s what the elite teams do.
That’s what A&M has to start doing to get to that level.
There have been glimpses of that this season — just two weeks ago, the Aggies lost momentum to Tennessee but recovered and remained focused enough to pull out a double-overtime victory.
The Aggies have senior leadership, guys like Knight who bring poise to the table.
After the loss Saturday,play- ers weren’t hanging their heads. They were lifting each other up. They’ve aced chemistry.
But the on-the-field mistakes have to be eliminated. A&M cannot have stretches for five or six minutes where the football is bad.
Heck, the Aggies can’t have stretches of two or three minutes where the football is bad. Not in the SEC. Not against the best teams in the country.
Not if they want to play for national championships.
‘Anything can happen’
The Aggies have to learn to be elite. Coach Kevin Sumlin and company will watch tape. They’ll review, take notes, adjust. He’ll learn more about the Aggies, and he will learn a few things from the Crimson Tide. After the game, he said he’d already learned a few things about his team from the game.
“They don’t quit,” Sumlin said.
He also learned that not giving up isn’t enough.
“We have to be better in these situations,” Sumlin said. “We still have a lot of football in front of us. A lot of things are going to happen between now and the first of December.”
That is true, but with the loss to Alabama, A&M no longer holds its destiny in its hands. The Aggies now have to watch and see what everyone else does.
Even if they regroup and win out, if everyone else ranked above them does the same, it won’t matter.
That won’t stop Knight from believing or encouraging his teammatessaid. one-loss “Anything“It’s teams happenedto cando that the happen,”get beforesame.to ex- he— to perienceabouta lot at of the getting footballend everythingof better.the left year.to theyWe play. It’s have wantWe all want hopes, to dreams,get better everythingand all of like our that A&Mare still and in Alabamafront of knowus.” that as well as anyone. In 2012 — the last time the Aggies beat the Crimson Tide — Alabama went on to win the BCS national championship. The best teams can do that. A&M isn’t one of those teams yet. But after Saturday’s loss to the best of the best, maybe the Aggies learned how to be one.