A&M STILL ROLLING
AGGIES KEEP THEIR CFP DREAM ALIVE AT SOGGY KYLE FIELD WITH DOMINANT DEFENSIVE EFFORT IN RETURN FROM VIRUS HIATUS.
Aggies smother LSU 20-7 to win their fifth straight game and stay in the playoff hunt.
COLLEGE STATION — The last time Texas A&M was in the top five of the College Football Playoff rankings, the Aggies’ euphoria lasted all of four days.
Four years later under a different coach, it’s a different result so far for the No. 5 Aggies, who behind amighty defensive effort defeated LSU 20-7 on a rainy Saturday night at Kyle Field.
“We found a way to win a very tough slugfest, an old-style football game that you don’t see a lot of anymore,” A&M coach Jimbo Fisher said in crediting the defense. “There’s still an art to doing that and figuring out how to win.”
The Aggies (6-1), winners of five consecutive games, played for the first time in three weeks after three positive tests for COVID-19 and the resulting contact tracing. Their game at Tennessee and a home contest against Mississippi were rescheduled for December.
Third-year defensive coordinator Mike Elko and the Aggies nearly notched the program’s first shutout since 2016 (67-0 over Ball State), two years before Fisher arrived from Florida State. But LSU scored a touchdown with 38 seconds left.
“We’ve got a lot of room to improve,” Fisher said, “and a lot of work we’ve got to get done.”
A&M on offense looked much like a team that hadn’t played since Nov. 7, stumbling early in trying to move the ball downfield against the Tigers (3-4), occasionally in a driving rain. But sophomore running back Isaiah Spiller and a punishing offensive line provided the Aggies some instant relief late in the first quarter.
Spiller raced 52 yards for a touchdown behind exceptional blocking, and the Aggies closed out the first 15 minutes leading 10-0. They added a 40-yard field goal from Seth Small for a 13-0 lead to round out the first half after what had become a punt fest.
LSU coach Ed Orgeron turned to freshman quarterback Max Johnson to replace ineffective freshman TJ Finley late in the first quarter, then shifted back to Finley when Johnson failed to get anything going. Orgeron tried both quarterbacks again in a fruitless second half for the Tigers.
“Iwas very disappointed in the offense,” Orgeron said. “We didn’t have any rhythm.”
Both teams were mostly awful on that side of the ball, but the Aggies got a special-teams break late in the third quarter that helped them stash away the soggy victory before about 25,000 fans at Kyle Field.
A&M punter Nik Constantinou offered up a sagging 37-yard punt, but it nicked the Tigers’ Dwight McGlothern on the back of a shoe, and the Aggies’ Connor Blumrick recovered on the LSU 33-yard line.
A&M failed to score any points on the resulting drive, but a Constantinou punt pinned LSU back on its own 9-yard line.
Finley dropped back on secondand was pressured by Aggies linebacker Aaron Hansford, heaving the ball across the middle. A&M senior linebacker Buddy Johnson intercepted the errant toss and returned it 15 yards for a touchdown and a 20-0 A&M lead with 4:36 remaining in the third quarter.
“Once I caught the ball,” Johnson said with a smile, “there wasn’t any other answer but a touchdown.”
Saturday marked the first meeting between the teams at Kyle Field since the Aggies’ 74-72 victory in seven overtimes in 2018, the most points ever scored in an NCAA game. A year ago LSU smashed A&M 50-7 en route to the Tigers’ fourth national title.
Saturday was an entirely different story from the two previous meetings. A&M sophomore defensive lineman De Marvin Leal, a five-star recruit from the Class of 2019, turned in one of the top games of his budding career. Leal finished with seven tackles, two quarterback hurries and a tackle for a loss, doing much of his damage in the first half.
A&M played without five-star freshman receiver Demond Demas, who has seen limited action this season. Fisher said merely that Demas was “unavailable” for the LSU game.
The Aggies next visit No. 22 Auburn on Saturday in their quest to finish the regular season with eight consecutive victories and stay in the CFP hunt.
“We’ll continue to control what we can control,” Johnson said. “We can’t worry about what the media thinks or what goes on outside this building.”
Four years ago A&M was No. 4 in the initial CFP ranking of 2016, but four days later quickly fell behind at Mississippi State and lost 35-28 to drop out of national title contention.
A year later and after a 45-21 loss at LSU to cap the 2017 regular season, A&M fired coach Kevin Sumlin and hired Fisher from Florida State, where he won a national title in 2013. Fisher finished 9-4 and 8-5 in his first two seasons in College Station, and he now has the Aggies in title contention with three regular-season games left.
“I’m not worried about the playoff,” Fisher said. “I’m worried about playing football and playing good football, and if we play good football that will take care of itself.”