Gag ’em! Aggies blow 34-point lead
Bruins QB Rosen fakes spike, throws winning TD with 43 seconds left
PASADENA, Calif. — One half into Texas A&M’s season opener at UCLA on Sunday night, Aggies coach Kevin Sumlin looked like he might be up for a contract extension.
By game’s end, A&M fans were wondering if he had actually climbed on the team plane for the longest flight of his life. He did, but the heat on Sumlin’s seat intensified by 35 degrees, equal to the points the Aggies surrendered in the Bruins’ massive comeback as UCLA prevailed 45-44.
“I told the team at halftime not to look at the scoreboard. Let’s just play football, one play at a time,” UCLA coach Jim Mora Jr. said.
Aggies will never forget their first visit to the Rose Bowl — for all the wrong reasons — thanks to the massive thorn UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen wielded in poking the A&M defense repeatedly in the second half.
“You don’t explain it,” a mystified
Sumlin said. “No excuses. We just didn’t get it done as coaches.”
The comeback was the second largest in FBS history, next to Michigan State’s needing 36 points to prevail against Northwestern 11 years ago.
“We knew this wasn’t going to be an easy game, but we didn’t know we were going to be down by 28 points at halftime,” Mora said. “But I saw a team that trusted each other and had confidence in each other.”
With about four minutes remaining in the third quarter, A&M led 44-10, but that 34-point lead turned out to be fool’s gold, considering Rosen engineered five consecutive touchdown drives the rest of the way, with the last four capped by passes.
“We always say the game isn’t over until it’s over,” A&M senior safety Armani Watts said. “So that’s no excuse. We have to overcome adversity, and finish games.”
The Aggies are trying to better their string of three consecutive 8-5 finishes, and they started each of the three previous seasons with a victory. Strong starts to seasons had never been a problem under sixthyear coach Sumlin; closing them out on the winning end has. The Aggies are 2-7 against SEC competition in Novembers over the past three seasons, and Sumlin fired his longtime strength coach in the offseason and replaced him with Mark Hocke, a former Alabama and Florida State assistant strength coach and former Georgia head strength coach.
With two years after this season remaining on a contract paying him $5 million annually, Sumlin’s job was in jeopardy before this season even kicked off, and for a while it looked like the Aggies had responded to his “get tough” act in the offseason led by Hocke. A&M wilted with the big lead, however, and with one of the Aggies’ toughest schedules remaining since they entered the SEC in 2012, it will be tough for them to top the eight wins of the past few years.
As expected, redshirt freshman Nick Starkel started at quarterback, as he and true freshman Kellen Mond both played multiple series in the first half. Starkel left the game in the third quarter, however, with an apparent ankle injury, and an ineffective Mond played most of the second half, when the Bruins began their eyepopping comeback.
Starkel finished 6-of-13 for 62 yards; Mond was 3-of-17 for 27 yards.
Sumlin opted for Mond over Auburn starter and Baylor transfer Jarrett Stidham in the recruiting process in the offseason, and the decision might ultimately cost Sumlin his job as coach.
The Aggies trailed at the beginning of the game, falling behind 3-0 following UCLA’s first drive, but led for nearly the entire time — until it counted most. A&M’s Braden Mann also missed a 43-yard field-goal attempt in the fourth quarter, hurting the Aggies’ cause in trying to cling to the lead.
The Bruins converted a fourth-and-6 just prior to Rosen’s connecting with Jordan Lasley on a 10-yard touchdown pass to tie the game at 44 with 43 seconds remaining. Rosen acted as if he was going to spike the ball before connecting with Lasley.
“That’s something we practice,” Mora said.
JJ Molson calmly booted the extra point through the uprights, and A&M had one final desperation drive to attempt.
Mond was stopped a yard shy on a fourthand-10 scramble, and the party was on in Pasadena from a disbelieving crowd — and an even more disbelieving opposing team.
“Kudos to their coaching staff and their players,” A&M running back Trayveon Williams said of UCLA. “They had answers. They fixed what we were doing, had a good plan in the second half, and they stopped us.”
Rosen nearly led a fourth-quarter comeback last year at Kyle Field before the Aggies prevailed 31-24 in overtime in both teams’ opener.
“I’m not going to lie,” Watts said, “it felt like déjà vu out there.”