STRAIGHT AHEAD
Texas A&M is in no mood to look back at its season opener.
COLLEGE STATION — Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin never has been so happy to talk about the next team on the Aggies’ schedule.
“They’re not going to be intimidated coming in here,” Sumlin said of the Nicholls State Colonels. “We watched them play at Georgia a year ago, and they’ve been all over the place to play. A lot of their guys have played in big venues, and coming off a win they’re going to come in here excited, and we’ve got to be ready to play.”
The Aggies are coming off a historic loss, one more reason why the embattled Sumlin would rather talk about anything but losing 45-44 at UCLA on Sunday night, a game the Aggies led 44-10 late in the third quarter.
“There were a lot of things we can learn from that game,” Sumlin said. “The key is not making the same mistakes again.”
UCLA mounted the secondlargest comeback in major college football history, only outdistanced by Michigan State overcoming a 35-point deficit against Northwestern in 2006. For its part this season, Nicholls State defeated McNeese State 37-35 on Aug. 31 in another shootout.
“We made enough mistakes tonight to fill up an entire book,” Colonels coach Tim Rebowe said afterward.
Unlike the Aggies, however, they managed to salvage a victory. The Colonels finished 5-6 last season but one of those setbacks was nearly one of college football’s biggest upsets, as Georgia edged Nicholls 26-24 in Athens, Ga., in the teams’ 2016 opener.
This time around in an SEC venue, Nicholls will be on the opposite side of what’s expected to be true freshman quarterback Kellen Mond’s first college start. A&M’s starting quarterback entering the season, redshirt freshman Nick Starkel, broke his ankle against UCLA and likely is lost for the season.
Mond only completed three of his 17 passes for 27 yards, and was sacked four times as a UCLA defense stacked the box and dared him to throw. Mond scrambled for 54 yards on 15 carries, but also lost 33 rushing yards courtesy of the sacks.
“He made first downs with his legs that some of the other guys probably wouldn’t make,” Sumlin said of Mond’s mobility compared to Starkel and senior Jake Hubenak. “He made some freshman mistakes, but we were able to take some time off the clock and felt comfortable with that.”
Why Hubenak, who’s started three games in his A&M career, didn’t even play a series at UCLA is a bit of mystery, although Sumlin said Mond was in a “flow” in the second half and didn’t need yanking in the midst of the Bruins scoring 35 unanswered points. In any case, Hubenak is expected to play against Nicholls State and might even start.
“We have to prepare both of those guys with Nick out,” Sumlin said.
He cited the next couple of weeks as crucial to his quarterbacks’ development, with home games against Nicholls and LouisianaLafayette. A&M’s next true test — at least the Aggies hope — comes Sept. 23 against Arkansas in Arlington’s AT&T Stadium, A&M’s first real chance to show the UCLA outcome was a hiccup, and not a harbinger of things to come this season.