Aggies raised their game on defense, but face a tough test from Tar Heels
Texas A&M had just defeated the Florida Gators — a 41-38, last-second win over a top-10 team, a marquee victory that served as the impetus for the Aggies’ high ranking throughout this pandemicravaged season and a reason fifth-ranked they are playing in the Orange
Bowl against No. 13 North Carolina on Saturday
But there was still something missing.
In the game against UF and the game that preceded it, a 52-24 loss to topranked Alabama, the Aggies had given up 90 points and 946 total yards of offense.
“We knew we had to look ourselves in the mirror and get things together,” said Texas A&M senior linebacker Buddy Johnson, who leads the team with 76 tackles.
The mood in practice changed. The results followed.
In Texas A&M’s final six games of the regular season, all wins, the Aggies allowed an average of just 274.7 yards and 14.7 points.
Texas A&M led the SEC in total defense (averaging 316.6 yards allowed per game) and opponent thirddown conversion rate (35.2 percent) while ranking third in scoring defense (averaging 21.1 points allowed per game) and holding a plus-5 turnover margin.
“I think I’m happy that there were games where we went out there against SEC West foes and were able to play like a championship-level defense,” Texas A&M defensive coordinator Mike Elko said. “That’s something we have challenged our kids all the way across the board since we’ve been here that if you want to be great in this league, in this division, there’s going to be times where we have to carry our weight heavily, and we’ve been able to do that.”
That group will be tested one more time on Saturday against a Tar Heels team that ranked fourth in the country in total offense (556 yards per game) but is missing its top three playmakers in
Michael Carter, Javonte Williams
Dyami Brown.
and
“Those are extremely talented players that have chosen not to play in this game,” Elko said, “but we’re operating under the firm belief that there are more talented football players in that program that they’re going to put in and easily fill those roles.”
ORANGE BOWL COURAGE AWARD WINNER
Arkansas State’s Alex Charlton on Tuesday was named the winner of the 2020 Capital One Orange Bowl-FWAA Courage Award. The award, voted on by a group of writers from the Football Writers Association of America, is handed out annually to
someone in college football who displays “courage on or off the field, including overcoming an injury or physical handicap, preventing a disaster or living through hardship.”
Charlton, 30, left his post with the Arkansas State football team as a volunteer defensive analyst to serve on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic as a response nurse. Charlton is currently working at the Ennis Regional Medical Center, where he is expected to be working through at least the next month. He went to nursing school at University of Missouri-Kansas City after a stint as a graduate assistant for the Kansas football team.
This is his second stint serving as a response nurse during the pandemic. In March, before he was offered a job at Arkansas State, he went to New
York at the onset of the pandemic. The state at that point was experiencing an average of 5,000 cases daily. He stayed there until June.
“I love football and I miss it on a daily basis,” Charlton said in a press release. “But when you go to New York to help out at the peak of everything and you see all that is going on in the rest of the country, to me, how can you not do anything about it when you’re capable of helping?”
Other nominees for the courage award this season included Wisconsin’s Jon Dietzen, the Miami Hurricanes’ D’Eriq King, the Kentucky football team, Iowa State’s Chase Allen and Vanderbilt’s Sarah Fuller.