TEXAS A&M: UAB no match for Aggies.
Blazers vanquished; attention turns to elusive win over rival
COLLEGE STATION — Texas A&M has cleared the decks for its biggest game of the year — its last one of the regular season.
The Aggies shoved aside Alabama-Birmingham 41-20 on Saturday night at Kyle Field to make way for the big one, at least in their minds: playing host to No. 7 LSU on Thanksgiving weekend.
“It was a good, solid game, but just solid,” A&M first-year coach Jimbo Fisher said. “We need to play better. We’ve got one of the best teams in the country coming in here.”
A&M had scheduled UAB, whose program was on hiatus at the time, nearly three years ago with the notion the contest would serve as a glorified scrimmage for the ballyhooed LSU finale.
The Blazers, having won nine of their 10 games rolling into Kyle Field, had other intentions, but they were wiped out from the first play on.
That’s when the Aggies’ Brian Johnson knocked the ball out of the hands of the Blazers’ Andre Wilson, and Larry Pryor returned the fumble 17 yards for a touchdown — nine seconds into the game.
“I was sprinting down at full speed, I shed a block and I look up and the ball is in my hands,” Pryor said of the tone-setting play.
UAB (9-2, 7-0 C-USA) wasn’t ready to roll over just yet, and marched the ball 75 yards on 10 plays to tie the game on a 9-yard touchdown catch by Wilson, making up for his early miscue. It turned out that was the Blazers’ high-water mark, as the Aggies (7-4, 4-3 SEC) soon punched holes in their early buoyancy.
“This was a top 25 team, and our guys came out and took it seriously,” Fisher said of the Blazers squeezing into the coaches poll at No. 25 in the days before visiting A&M.
Later in the first quarter, A&M running back Trayveon Williams scooted to the edge and outran the Blazers’ defense for a 9-yard touchdown, giving the Aggies a lead they wouldn’t relinquish. Williams, the SEC’s leading rusher, followed up his 228 yards rushing a week ago the Aggies’ victory over Mississippi with 167 against the Blazers, including 111 in the fourth quarter Saturday.
“I just try to keep those chains moving,” Williams said.
Along the way, A&M’s Braden Mann set an NCAA record with his 14th punt of 60-plus yards this season, surpassing the mark he held with Wake Forest’s Ryan Plackemeier (2005).
UAB entered the game among the national leaders in a handful of defensive categories, including third in total defense in allowing 261 yards per game, but the Aggies had blasted by that total in the third quarter, and finished with 444.
The Aggies’ 24 points at halftime equaled the amount the four previous schools from Texas that UAB had played — Rice, North Texas, UTEP and UTSA — had totaled in their losses to the Blazers. UAB had outscored those Lone Star foes 142-24.
A&M added scores in the second half on a Seth Small 25-yard field goal and 25-yard and 20yard touchdown pass from Kellen Mond to tight end Jace Sternberger.
“We feel like we can beat anybody one-on-one,” Sternberger said of his connection with his roommate Mond. “Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t.”
The Aggies led 34-7 early in the fourth quarter when A&M running back Kwame Etwi fumbled and the Blazers recovered on the A&M 11-yard line, and then capitalized on another touchdown catch by Wilson, this one from 10 yards out.
UAB kicker Nick Vogel had already missed three field goals at the point — with one blocked by A&M defensive lineman Jayden Peevy — before Peevy collected another block on the extra point, and A&M led 34-13 with a little more than 11 minutes remaining in the game.
The Aggies will now try and defeat LSU for the first time in seven tries since entering the SEC in 2012.
“Every week is a new opportunity, that’s how we look at it,” said Mond, who was 11 of 20 for 192 yards against UAB. “It’s going to be a really big week for us.”
A&M also is trying to finish with a winning record in SEC play for the first time since its initial season in the league six years ago, when it was 6-2.
“We’re going to try and capitalize on this momentum we’ve got,” A&M defensive end Landis Durham said.