Aggies rout N.C. State in Gator Bowl
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Texas A&M running back Trayveon Williams might still be running, if the Atlantic Ocean hadn’t served as North Carolina State’s last line of defense.
Williams ran in and around the Wolfpack for a Gator Bowl record 236 yards, in the Aggies’ 52-13 whipping of NCSU on Monday night at TIAA Bank Field. In typical fashion for the former C.E. King standout, Williams brushed aside any praise in the bowels of the Jacksonville Jaguars’ stadium.
“It’s a special moment,” Williams said of setting multiple rushing records, all on one 93-yard, fourth-quarter touchdown blast. “But most important, we got that bowl win.
“The bowl win we’ve been kind of missing out on the last (few) seasons.”
Two plays into the Gator Bowl on Monday night, A&M scored more points than it did in its previous sojourn to the Gator, 61 years prior.
The rest of the game’s 59 minutes went much more swimmingly for the Aggies, too, not far from the Atlantic.
The Aggies snapped a three-
game losing streak in bowls, in first-year coach Jimbo Fisher’s first try.
“We’re learning to finish, that’s been one of the things we’ve emphasized, and we’ve learned to get better as the season went on,” Fisher said. “That’s something we’re continuing to grow on, so hopefully we can build on it.”
Williams turned in a career night along the way, in a sea of career Saturdays over his three standout seasons with the Aggies.
He snapped the school’s single-season rushing record with 1,760 yards, previously held by Darren Lewis (1,692 in 1988) on the 93yard run that lifted A&M to a 42-13 lead in the fourth.
In addition Williams wiped out another Lewis mark, in breaking a tie for career 200-yard rushing games at A&M. Williams has five games over his three seasons to rush for at least 200 yards.
Lewis collected four from 1987-1990.
The Aggies (9-4) played in Jacksonville for the first time since the 1957 Gator Bowl, a 3-0 loss to Tennessee in what turned out to be coach Paul “Bear” Bryant’s final game with the Aggies.
A&M wasted no time getting on the board this time around. On the second play from scrimmage, A&M sophomore quarterback Kellen Mond blasted 62 yards for a touchdown, leaving a lead-footed Wolfpack defense in his tracks.
The Aggies’ early lead proved fleeting, however, as the Wolfpack (9-4) of the Atlantic Coast Conference scored the next 13 points on a couple of field goals and a 9-yard touchdown pass from Ryan Finley to CJ Riley.
Undaunted and in a new era under Fisher, the Aggies overcame an early ineffective passing game to grab back the lead in the second quarter on a 2-yard touchdown run by Williams and a stretching 6-yard touchdown catch in the back of the end zone by Kendrick Rogers.
This time around there was no letup, with A&M quickly padding its 21-13 halftime lead early in the third quarter, this time courtesy of the defense. Linebacker Tyrel Dodson stepped in front of a wayward Finley pass and returned the interception 78 yards about four minutes into the second half.
“I studied a lot of film and saw they liked to run little slant routes to the sticks and stop — kind of a spacing route,” Dodson said. “So coach (Mike) Elko said, ‘If you see it, go get it.’ I went to go get it and ended up with a touchdown.”
Added a grinning Williams, “The crazy thing is he told us he was going to do it — and he did it.”
That abrupt score shoved the Aggies’ lead to 28-13, and A&M’s inspired defense pinned back its ears against a suddenly scrambling Wolfpack offense.
Meantime Williams, in likely his last game for the Aggies as he’s expected to declare for the NFL draft, worked over the Wolfpack in record fashion.
The Aggies, favored by a touchdown, were playing without senior linebacker Otaro Alaka (hand surgery) and senior safety Donovan Wilson (hernia surgery), the defense’s two top tacklers this season.
The Wolfpack were without two of their best players, although the duo’s absence wasn’t related to injuries. Receiver Kelvin Harmon and linebacker Germaine Pratt opted to sit out the bowl in preparation for the NFL draft.
The Aggies played with stickers on their helmets commemorating Houstonian and President George H.W. Bush, who died in late November and is buried at his presidential library in College Station.