Close, but still no cigar.
For the first half on Saturday, Texas A&M looked like a team ready to introduce itself as an immediate contender in the Southeastern Conference. A 12-0 lead in the second quarter had coach Kevin Sumlin smiling, quarterback Johnny Manziel’s confidence rising and the 12th man louder than ever.
By the end of the game, however, the question of whether the Aggies can play big-boy football in the trenches with the SEC heavyweights seemed pretty easy to answer — no.
Beating an Arkansas program in free-fall and rallying on the road against Ole Miss is one thing, but trying to take down LSU or Florida is a monster Texas A&M just isn’t ready for.
The recipes for both of the Aggies’ SEC losses to the Tigers and Gators were almost identical — get up early, lose any kind of momentum on offense and don’t have enough left in the tank to pull out a victory. Not to mention both losses took place in Kyle Field, the Aggies’ backyard.
It didn’t hurt that two of the best defensive minds in the game, Florida coach Will Muschamp and LSU defensive coordinator John Chavis, were in charge of the units that caused fits for Aggies offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury.
Aggies freshman phenomenon Johnny “Football” Manziel will eventually have his day against a physically superior defense because of his electric playmaking ability, but it won’t be this season.
Give some credit to Kingsbury for his playcalling on the Aggies’ initial two drives. They were able to march 75 and 66 yards with little resistance from an LSU defense who only gave up 211 total yards to South Carolina last weekend.
“Texas A&M came out passing a lot,” said defensive end Barkevious Mingo after the game. “Quick throws, three-step drops — they were trying to get the ball out of Manziel’s hands quick.”
After that, it was an entirely different story.
Instead of bringing pressure with a four-man defensive front, Chavis simply dropped back with six or seven defensive backs, contained Manziel in the pocket and made him make plays with his arm. Kingsbury completely abandoned the run, leading to Manziel throwing a season-high 56 times, 16 more than he threw against Louisiana Tech last week.
Texas A&M simply had no answer to Chavis’ defensive shuffling, although Sumlin knew it was coming.
“They mixed it up just like they said they would,” Sumlin said after the game. “They didn’t play one static defense the whole game, they mixed it up and changed some things.”
Apparently Sumlin and Kinsbury weren’t paying attention in biology class.
Adaptation is crucial to any organism’s ability to survive in an environment where changes occur. In the Aggies’ case, their inability to throw anything at an LSU defense it couldn’t handle resulted in another close loss.
It’s not going to get any easier for Sumlin and the Aggies going forward. Texas A&M already had a problem blowing leads before Sumlin arrived.
After failing to capitalize on a double-digit first half lead against the Tigers, the Aggies have now lost seven games in which they led by at least 10 points in the last two seasons.
If Texas A&M couldn’t hold leads in the Big 12, good luck trying to hang on in the SEC.
Of the 120 minutes played in the Aggies’ two contests between LSU and Florida, 74 minutes and six seconds of those they spent being shut out between scores. In that time frame, the Gators and Tigers outscored them 37-0.
That’s a trend Sumlin is going to have to buck if he hopes to adjust to the learning curve that is the SEC. Turning the ball over five times isn’t going to help either.
Texas A&M might have felt ready to make a statement in the SEC, but LSU made sure the Aggies still aren’t comfortable in their new surroundings.
