Texas A&M beats UCLA 31-24 in OT: 3 POST GAME THOUGHTS

WOOOOOOOOOOO BOY. That’s one way to get the season started. Despite being up by 15 points late into the third quarter, the Aggies found themselves in an OT barnburner. Give all the credit in the world to Josh Rosen...the kid is as talented a QB as we’ll see all year long, but we (with a little help from his receivers) managed to put the clamps on him. Here are three quick thoughts:

THE DEFENSE

Hats off to John Chavis and the Fightin Texas Aggie Defense. The combination of a ferocious pass rush (that kept Rosen on his heels most all of the game) and a opportunistic backfield put us in position to get our first win over a ranked team at Kyle Field since 2013.

The strength of this defense is definitely our front four, but our safeties played a whale of a game...and it seems like the most unheralded one of the three—Justin Evans—-ended up being A&Ms savior (did you see the thing where he popped his knee back in? holy crap)

COACHING

I was pretty darn frustrated with our offensive coaching for much of the second half. We had opportunity after opportunity to close the game out—while up 8 we threw the ball like three times and didn’t take any time off the clock. Same thing with our clock management at the end of the second half...I’m really not sure what we were thinking there.

BUT THEN THEY TOTALLY GO AND REDEEM THEMSELVES with that ballsy fourth down play call in overtime. The defensive end had been crashing all game long and we were due for Trevor to keep one and take it in....and it was great to have Ford in as a short yardage decoy.

All in all not a fantastic offensive game, but not a terrible one either. The combination of Trayveon Williams and Keith Ford is going to give people nightmares. The offensive line deserves a lot of credit too. Despite starting off rough, they gelled pretty darn well and put Trevor in position to succeed.

TREVOR

We saw a couple of bad Trevor moments...the errant pick straight to the defender. And the guy definitely has his limitations...but man. The moxy factor is off the chart. Hurdling that defender...that fourth down play. I’m still not sure that he’s the best fit for what we’re trying to do, what with his happy feet in the pocket, but he stood in today and got the win. An OT win over a ranked team is not a bad way to start a career.

OVERALL

Huge win. Don’t ask yourself whether UCLA is overrated or anything like that. Save that for later in the year. We beat a really good ranked team led by an eventual top 5 NFL draft pick at QB at home. We haven’t had a good home win in years. There’s definitely stuff to clean up but it’s a lot more fun cleaning stuff up after a win.

BTHO pvamu