Scoreboard: A&M over Arkansas

Imagine being a Hog fan right now. You now have six straight losses to Texas A&M - three of the last four in overtime. The games have been riddled with bad calls, blown coverages, and Arkansas leads lost in the fourth quarter. Your team even wore special Jerryforms to Jerryworld to honor Jerry, and they still lost in the most heartbreaking fashion.

Isn’t college football just the best?

Let’s score this delicious conference win.

OFFENSE

SCALE: Girls In High School Movies

SCORE: Ally in The Breakfast Club. Or any other character that falls into the classic trope: homely girl that no one is interested finally takes off her glasses, lets her hair down, and they realize she was hot all along just the way she was.

The Aggies started the game ugly with four of their first five drives resulting in punts and a turnover. In fact, except for the second-to-last drive, the majority of A&M’s offense came on two plays: a blown coverage by Arkansas for a Kirk TD, and Mond’s infamous should-have-been-80+-yard-TD run.

[Consults notes written before the game] But then things changed for the Ags in the second half. It turns out that when you take off their glasses, this was a running team the whole time. Relying on Keith Ford’s 7.3 yards/carry(!) the Aggies were able to open up the passing game as well with some play action, and suddenly we had a competent attack again.

Mond really is getting better right in front of our eyes. We all know that a side judge screwed him out of what should have been the longest QB run in school history (no, it’s not Johnny but Bucky Richardson actually). And yes, that long TD pass to Kirk was a blown coverage, but true freshmen don’t always recognize and execute on that blown coverage so well. And the game winning TD to Kirk was simply the best throw of Mond’s career to date. If you watched Kellen Mond this game and aren’t excited about the future of Aggie football then there’s no saving you from your misery prison.

DEFENSE

SCALE: Military Theaters

SCORE: The Russian Front. It wasn’t pretty and they suffered heavy losses, but in the end they walked away the victors.

Yes, the Aggies gave up 5 yards/carry and over 450 yards of offense. They also spent a LOT of time on the field, sacked Austin Allen six(!) times, and at the most important moment of the game Armani Watts stepped up with the game sealing interception. Nitpick stats all day and complain about Chavis if you want. Just admit that you’d never do it to these guys’ faces.

SPECIAL TEAMS

SCALE: Luxury Sedans

SCORE: BMW M5. Sleek, comfortable, flawlessly reliable, and it’s got some serious punch when you need it. The kickers quietly put together a near-perfect night, LaCamera with his 3/3 FG 5/5 PAT and Tripucka with his 42.5 average. There were no miscues, just solid work and solid coverage.

Plus there was some punch when we needed it:

COACHING

SCALE: Dogs

SCORE: Shih Tzu. Listen, I love all dogs but if you don’t stop pissing on the rug I swear to god we’re gonna leave you in a cardboard box in front of the Kroger and get a cat. First SEC game of the season and the team showed grit and toughness and was able to adjust to compete in the second half. But the clock management in the last minute of the game was mystifying and it’s hard not to believe that better use of our options would have resulted in one or possibly two shots into the end zone, rather than a second-down FG with 4 seconds to go.

The fact is that this team is 3-1, 1-0 in conference, and their only loss is to a P5 team by one point. Choose your own adventure, but this game made me happy enough to put my blinders back on for one more week.

ONE MORE THING

Aggies online are just the worst. I am no better.

Practice what you preach, and what I preach is that when you’re a whiny bitch online just own it later when you were wrong. So wrong in your wrongness.