By The Numbers: Texas A&M 26, South Carolina 23

That could have gone better. It also could have gone much worse. This team hasn’t excelled at completely putting games away over the past few weeks, but unlike your Aggie teams from the past, like, 18 or 19 seasons, this one has managed to overcome sloppiness and stay in the W column using sheer grit and an iron will. These are the qualities we’ve been wanting in Aggie teams for a long time, and it feels like this team is just realizing they’ve got the ability to outlast opponents. It’s fine, and it will get even better. Now some numbers.

0: Turnovers. Thankfully. This needed to get cleaned up, and it did.

1: Forced Fumble, Braden Mann. How’s that for your Ray Guy/Heisman resume? Kick the ball 50+ yards, get downfield, make the tackle, strip the ball, and let your star linebacker recover it. More of this please, if it doesn’t interfere with your 60+ yard punting.

+2: Turnovers. Again! The defense hasn’t been great at getting their hands on balls, but that changed against the Cocks tonight. Sorry. No more until next year, promise.

3rd Quarter: Ouch. What are the odds of A&M being able to make two consecutive 2-point conversions? Probably pretty good if they’re going up against their own secondary in practice.

4/5 FG, long of 52. Solid outing by the true freshman Small to get back on track.

FIVE IN A ROW now in this heated and historic rivalry full of hatred.

5:45: That last TD drive. Ags got the ball with a tenuous FG lead with half of the last quarter remaining. By the time they went up 10 points, South Carolina had under two minutes to work with. Turns out we needed to burn all that time.

7: Donovan Wilson tackles. He led the team again, but unfortunately he also picked up his THIRD targeting ejection in seven games. This has got to be cleaned up, because he’s by far the best tackler in the secondary.

12: Penalties, 117 yards. Nope, cannot do this in Starkville two weeks from now.

16/272/1TD: The Davis/Sternberger Express. Mond has really needed someone to step up in Ausbon’s absence, and Quartney did it today. Great combo.

19/78/1TD: Trayveon’s outing. Fairly pedestrian day for the SEC’s leading rusher, but he got the tough yards when it mattered in the fourth quarter.

#34 BRADEN MANN: LOOK AT THAT STRIP

Enjoy the rest of your Saturday evenings, and let’s have a nice bye week.

Stats courtesty of:

https://12thman.com/documents/2018/10/13/Final_Stats_Texas_A_M_26_South_Carolina_23_.pdf

http://www.espn.com/college-football/boxscore?gameId=401012311