There is no good place to begin on something like this. You can watch college football for decades and only witness a handful of games like this. To have it happen to your team during rivalry week in such a meaningful contest (at least emotionally for A&M fans) is an alignment of the stars that is almost too far-fetched to imagine. And to come out on top, well, that is something else altogether.

This game will stand on its own as one of the greatest in recent years. Statistically, it’s a rambling edifice of spectacular and unbelievable numbers to be unearthed and expounded upon in the days and weeks to come. We will attempt to scratch the surface here.

OFFENSE

23-49, 287 passing yards, 6 TD | 42 rushing yards, 1 TD

Kellen Mond wasn’t perfect. 49 passing attempts is almost certainly the most he had all season, and that’s not a great completion percentage. On the other hand, he was only sacked twice, got 40+ tough yards on the ground (including a TD), and, vitally, did not turn the ball over. The TD throw to Quartney Davis as time expired was flawless.

35 carries, 198 yards, 2 TD

Trayveon Williams showed up and carried the offense for the entirety of the game against one of the best defenses in the country. This wasn’t overtime stat-padding: he was well over 150 yards rushing in regulation before the WR corps woke up in overtime.

5 catches, 75 yards, 2 TD

Jace Sternberger continued rewriting the Aggie tight end record books. The 25-yard wheel route TD in the {consults notes} SIXTH overtime was a fucking dandy of a play if you’ll excuse my French.

THOSE WIDE RECEIVERS

All night long it looked like nobody was going to step up. Mond was slinging questionable passes around the perimeter, and the few that did find their mark were frustratingly and inexplicably dropped more often than not. Jhamon Ausbon finally grabbed a few key first downs late in the fourth, and then Quartney Davis and Kendrick Rogers apparently were exposed to some supernatural radioactive performance dust on the sidelines near the end of regulation and powered up just in time. Davis broke 100 yards receiving, and the pair of them combined for four touchdown grabs starting as time expired. Rogers added a pair of 2-point conversion catches. This was a phenomenal performance by a group that had been underperforming most of the season.

DEFENSE

13 tackles, 1 TFL, 1 PD

Donovan Wilson has been the backbone of the defense all season, and in his Kyle Field finale he left it all out on the turf. He was dinged up, still flying all over the field, leading the team in tackles, several of them open-field, key stops. He was just a fraction of a second late on a couple of breaks that could have ended up as interceptions. Tremendous last performance by the Louisiana native.

Four players finished with 10+ tackles

Joining Wilson were Alaka (11), Renfro (10), and Madubuike (10). Alaka had a pair of sacks. The team finished with six sacks overall. LSU got their rushing yards, and they got their passing yards. They got enough production to go seven overtimes deep, obviously. But in the end, the Aggie defense did enough. Somehow.

MANN BALL

5-266 | 53.2

Braden Mann averaged well north of 50 yards per punt again last night, which means he’s just rewritten the NCAA punting record books for highest average in a season. Punting is winning! Mann also had another nice tackle on special teams.

MISCELLANY

• The Aggies ran 107 plays.
• The Aggies ran the ball 56 times. Trayveon Williams (35) and Kellen Mond (20) combined for 55 of those carries.
• LSU QB Joe Burrow ran the ball 29 times for 100 yards and 3 TDs. Battering ram.
• LSU superstar LB Devin White finished with 17 tackles, 4 TFL, 1 sack, and 1 forced fumble.
• There were 90 total passes thrown, 10 total passing TDs, and not a single interception.
• The teams combined for 25 tackles for loss (12 for A&M, 13 for LSU).
• Each team faced 20 or more third downs, and converted half of them.
• Despite seven overtimes and nearly five hours, there were fewer than 100 combined penalty yards in the game.

Attempting to digest this game in its entirety right away is a monumental task. For now, it’s enough to enjoy this for the next month and change until we play our bowl game. Savor it. PIck it apart. Enjoy different aspects of this game in various installments at your own pace. It’s a masterpiece, meant to be admired. This game lasted four hours and fifty-three minutes, or roughly enough time to drive from Kyle Field in College Station to Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge. It went seven extra periods, featured more points than any other game in FBS history, and still all came down to that one last second on the clock. What an absurd and exhilarating sport.

1-0

Jimbo Fisher’s record against LSU

This is the most meaningful number from all of this. Happy bowl season, everyone.

via 12thMan.com and ESPN