Sumlin, A&M leaders respond to home loss to Mizzou

Kevin Sumlin

On playing without Myles Garrett and Ivan Robinson...

"I'm sure it had some effect on us. Our other players need to be able to step in for them at this time of the year and play. But to lose a few guys that have done so much for us this year, it had to affect us some. Hopefully we'll have those guys back for the LSU game."

On the third quarter miscues...

"We lost Josh Walker in the second quarter and I think he'll be out for the rest of the season with a broken foot. Then Otaro Alaka came out of the game for a little bit, so we were playing without our two starting linebackers. We missed tackles and allowed them to run the ball. The story of the game is our inability to stop them on third down. They were able to stay on the field and we weren't."

On the offense's inability to run the ball...

"We weren't as efficient on the ground in the first half as we wanted to be, but we didn’t have that many opportunities because we really didn't run that many plays. It's something that we put an emphasis on because the Mizzou defense has been stout against the run this year. We challenged our guys, but when it came down to it, we didn't make enough plays."

WR Malcome Kennedy

On outcome...

"I'm pretty upset. We played hard and just came up short. We did some good things, just not good enough."

On last series...

"It was just aggravating, honestly. We always trust what we call; we always trust what we do. We are a good enough offense to execute every play. We just didn't execute that one. It was just tough seeing that fourth down stop. They played it well. They knew it was going to go down there and they sniffed it out. We just couldn't convert."

On LSU prep...

"We are going to prepare the same way we've been preparing. We have this bye week and we are going to try to get some guys healthy. It's not an excuse, but we had a lot of guys out on defense and through the course of the game a few more guys got injured. I think that really affected us. We are going to use this week to get healthy. We have one more game. We have been doing well, practicing fine. We have a lot of energy, lot of emotion. Tonight, they made more plays than we did."

On the third quarter...

"We had a few three and outs. We work with the defense. When they go down and score and we don't score, it hurts the defense. When they score on defense, it hurts us emotionally. We do the best we can to keep each other up and we just didn't make enough plays."

On the weather...

"It didn't really affect me. When we got here it was way warmer than we expected. The rain was okay, but it didn't really affect us. We didn't have a lot of dropped balls and we made a lot of plays. Personally, I felt great. We came out with some energy, our bodies stayed warm and we had heaters on the sideline. We just shut down in some moments when we really needed plays."

DE Julien Obioha

On the effect of injuries on the outcome...

“It affected us a whole lot. But the coaches say all the time that when a guy goes down the guy behind him has to step and produce the same amount. It just happens in football. It’s a part of the game. Whenever a guy goes down, the next guy has to produce.”

On the defense’s difficulty stopping Missouri in the third quarter...

“There was really one play that we practiced all week. I don’t know what happened. We are going to watch the film and get better. There was one play that we practiced all week that was really hurting us. We knew what the play it was and we couldn’t stop it. We just have got to get better and move on. I think they just saw a hole in our defense and exposed it. We did a great job at stopping all their other plays. They started off trying to run the quarterback and run their typical offense. For the most part, we shut it down. They had their go-to play that we really couldn’t stop.”

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Post-game notes

That’s a wrap with Reynolds
• Sophomore WR Josh Reynolds had another strong game with five catches for 125 yards and two touchdowns, marking his first career 100-yard game.

• His two touchdown catches give him 12 for the season, which match the school record set originally by Jeff Fuller in 2010 and matched by Mike Evans in 2013.

• Reynolds also took over the SEC lead after entering the day tied with Alabama WR Amari Cooper at 10 (Cooper had one TD catch vs. Mississippi State).

• The Aggies’ most consistent receiver, Reynolds is the only player with at least one catch in every game in 2014. He had two or more catches in 10-of-11 games.

Texas A&M season receiving TDs
Player                    TDs          Year
Mike Evans             12          2013

Jeff Fuller                12          2010

Josh Reynolds        12          2014

Ryan Swope            11          2011

Jeff Fuller                  9          2008

Milestones
• 100 career tackles: Junior DE Julien Obioha became the third current player with triple-digit tackles for his career. Obioha came in with 98 and quickly had two in the first quarter to hit 100. He finished with 104 tackles.

• 100 consecutive PAT: Senior PK Josh Lambo connected on three extra points which improved his streak of successful PATs to 101, which had only been accomplished previously by Randy Bullock in school history.

• 50 touchdowns: With WR Josh Reynolds’ 24-yard TD catch in the second quarter, the Aggies have reached the 50-touchdown plateau for the sixth straight year and 10th time in school history.

Watts grabs pickoff #3
• True freshman safety Armani Watts grabbed his third interception of the season, which leads the team and ranks in a tie for second-most ever by a freshman at Texas A&M.

Freshman season interceptions
Player                INTs         Year
Jaxson Appel        4          2002

Armani Watts        3          2014

Trent Hunter          3          2008

Japhus Brown       3          2004

Allen moves up freshman chart
• True freshman QB Kyle Allen tossed three TDs against the Tigers to move his season total to 11 passing scores, which ranks No. 3 in school history by a freshman.

Freshman season passing TDs
Player                   TDs          Year
Johnny Manziel      26          2012

Kevin Murray          14          1983

Kyle Allen               11          2014

Craig Stump           10          1984

Reggie McNeal        6          2002

Hitting half-million
• With another 100,000-plus crowd at Kyle Field, Texas A&M’s total attendance for 2014 over 500,000. It’s the first time that A&M has reached a half-million in fewer than six games.

• Tonight’s crowd was 104,756, which is the second-largest crowd in Kyle Field history.

Garrett, Robinson out
• Texas A&M announced prior to the game that defensive starters Myles Garrett and Ivan Robinson were out due to injury.

12th Man, game captains
• The Aggies’ 12th Man against the Tigers was Sam Moeller, a junior from San Antonio, Texas. He has served as the Aggies’ 12th Man in every game in 2013 and 2014 (24 straight starts).

• Game captains were senior Malcome Kennedy and juniors Julien Obioha and Drew Kaser. Texas A&M won the toss and elected to receive the opening kickoff.