It doesn’t happen often, but it’s happened before. Twenty years ago the college football team ranked No. 2 in the country ventured into Kyle Field and left as an upset victim. That was the Nebraska Cornhuskers, whose 40-game regular season winning streak was brought to an abrupt halt as Texas A&M prevailed 28-7.
This year’s Aggies hope to repeat that history on Saturday against the No. 2 Clemson Tigers, who are now as powerful and explosive as the Cornhuskers of ’98 were. Kickoff is at 6 p.m.
“Clemson has been as good as anybody in college football in the last few years,” said Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher who was 4-4 against the Tigers as head coach at Florida State. “They’re well coached. They’ve got great players. We all know that. We’re going to find out if our guys can compete and stay focused in the game.”
Then-A&M coach R.C. Slocum might have said something similar prior to facing Nebraska in ’98. In that game, A&M capitalized on scoring opportunities, rushed for 259 yards and allowed just two sacks. The Aggies defense held the Huskers to 345 total yards. A&M won the turnover battle (2-1). The Aggies took an early lead and whipped a crowd of 60,798 into a deafening frenzy.
If the Aggies can duplicate those feats against Clemson they will whip into a frenzy a crowd that is
expected to twice as large as that in 1998. The Aggies must run effectively. Trayveon Williams won’t repeat his 240-yard outburst in last week’s 59-7 season-opening victory over Northwestern State, but he must be productive.
“We have to have balance,” Fisher said. “There may be tough sledding at times. There may be times you bang it and you're not getting tons of yards. But you’ve got to make them respect the run, you’ve got to run the football and you’ve got to keep balance because they’ve got to play it. If not, you become one-dimensional and the guys up front can tee off and come after you."
Clemson can come after the quarterback as ferociously as any team in the country. Last year the Tigers led the nation in sacks and the entire defensive line of Clelin Ferrell, Dexter Lawrence, Christian Wilkins, and Austin Bryant returned intact. The Aggies allowed just two sacks in that ’98 win over Nebraska. They must find a way to minimize Clemson’s pass rush too.
“It will be imperative,” Fisher said. “Those (Clemson) guys up front were all of them are first or second-team All-American last year. All four of those guys. They’re dynamic. They can beat you with power. They can beat you with speed. They beat you with experience, agility, knowledge. They're a well-coached group. It’ll be a challenge.”
The challenge also includes limiting turnovers, converting on third down, containing Clemson’s offense, preventing big plays and capitalizing on scoring opportunities when they do come. Of course, none of that is going to come easily.
“You're not going to be given anything. You have to earn everything that you're going to get,” Fisher said. “That’s going to be the key. You can’t wait for them to make a mistake and say, ‘Oh, there’s a big play. If one of those happens to happen you better take advantage.”
Just what’s the Aggies did against Nebraska. Then, they maintained that momentum and went on to win the Big 12 championship over Kansas State, which by the way, was ranked No. 2.
FIFYQuote:
That was the Nebraska Cornhuskers, whose 40-game regular season winning streak was brought to an abrupt halt as Texas A&M prevailed 28-21
