Wasted opportunities haunt Ags as Notre Dame spoils Elko Era opener
All temptation must be avoided.
Any impulse to put a positive spin on Texas A&M’s season-opening 23-13 loss to Notre Dame on Saturday night at Kyle Field immediately should be squelched.
Eternal optimists will remind that A&M was tied midway through the fourth quarter with the No. 7 ranked team in the nation. They’ll suggest A&M won’t play a tougher defense this season. They’ll see that as reason to assume precious victories await the Aggies.
Don’t listen to them. Even if some of that is true, no solace should be taken in another close loss to a highly-ranked opponent.
A year ago, the Aggies lost close games to No. 11 Alabama, No. 19 Tennessee, No. 10 Ole Miss and No. 14 LSU.
There is no longer any honor in being the little train that almost could.
Tied 6-6 at halftime, there was an ominous feeling that A&M would pay for chances missed.
On A&M’s opening series, quarterback Conner Weigman could not connect with wide-open running back EJ Smith on a pass that probably would have resulted in a 17-yard touchdown. The Aggies settled for a Randy Bond field goal.
A third-down conversion at midfield via quarterback sneak was ruffled by a false start penalty against a wide receiver who wasn’t involved in the play.
Another false start on third-and-3 at the Notre Dame 32-yard line short-circuited another drive.
Bond salvaged another field goal.
Then, in the third quarter, the Aggies took over at midfield after stopping Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard on fourth-and-2.
A&M eventually gave the ball back on downs.
It was just another frustrating night of wasted opportunity. The offense was stagnant. The defense failed when it mattered most. Key plays weren’t made at pivotal junctures.
The only difference from a year ago was no postgame lamentation for failure to execute nor “find the inches.”
“Notre Dame came in here, and they beat us. There’s really no two ways around it,” coach Mike Elko said. “To the Aggie fans, I thank you. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for making this really a special day.
“You deserve better. We didn’t give it to you. We’ll go back to work. We’ll continue to drive this thing to become the product that you guys want and deserve for this program to be.”
There was so much hope that with the arrival of Elko as head coach would come a discipline and a toughness to produce the plays which ultimately mean the difference in success and failure.
There was hope with the return of Weigman from injury. There was hope with a projected powerful defensive line presenting a mismatch for a Notre Dame offensive front with just six career starts combined among the five linemen.
It’s said that hope floats. But in the second half, hope sank like a rock.
A&M was left dragging the bottoms in search of explanations for what happened.
Weigman struggled. He completed just 12-of-30 passes for 100 yards. His second-quarter overthrow of 6-foot-6 receiver Noah Thomas resulted in an interception that set up Notre Dame at the A&M 29-yard line. That led to an Irish field goal.
Another interception on an ill-advised throw snuffed out an opportunity for A&M to add points just before the half.
“We’ve got to go back to the tape and figure out how to put him in better situations to get him comfortable,” Elko said. “The challenge tonight was they were going to play us in man (coverage) all night. So, there’s not a lot of easy access throws to get him comfortable and get him in rhythm. People are going to have to win to do that. We just were not able to get it going."
Of course, excuses could be made for Weigman. He was back in the lineup since suffering an injury last season. He was also operating the new system of offensive coordinator Collin Klein.
But Leonard, a transfer from Duke, was in a similar situation. No excuses were made. Only plays.
Leonard didn’t throw much better than Weigman. He completed 18-of-30 passes for 158 yards.
But he ran for 64 yards and had key runs on a couple of Notre Dame scoring drives.
Leonard wasn’t alone in his running success, though.
The Aggies corralled Notre Dame’s running game throughout the first half. The Irish had just 65 rushing yards at halftime.
However, they consistently ripped through the A&M’s run defense in the second half to turn a 6-6 tie into a 20-13 advantage. Notre Dame more than doubled its rushing output in the second half.
That left the Aggies trying to figure out what went wrong.
“It was a litany of things,” Elko said. “I thought we could have done a better job up front controlling the line of scrimmage, for sure. We missed-fit some things. That created some of the large runs.”
Like a 47-yard touchdown run by Jadarian Price and a 21-yard score by Jeremiyah Love.
Sophomore linebacker Taurean York took the blame.
“I feel like the breakdown was me,” he said. “I missed the tackle on the long touchdown. They ran for 200 yards, and I’d probably say three-quarters of that was in the second half. We’ve got to lock in more. It’s on me at the end of the day. I’ve got to get these guys right.”
Price’s touchdown staked Notre Dame to a 13-6 lead midway through the third quarter.
But the Aggies were able to drive for a game-tying Le’Veon Moss touchdown run with 11:48 to play.
Later in the quarter, Notre Dame faced third-and-5 at its own 20-yard line.
The Irish converted just 2-of-12 third downs all night.
With another third-down stop, the Aggies figured to get good field position for a potential game-winning drive.
Instead, Leonard completed a 9-yard pass for a first down.
He followed with a 20-yard pass down the sideline. Then, he ran for 11 yards and completed another pass for 18.
One play later, Love broke loose up the middle for the game-winning touchdown.
Like a recurring nightmare, the Aggies couldn’t make clutch plays in clutch times.
“What I told the guys in the locker room is for us to get this program over the hump, we’re going to have to learn how to put ourselves in position to play the game the way we need to in those moments,” Elko said. “We just didn’t do that tonight."
