Texas A&M's mulligan spent in frustrating night at Williams-Brice, 44-20

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COLUMBIA, S.C. — “Rat poison” will inevitably be blamed for Texas A&M’s 44-20 loss to South Carolina on Saturday night.

Don’t believe it. Rat poison wasn’t the culprit. Instead, the 10th-ranked Aggies were overcome by a horrific case of Salmonella caused by exposure to poisonous poultry.

Make no mistake, the charged-up Gamecocks (5-3, 3-3) exposed A&M’s undisciplined defense, erratic offense and even questionable coaching decisions to deal the Aggies (7-1, 5-1) their first Southeastern Conference football loss.

“Missed tackles have been growing and growing,” A&M coach Mike Elko said. “Sometimes the hardest thing to do is learn in victory because (mistakes) gets covered up, and it gets masked up. Some of the things that have been behind the scenes and we’ve been winning through certainly showed up tonight in a really bad way. That’s on me.”

Just a week ago, the Aggies had rallied for an emotional 38-23 victory over LSU. Praise, flattery and adulation — the things Nick Saban once labeled “rat poison” — followed in heaping doses.

That’s why various SEC football observers suggested the Aggies were entering a “trap” at Williams-Brice Stadium. The thousands of celebrating fans who rushed the field proved the observers correct.

The Aggies hardly resembled the team that shut down LSU’s running game and dominated the second half.

South Carolina ran through an array of missed tackles to roll up a season-high 286 rushing yards and 530 yards of total offense.

A&M had held five opponents to 100 rushing yards or less. South Carolina’s 230-pound running back Raheim Sanders (144) and 242-pound quarterback LaNorris Sellers (106) both eclipsed that number.

“We didn’t bring our feet,” Elko said.
“We didn’t tackle the way we need to to tackle big backs. They’re big, powerful kids. If you want to tackle big, powerful kids, you’ve got to bring your body to the tackle.”

The Aggies also helped the Gamecocks by committing seven penalties for 68 yards. Six of them were on the defense.

Meanwhile, the A&M’s offense sputtered throughout most of the first half and was almost non-existent in the second half.

Twice, Elko opted to go for first downs and fourth-and-1 at his own 34-yard line. First, Marcel Reed was stonewalled on a quarterback sneak. Then, running back Amari Daniels was stopped short.

The Gamecocks turned both failures into 10 easy points.

Perhaps Elko attempted to convert those fourth-down situations because he doubted the defense’s ability to stop South Carolina. He said that wasn’t the case, so take him at his word.

“It was fourth-and-half-a-yard for both of them that we went for,” he said. “We’re going to do that. That’s something we’re going to do. We haven’t really been in that situation before.”

When Reed came up short on A&M’s first series of the game, the Gamecocks scored three plays later to take a 14-0 lead.

They might have blown the game open before halftime if not for two Randy Bond 50-plus field goals and Will Lee III forcing a fumble that BJ Mayes recovered at the Aggies’ 30-yard line.

Jeff Blake-Imagn Images

Marcel Reed’s third-quarter interception was the first pick of his career.

But Daniels broke loose for a 56-yard touchdown run, and Reed threw a 2-yard touchdown pass to Jabre Barber to give the Aggies an improbable 20-17 lead just 1:08 before halftime.

However, two egregious penalties for 25 yards enabled the Gamecocks to get a tying field goal in the final seconds of the half.

“To some degree, that gave them the momentum back,” Elko said. “We had stormed back. We had taken the lead. I thought we did a really good job managing the clock at the end of the first half and left them very little time to go down the field.

“We gave them 25 or 30 yards on that drive and just gifted them a field goal.”

Typically, the Aggies have made productive adjustments at halftime. There were no such adjustments this time.

A&M only had two legitimate scoring opportunities in the second half. One ended with an interception. The other with Reed being suffocated by the Gamecocks’ pass rush.

In contrast, South Carolina never slowed down. Sanders broke loose for a 52-yard to score the first of three Gamecocks’ touchdowns in the second half.

Yet, despite this debacle, A&M is still in first place in the SEC standings — albeit now in a tie with Georgia and Tennessee.

Following an open date, games with New Mexico State, Auburn and Texas remain. The Aggies can still reach the SEC Championship Game and the College Football Playoff.

But they've used their mulligan.

"We still control our own destiny to Atlanta,” Elko said. “We still control our own destiny to the playoffs.”

A lot of things must be fixed to make that happen.