Aggies Fall to Mississippi State

Saturday, October 28

College Station

6:15 p.m.

Texas A&M

5-3 , 3-2

Mississippi State

6-2 , 3-2

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

Mississippi State

Texas A&M

Photo by: Thomas Campbell/Texas A&M Athletics

Oct 28, 2017 | Football

Box Score Photos MSU 35, A&M 14 - Final Stats (PDF)

By: Charean Williams, special to 12thman.com

COLLEGE STATION--It was one of those nights.

What could go right didn't go right, as Texas A&M lost to Mississippi State, 35-14. The Aggies were felled by dropped passes, turnovers, missed opportunities and Nick Fitzgerald.

The Bulldogs quarterback and Aggie nemesis, who accounted for 391 total yards and four total touchdowns last season against A&M, nearly matched the Aggies' 285 total yards. He had 105 rushing yards and a touchdown and 141 passing yards and two touchdowns.

"The key coming into the game [was stopping Fitzgerald]. We knew. Everybody knew," A&M coach Kevin Sumlin said. ". . . When he has been successful, they have been successful. You try to contain him, but he also completed some balls into some tight windows – one on third down in the middle of the field between two or three people. He made some big-time throws. He played well tonight.

"When he's been successful this year, they've been successful. Not to take away from the other parts of the team, but there's a direct correlation between his play and their success, and he was successful tonight."

Maybe things would have played out differently had the Aggies not missed two early opportunities.

Junior linebacker Otaro Alaka intercepted Fitzgerald on the fifth play from scrimmage, giving A&M the ball on the MSU 43. On first down, Christian Kirk was running free down the field, but Kellen Mond's pass missed him. On second down, Mond's pass into the end zone hit the receiver in the hands but was dropped. A false start and another incompletion and the tone was set for the night.

"Obviously our execution was not anywhere where it needed to be offensively," Sumlin said. "We missed the first two big plays. Get behind them and had an overthrow and a drop after starting fast with a turnover coming out of the gate and field position, and then give up a long drive.

"We started off the game fast, and we didn't continue with the way we started the game."

The Aggies trailed 14-0 at halftime, with only three first downs, 18 rushing yards and 15 passing yards. It left a lot to be desired.

"They showed us a lot of fronts that we weren't really anticipating them to bring," A&M junior right guard Connor Lanfear said. "We had a great week of film study, and we really evaluated their defense and felt like we had a successful game plan in place. It's part of the game, man. Any given Saturday anything can happen, and they brought some fronts that we weren't expecting to see as much of. So it took a little bit for us to adjust to that and get the correct people blocked."

The Aggies finally scored on a 1-yard Keith Ford run with 8:20 remaining in the third quarter. The 10-play, 76-yard drive got A&M within 21-7, and when the Aggies forced a MSU punt, the crowd of 96,128 began to sense a momentum swing.

But it was short-lived as yet another dropped pass bounced to MSU cornerback Lanshard Durr, who returned it 20 yards to the A&M 32. The Bulldogs used the short field for another touchdown, icing the game 28-7.

Mond, who went 8-for-26 for 56 yards and two interceptions, left the game in the fourth quarter after getting hit late with the Bulldogs penalized for roughing the passer.

Nick Starkel finished the game, seeing the field for the first time since breaking his ankle in the season-opening game against UCLA. He threw an interception that Jamal Peters returned 90 yards for a touchdown but rebounded to lead the Aggies on a five-play, 83-yard touchdown drive and finished 8-of-15 for 133 yards with a touchdown and an interception.

Sumlin said Mond remains the starter.

"I didn't like the way [Mond] looked when he got hit," Sumlin said. "On the personal foul, he got hit up high, and he laid there for a little bit and then got up, and I didn't like the way he looked, so I made him take a knee and gave Nick some time to warm up.

"He got in there and got some snaps and did some things. It didn't really change anything from our depth chart."

The Aggies entered having won five of six and were coming off a bye before the loss to Mississippi State. Now, with Auburn coming to town Saturday at 11 a.m., A&M has no time to lick its wounds. It's back to work.

"Anytime you lose at home, it's crushing," Lanfear said. "It hurts. It's something we definitely don't take for granted. I can guarantee you we're going to fix what needs to be fixed."

ABOUT THE GAME ...
•   The Aggies fell to 5-3 overall and 3-2 in SEC play.

NOTABLES ...
•   Junior LB Otaro Alaka, the SEC leader in tackles for loss entering today's game, logged his first career interception on a deflected pass on the Bulldogs' initial drive of the game.
•   Sophomore LB Tyrel Dodson logged his third straight double-digit tackle game with a game-high 12 stops vs. the Bulldogs. Dodson also contributed a 0.5 tackle for loss and a QB hurry. Dodson's previous 10+ tackle games were a career-high 16 vs. Alabama and 11 vs. Florida.
•   Junior WR Christian Kirk became the sixth player and first wide receiver to surpass the 4,000-yard plateau in all-purpose yardage in program history. Kirk joins Cyrus Gray, Darren Lewis, Curtis Dickey, Dante Hall and Leeland McElroy to reach 4,000.
•   QB Kellen Mond connected on 8-of-26 passes as he became the fourth Aggie freshman to log 100 completions in a season.
•   QB Nick Starkel replaced an injured Mond to lead the Aggies with 133 yards through the air. The RS-Freshman was 8-for-15 and completed a career-long 70 yard TD pass to freshman WR Camron Buckley.
•   Buckley led the Aggies with 88 receiving yards against the Bulldogs, his first time to lead Texas A&M in yards in a game this season. The Cedar Hill, TX native, has recorded a reception in four straight games. The touchdown grab was his second-career scoring grab.
•   Senior DB Armani Watts tallied 11 tackles to become the third Texas A&M defensive back to reach the 300-tackle plateau. The milestone was previously reached by Jaxson Appel (348 from 2002-05) and Trent Hunter (302 from 2008-11).
•   The Aggie defense, who came into the game with a FBS-best 28.0 QB sacks, had two sacks against the Bulldogs and have had at least two QB sacks in every game in 2017.

GAME CAPTAINS, 12TH MAN
•   Game captains for the Aggies were Cullen Gillaspia, Christian Kirk, Trayveon Williams and Armani Watts.  The Aggies won the toss and chose to receive the opening kickoff.
•   The Aggies' 12th Man representative was junior LB Cullen Gillaspia (Katy, Texas) in his 21th straight start.