No. 11 USC and No. 1 Auburn are tied atop the field at 282 (-6), while No. 21 Duke (-5), No. 5 Georgia Tech (-4) and No. 18 Florida State (-2) round out the top five. No. 3 UCLA and No. 13 Washington (E) are tied for sixth, followed by Iowa (+5), No. 12 Clemson (+6), Wake Forest (+7), Kent State (+7), No. 23 Virginia (+9), A&M and East Tennessee State (+16).
"Obviously it was not a good day today," head coach J.T. Higgins said. "The thing is, if you just look at the scores, it's easy to say that we're not competitive with these teams, but everyone on our team is just a little off. Whether it's some guys struggling with their driver, and that costing us shots, or some struggling with their putter, and that costing us shots...it adds up to a pretty bad score. But we were really close today to playing good golf."
Sophomore Johannes Veerman turned in the best score of the day for the Aggies, carding a 1-under 71to sit in a tie for 13th place. He sits five back of the leader, USC's Steve Lim, who fired an opening-round 66.
Senior Jordan Russell and junior Case Cochran each fired a 4-over 76, with junior Cameron Peck (77, +5) and freshman Ty Dunlap (82, +10) rounding out the A&M afternoon.
Monday's second round begins at 8 a.m. (CT) and live scoring will be available on golfstat.com. A&M is scheduled to tee off at 10:30 a.m. (CT) and will be paired with the host Yellow Jackets and ETSU.
"We've got two more rounds left and I think the guys can put a few good rounds together. We're going to worry about ourselves and play our game tomorrow and do the best we can to put a good score up there."