| Charean Williams, Class of '86, has covered the Dallas Cowboys for two decades and has written for the Orlando Sentinel and Fort Worth Star-Telegram, among other outlets. She is a Pro Football Hall of Fame voter and the past president of the Pro Football Writers of America. Charean is a member of the Texas A&M Former Journalism Student Association's Hall of Honor. She currently writes for Pro Football Talk. You can follow her on twitter @NFLCharean. |
The Aggies left the field to cheers from the Kyle Field crowd of 101,058, with some fans sitting over the tunnel even offering high-fives. In what counts as a 27-19 loss was something of a victory against No. 1 Alabama.
The Aggies didn't get a win, but they got better.
"There's no moral victory in this deal," A&M coach Kevin Sumlin said. "You play that hard, and you play that long, nobody's happy. The challenge for us, as I said, is to get in here and go back to work the way we've gone back to work every Monday to get better.
"We lost the game, but as a team, we have gotten better every week, and there's a lot of things we can learn from tonight that can help us the rest of the year. There's a fine line there. Some guys can draw confidence from tonight. Some guys have to look at it, and say, 'Hey, man, look, this is the No. 1 team. Here's where I've got to get better, and here are the things we're doing and here's where I've got to understand where I am as a player.' That's what this week is about – to continue that effort, which has never been a problem, but to also make sure our guys are getting better every week. If we continue to do that, we're going to be just fine."
The Aggies have become a different team since the season opener at UCLA, something Alabama coach Nick Saban noted beforehand and mentioned afterward.
"You have to give A&M's team a lot of credit," Saban said. "I said this early, and I told our team this: This is a different A&M team. They learned something when they lost to UCLA. We knew they would play hard for 60 minutes and compete. They did that."
The Aggies trailed 17-3 at halftime and 24-3 early in the third quarter but outscored the Crimson Tide 16-3 in the final 19:01. It gave A&M an onside-kick chance with 17 seconds left, and although the Aggies didn't come up with a miracle finish, they fought to the end.
"It's real disappointing," said linebacker Cullen Gillaspia, who blocked a punt for a safety in the fourth quarter. "It came down to the wire there. I think some untimely turnovers is kind of what hurt us. . . . They made plays when we did [turn it over]. They're a great ballclub. But you've got to take positives from it, too. They're the No. 1 team in the country, and we just went toe-to-toe with them until the final seconds of game. I think there's a lot to build on."
Alabama outscored its first two SEC opponents 125-3 and outgained Vanderbilt and Ole Miss 1,290 to 331. The Aggies held the Crimson Tide to 355 yards and gained 308.
In the second half, Alabama ran 30 plays for only 110 yards.
Although the Crimson Tide ran for 232 yards on 44 carries on the night, 113 came on two runs. Damien Harris scored on a 75-yard run in the second quarter and Jalen Hurts scrambled for 38 in the third. Alabama's other 42 rushes gained only 119 yards.
"We knew we had to come out swinging, and that's exactly what we tried to do," defensive end Landis Durham said. ". . . This week we talked about being gap-disciplined. I know they capitalized on a couple of plays, where we lost our gap, but other than those couple of big runs they had, we did a pretty good job of that."
Alabama had gone 37 quarters and 638 plays without a turnover before cornerback Debione Renfro forced a Robert Foster fumble in the third quarter, which led to A&M's first touchdown. But the Aggies lost two fumbles and threw an interception, finding out how small the margin for error is against the best team in the country.
"It's tough," said wide receiver Christian Kirk, who had four catches for 52 yards, including a highlight-reel, 2-yard touchdown catch on fourth down in the third quarter. "This is the third opportunity I've gotten in my career to play them. Each season . . . it's been close. It's tough to know that if a couple more things would've went our way, we would've had a closer shot to win the game. It's tough.
"That's how Alabama is. All the credit goes out to them. They're the No. 1 team in the country for a reason. They're not going to give you anything. You have to go out and beat them. You can't beat yourself, and we beat ourselves in a couple aspects."
The lights weren't too bright for freshman quarterback Kellen Mond as he took yet another step in going 19-for-29 for 237 yards with a touchdown and an interception. He also ran for 43 yards on 14 carries.
The Aggies know they can win with him, despite his inexperience.
"He hasn't always done everything right," Sumlin said, "but he's given us a chance in all these games to be successful, either with his legs with the scramble, and he's made some good throws and just like with any quarterback, particularly young quarterbacks, he's got some that he'd like to have back. We're not in that position at the end of the game to try an onside kick and do some things if he doesn't play the way that he did down the stretch. This is a learning experience for him."
For everything good the Aggies did Saturday night, they did no celebrating in their locker room. It was good but not good enough.
"People over there in that locker room and that building are not really happy right now," Sumlin said. "They're disappointed, but it's about us understanding who we are, where we are, and who we want to be. Everybody wants to be great. Everybody wants to win games. Everybody wants to be a champion, but are you willing to do the things that are necessary which, number one, is be accountable for your actions?
"You get better and understand here's how I can get better week to week. Not the big picture. These guys understand that. I think everybody in this room looks at it from a big-picture standpoint. These guys really have focused in on trying to get better every week, eliminating mistakes, eliminating things that hurt ourselves. The effort has been there, and the communication has gotten better. Our execution has to continue to get better. If you get better every week, there's not a game that we can't win."