No. 7 Aggies Fall to No. 16 Arkansas, 20-10

Saturday, September 25

Arlington, Texas

2:30 PM

Texas A&M

3-1 , 0-1

Arkansas

4-0 , 1-0

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

Texas A&M

Arkansas

Photo by: Kate Luffman/Texas A&M Athletics

Sep 25, 2021 | Football

Box Score Photo Gallery

By: Cameron Kelly, Athletics Communications

ARLINGTON, Texas--The No. 7 Texas A&M Aggies fell to the No. 16 Arkansas Razorbacks, 20-10, on Saturday afternoon inside AT&T Stadium.

The loss ends A&M’s 11-game winning streak, the fifth-longest in school history dating back to the 1992 season.

Arkansas opened the game up 17-0, and was driving down the field nearing the 2:30 mark of the second quarter. Faced with a 4th-and-1, the Aggie defense swarmed to the ball-carrier to stop the Razorback runner in his tracks and manufactured a nine-play, 46-yard drive that resulted in a 49-yard boot by Seth Small to trim the deficit to 14 entering the half.

After a few Maroon & White stops, Isaiah Spiller took a handoff up the middle and out-sprinted five Arkansas defenders for a 67-yard touchdown run to cut into the difference and make it 17-10 Razorbacks.

Arkansas tacked on three more points from a 24-yard chip shot at the 8:39 mark of the fourth quarter to cap off the scoring for both teams for the remainder of the game.

Spiller finished with 12 carries for 95 yards and a score. Devon Achane led the Aggies in receiving with a career-high six receptions.

Aaron Hansford and Antonio Johnson led the defense with eight tackles apiece, as Johnson added two break ups and Hansford had a sack. Micheal Clemons stuffed the stat sheet, tallying two tackles for loss, a sack and a forced fumble.

Team Notes

Texas A&M is now 9-1 against Arkansas as SEC opponents, while the Razorbacks lead the all-time series 42-33-3.
The Aggies landed a season-high five punts inside the 20-yard line, averaging 45.8 yards per punt.
Today’s captains against Arkansas were WR Ainias Smith, RB Isaiah Spiller, DB Myles Jones, DL DeMarvin Leal and OL Kenyon Green.

Individual Notes

Junior RB Isaiah Spiller sprinted 67 yards to the end zone midway through the third quarter for A&M’s longest rushing touchdown of the season and the second-longest play of his career.
Sophomore RB Devon Achane caught a career-high six passes in the game.
Sophomore DB Antonio Johnson helped lead the defense with eight tackles and a pair of pass breakups. Johnson has tallied at least six takedowns in three of the team’s four games this season.
Graduate LB Aaron Hansford also added eight tackles in the game, matching his season high which was set against Kent State.
Graduate DL Micheal Clemons filled out the stat sheet, finishing with four tackles, 2.0 for loss including a sack, and also forced a fumble.
Senior PK Seth Small became the fifth Aggie and fourth kicker in program history to score 300-or-more points in their career when he sailed a 49-yard field goal through the uprights just before halftime.
Small currently sits in fourth on A&M’s all-time scoring list with 303 points to date after adding four against Arkansas.

Jimbo Fisher Postgame Press Conference

COACH FISHER: First of all, congratulations. Arkansas played a very good game, a very physical game. Did the things they had to do to win the game. The plays they made, they got going.

I thought the game, we got started off to a slow start. Like I say, you never win a game in the first quarter, but you can put yourself behind the 8-ball, and that's exactly what we did early in the game. I thought offensively, we had two drives, the first two drives. One we got to the 50 and had a nice play. Had to throw it away. Would have got us down to some points and didn't do there.

And then the next drive, we get down, I think we were on the 30, about the 32-yard line, get a good field goal. Moving to second in two or three lose. Just miss a block and lose 8, 10 yards there and get behind the 8-ball. And then you don't get points there.

When they were scoring hot, which was important for us to at least match, whether it was field goals, touchdowns, or something, in those first two drives, I thought was very important. We didn't do that. We stalled and then we got the drive before the half. Off to the second half.

Defensively, we had too many big plays. We gave up a 300-yard half. They had 300 yards in the first half. And we didn't tackle well. They hit the big plays. I think they only had seven plays but 212 yards. Hit one 85-yarder for a touchdown. And had three scoring drives and got up 17-0 there.

Defense made one nice stop right before we had a two-minute drive on the fourth and 1 when it was right there at the thing. We gave them up.

And then the second half, came out offensively. Missed a block right off the bat on a play we were really good about. Second drive, we pop it and score, get to 17-10, and we're in good shape.

And then we punt and that's where I say we've got to -- defensively, even though we didn't give up a point defensively, we did a really good job in the second half, but we still gave up drives. And when we had them pinned back, second and 10, third and 10, we got them inside the 20, 25-yard line two or three time, we could have won some field position battles.

They got some big first downs and pop runs out of there. They would punt it, and we were going on the long field offensively. We would move it, get two or three first downs, get to midfield and then couldn't get across. Get a negative play. I think we had an illegal guy downfield.

We had 11 penalties in the game. We self-inflicted ourselves in a lot of things. We didn't play good and didn't play together in the second half. We could have fed off each other and won that field position battle, shortened field, and got more points in what we did.

We have to play better. We have to do a better job in that regard. And their punter did a really nice job. Our guy seemed feel like he hit it pretty decent too. Trying to get one punt return -- I mean, a kickoff return that was nice. And didn't get a chance -- they kept it up high or kicked it out of bounds and did a nice job.

But it's a lot. We've got to get better. We have to get guys playing with more consistency, and that's coaching. At the end of the day, you're coaching them. We have to be responsible for it. We have got to make sure we coach better, put them in better position to make plays. Try to do the things. Figure out what they can and cannot do and get them to do it, and we're all in it together. Got to play better and got to coach together. They did a better job of that today, for sure.

Q. First of all, Jimbo, y'all did not seem to challenge them downfield. Was that because you didn't --

COACH FISHER: No, we had calls. We didn't have time, and we had calls. They're playing 3-5-3. They were playing a really, really deep zone. They were bailing. They were trying to give you all underneath throws or all intermediate throws, like square ends, that type of stuff. They kept a huge -- which the way they played last year, if you go back and watch our game last year against them, we were able to run and we hit intermediate throws and stayed ahead of the chains.We didn't this year with our penalties.

The way they play, they take a lot of your deep balls away. We called about six shots in the game, and they played them and that's why we were checking the ball. They had to check it down.

Q. And then just Myles Jones, did he get hurt? Or was he not 100% today?

COACH FISHER: No, he was -- I mean, he was scheduled to play and he did. I have to ask the trainer when it was done. I'll get that report when we get done. I know he got beat on that play but I'll see there. After that, [Tyreek] Chappell played.

Q. You talked about this before in terms of there are no quick fixes on the offensive line. But how would you evaluate their play and what you need to do?

COACH FISHER: We got to protect better. We popped a couple of runs. They end up with 100 yards. We popped the one big run and had it there.

We had some nice -- we had some consistent runs the first two or three drives. Then we have a self-inflicted wound, get behind the sticks, and couldn't pick up on third down. Our third-down conversions were really poor.

I don't want to stick my foot in my mouth, but I think we have to get more surge. Jahmir [Johnson] got hurt, and we had to move around again and make some adjustments today. Got banged up there, but we have got to get more surge and try to find some more time. But I'll look at how we can scheme it or do it. Until I look at the film, I don't want to say anything.

Q. Jimbo, it felt like you guys did not go back to the run after Isaiah's big touchdown play. Did you --

COACH FISHER: We did it two or three times. We had a couple calls. There were some RPOs that we threw. We had a nice run out of that. Actually, the one that Ainias [Smith] caught down the sideline came off the goal line was a run. We had two or three runs and we RPO'd them because they were playing extra guys in the box and we were throwing them out there and had some runs.

Then we got behind a little bit and hit a couple runs. And then we had clock management when it got going and backed up. So maybe we could have more, but we weren't getting enough surge.

Really, if you go back and look at it, it was a bunch of 6, 8-yards run and then that one big one. We hit a couple after that. In the meantime, we can get to [Isaiah] Spiller I'm with you. I'll go back and evaluate what we called.

Q. When you look at those penalties that you talked about, is it a little more frustrating? How do you wrap your mind around the fact that there were a lot of the veteran players, experienced players that were taking --

COACH FISHER: I know. That's what it is. That's part of it. I have got to look and see why. Hopefully -- you think your young guys would do it. But the guys, they didn't do it on purpose.

We just got to coach them better, get them better technique, and find out why it happened and look at it. Until I see the film -- we had quite a few on the older guys, no doubt.

Q. How would you grade [Zach] Calzada today?

COACH FISHER: We had some good things, bad things. We didn't have enough success. So we didn't get the things done we needed to get done. I'll evaluate there.

I mean, until I see the film, I'll give you a better one on Monday. I'm not trying to dodge. I just don't want to say something that's wrong. What you saw there and what you see on film could be two different things.

Q. When it comes to them dropping 8 and trying to take the deep balls away, does it make it tougher because you have a young quarterback who hasn't had to --

COACH FISHER: It does. You have to catch and run.

We played teams like that before, I mean, a lot of teams. The first couple of teams we played were like that. Kent did a lot of that. I know it wasn't the level of Arkansas, but Kent had a good team. They played Iowa. They have got a good football team.

There are some teams that do it. And we work against it all the time. Our defense will do it do us. You know what I'm saying? It was not an attack. We got to catch, run, hit the holes.

And then the other thing is you've got to run the football. You can keep the run and stay ahead of the chains. We got ahead of the chains and then we would get behind off a penalty.

Like I say, the second drive after we didn't come right back after 17-10, we got big two first downs and we hit a naked play for, like, 8 yards to Ainias [Smith]. Got second and 2. They call us for an illegal man downfield. I have to look and see what happened there.

You're back to the second and 20, first and 15. You've got to be patient. You've got to be patient and catch and run and find those holes. I'll look and see if Zach was finding them or if we weren't getting open. One of the two. Probably a little bit of both, to be honest with you when you look at it.

Q. And when you look at that part of it, how much does not having [Caleb] Chapman and [Chase] Lane today hurt?

COACH FISHER: We've got good players. Those guys are really good players. Those other guys are very capable and play great football and are very talented, too.

You want to have all your guys, there's no doubt about that. But at the same time, those guys, after playing, they were really good players and we've got to coach them better.

Q. How much better are they than you've seen in the last year or so? And also, up front with the offensive line, 55 gave you a lot of problems.

COACH FISHER: He rushed well. He did off the edge. He did. He caused problems, made us step up, get inside on three-man rushes sometimes, too, and did a real nice job.

So you'd like to chip and help all those things out. But at the same time, when you're an eight-man drop, you've got to get guys in the zone where they can double cover your guys. So we got to do a better job at that.

Q. How much better are they?

COACH FISHER: Listen, it's the same guys since I've been here. They have a veteran group of guys who knew how to play. They played well. They played to understand their schemes, what they're doing. They're coached very well. Like I said, they go a really good job of understanding the scheme, playing well. They played hard and played better.

Q. Between Nik's [Constantinou] punts and Seth Small's field goal, seems like special teams was really doing a lot for you all. What is that that consistency from the special teams --

COACH FISHER: Those guys are very talented guys. They're older guys. Seth's been around. It's his fourth year. He got thrown in early.

That was a big kick right there that got us to a two-score game. We got it back to 17-10. That's the disappointing thing. We had momentum in the middle of the third quarter that we thought we could have kept going with.

We've got to learn to feed on that. But those guys are doing really nice -- again, Nik worked his tail off. Seth worked his tail off. Caden [Davis] kicking off. We have very talented legs on our team, no doubt.

Q. Coach, I know you talked about it in your opening statement, but could you expand upon that, just a little bit, how disappointing it was to get behind early and then not really be able to get much of a challenge until you got late in the second half?

COACH FISHER: Yeah, well, in the middle of the third quarter, 17-10. We popped it, so we had plenty of time. We had a whole quarter and a half with them scoring. That's the disappointing thing.

We've got to get some three-and-outs, win the field position battle, and offensively go get some points. We didn't do that.

You never win a game in the first 10, 15 minutes of a game, but you can sure put yourself behind the 8-ball. That's what we did. We gave up big plays, big drives.

They made plays early in the game. We didn't get guys down. We were out of gaps. Didn't tackle well. I didn't think we tackled well. We didn't tackle in space very well, especially in the first half of the game. We were very poor in our tackling in my opinion.

I'll watch the film and see. It puts you behind the 8-balls. You got some young guys, put some pressure on some young offensive guys. And we didn't do a good enough job coaching to help them get them through it.

Q. Coach, the help around [Zach] Calzada, are the receivers doing enough? Are they open enough?

COACH FISHER: Yeah. Listen, they had plays or some balls. I'll look at the film and see.

But, yes, there were guys that were open. We could have made some plays. We dropped some balls. He missed some reads. I'm sure they covered us sometimes, too. They pressured us. They did a good job of getting some pressure, making the ball get out, not giving guys time to get open on certain routes because we got -- the thing about it, we got some penalties, so we had some third-and-longs. When you're third and long, you've got to -- it takes time to get down there and

get open down the field. Their pressure and some of the things they did there, we'll look and see and be able to get on it. So we'll have to fix that and try to get better.

Isaiah Spiller Postgame Press Conference

Q. Isaiah, how tough is it, knowing that you guys have not had this feeling for quite some time?

RB ISAIAH SPILLER: It's not good, but it's a learning curve. I feel like we got to learn from it, keep moving forward. We can't ponder on it too long. Arkansas did a great job today, played better than us. So we've just got to come out Monday and be more focused.

Q. Hey, Isaiah, you guys have a week before Mississippi State, another SEC matchup. What's something that you think you personally learned from today, and something the team as a whole is going to have to learn and adjust?

RB ISAIAH SPILLER: I feel like we learned today that practice matters. You know, all the little things is a thing. Everything that we do matters. Every step we take, every thought we think during the game, it matters. So I think that's what we learned today, and I feel like we're going to take that forward. And I'm going to enforce it as a leader on this team.

Q. Would you mind taking us through the 67-yard touchdown run, first of all?

RB ISAIAH SPILLER: I had got the ball and Aki [Ogunbiyi] made a great block and it just opened up like the Red Sea for me. I feel like we can continue that. The O-line did a great job today, just a few self-inflicted wounds on our part. We've got to fix that and come back.

Q. Zach [Calzada] just had his second start. How do you go about during the game keeping his head up as the game progresses as well?

RB ISAIAH SPILLER: You've just got to keep everybody's head up as the game goes on. You can't get down on yourself, because it's still a game. And there's still a lot of football to play. I think Zach did a great job today keeping me encouraged, keeping the team encouraged. I'm proud of him.

Q. Is there a little bit of an added level of frustration when you see, not only are there penalties, but they are personalities by veteran and experienced players -- maybe not some of the younger guys you have on the field?

RB ISAIAH SPILLER: It just goes back to practice. I feel like everybody need to become more focused. As a unit, I feel like we need to trust each other more, and just coming together. I feel like that's the main part for me.

Q. You mentioned last week about the attention to details when we were talking about practices. There's kind of a little bit of growing up that the team needs to do as a whole?

RB ISAIAH SPILLER: Yeah, we need to grow up real fast if we want to do what we want to do still.

Q. After you break that touchdown run, the momentum started to swing in your favor. Could you guys feel that momentum coming to your sideline? And why don't you think you guys were able to capitalize and keep it that way?

RB ISAIAH SPILLER: I think when we did score, it was a little momentum. I feel like when we came back out and an interception kind of hurt us, just goes back to self-inflicted wounds. Just can't have them. Every play matters.

Q. Isaiah, what do you attribute the slow start on this one on both sides?

RB ISAIAH SPILLER: I don't know. Just as a team, I feel like we need to come more focused just overall. Overall, more focused all the time, from the first play to the last play, I feel like that's our problem right now. We're not focused on the first play when we in there. And we like to come back and, you know, we just need to focus through the whole play -- I mean the whole game, I'm sorry.

Q. Isaiah, I believe this is like the third ball game in a row that you guys have kind of struggled offensively. How frustrating is that getting?

RB ISAIAH SPILLER: It's a little frustrating every now and then, because previous to our last success, we're not used to this. So I feel like the frustration is going to help us grow. We're going to be more focused and we're going to do what we need to do.

Q. Isaiah, Coach Fisher mentioned earlier that they were obviously trying to take a lot of deep balls away and force you guys to go under, I guess. How much of a challenge was what they did defensively for you guys?

RB ISAIAH SPILLER: If I'm being honest with you, it really wasn't -- we just hurt ourselves. That was the whole point. They never stopped us. We hurt ourselves with penalties and holdings and stuff like that. They never stopped us. So just got to move on.

DeMarvin Leal Postgame Press Conference

Q. Hey, DeMarvin, those guys got 300 yards in the first half just -- what were they doing to have so much success early on?

DL DEMARVIN LEAL: I would say that executed the game plan a little bit better than expected. They just came out fast.

Q. When you have -- Isaiah [Spiller] was talking a lot about self-inflicted wounds, especially on the offensive side of the ball. But is it more frustrating? How do you address it as a leader when it's actually some of the veteran guys and experienced guys who are making penalties and making some of the mistakes?

DL DEMARVIN LEAL: I say that one way to correct it is just goes back to practice. Have to correct it in practice. Got to -- just got to put in everybody's head, you know. Just constantly getting after everybody when something is not going right during practice and, you know, it just always starts in practice. So just correcting it there.

Q. What do you make of all the missed tackles?

DL DEMARVIN LEAL: Got to work on it. Starts in practice.

Q. And also the big plays? Obviously [Treylon] Burks down the sideline and then Green, I think, answered basically, almost looked like from us, pushed him forward didn't even try to wrap up. You haven't given up big plays all year. Why today?

DL DEMARVIN LEAL: I would just say, just one of those days. You know, you always win, you lose. Just got to be able to fight through it and come back together.

Q. For Arkansas to go from scoring 17 in the first half to just 3 in the second half, what did you guys do? What changes did you make to really make that happen?

DL DEMARVIN LEAL: You know, just came back together, recouped. We made a few adjustments throughout halftime and came back out for the second half.

Q. Huge games coming up against Mississippi State and Alabama. As a leader on this team, what are the conversations going to be between you and your teammates, especially the younger ones who haven't been through this?

DL DEMARVIN LEAL: The SEC is big boy ball. You're going to have to step up. It's the next man up every single day, and just installing everything we need to install throughout practice and getting after it together.

Q. What was the difference between [KJ] Jefferson and [Malik] Hornsby in terms of their quarterback play? I know Jefferson came back in later, but with Malik kind of holding it down in the meantime.

DL DEMARVIN LEAL: You know, those two guys are amazing QBs. I say they have good speed. As QBs, you don't really see that speed as much. So props to those guys for coming out and balling.

Q. When [Malik] Hornsby was in with that one drive there at the beginning of the fourth quarter that ended in a field goal, when you did have a backup, was it a little extra frustrating that you weren't able to keep points off the board on that particular drive?

DL DEMARVIN LEAL: You can control what you can control. And so, you know, that just happened, it was one of those situations where it didn't work out in our favor.

Q. DeMarvin, can you talk about, I guess, just how important it is for you guys to come out and pick up a W next week at home, just because of what happened today?

DL DEMARVIN LEAL: It's very important, just coming back as a whole, and just getting after it, is going to be something that we need to do. And it's going to be very important just for our confidence and for those young guys to get back in there and build their confidence again.

Q. Isaiah [Spiller] just told us this team has to grow up quickly. Can a game like this and a loss kind of be a wake-up call for you guys to pick things up?

DL DEMARVIN LEAL: No question. A lot of young guys on this team and a lot of young guys that are playing as well. So I definitely say this will be a wake-up call for those guys just to get after it and to come back with a different mentality next week.

Q. When the defense changed in the second half and you went from 17 points to 0 up being allowed, was the change more mental or schematic?

DL DEMARVIN LEAL: Say that again?

Q. With the defensive change in the second half, was it more of a mental thing or a schematic thing?

DL DEMARVIN LEAL: I would say just more of a -- I would say it's more of a mental thing, you know? For those first few drives, we had to come back together. So during halftime, we just talked to each other. We came back and just came out together and tried to get it done in the second half.

Q. DeMarvin, two things. With their offense, I know they like to do a lot of different things. They've got wide splits, and their receivers like to do tempo, quarterback run. What was the most challenging part for you guys of what they did offensively from a schematic standpoint?

DL DEMARVIN LEAL: I would just say honestly that we had self-inflicted wounds and it was nothing that they did better. It was just execution-wise, we have to get back to grabbing every little crumb throughout the game, and just taking it, like tackling and all that stuff. Just taking it a little bit more serious -- a lot more serious, actually, and just getting after it next week.

Q. You're one of many veterans on this team that went through a little adversity early last season. You guys had a loss early in the year. How much can you learn from that experience? And how much can that help you guys moving forward?

DL DEMARVIN LEAL: A lot.