Texas A&M’s Collapse Against Alabama Deserves a Closer Look

Texas A&M suffered a total meltdown on Saturday afternoon at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

The Texas A&M football team's momentum, after taking a lead on the No. 13 team in the country, Alabama, faded as the defense played poorly in the fourth quarter and the offense went quiet under pressure.

Head coach Mike Elko said in his postgame comments that it was a poor outing, especially by the defense, and that it led to the eventual 31-20 loss.

“Put it together for a little while; after that, we just couldn’t really get going in the second half,” Elko said. “Got to a point again where we were down and trying to chase a game. We’re not built to do that. That’s on me as a coach. We’re not where we need to be at all. Defensively, extremely poor play in the secondary. Extremely poor eye discipline. Extremely poor all of it. Too many explosive plays. Too many uncontested explosive plays. It’s the story of the game.”

Sequences Leading Up to Long Trip Home

Multiple possessions led to the Aggies' fourth loss of the season to the Crimson Tide. One of the most noticeable was when the offense lined up to go for it on fourth down with one yard to gain, and the center accidentally snapped the ball with no play called, resulting in a fumble.

This happened in the third quarter with under two minutes to go, when A&M was at their own 45-yard line, and things somehow spiraled from there.

“There was no play,” Elko said. “I don’t know why we snapped the football. We were trying to draw them offsides and the center just snapped the ball. I didn’t think about calling a timeout. We’ve run that play a bunch. Over three years here, I don’t have a great explanation. I need to have one. It’s my job to have one. I don't have a great explanation. It’s a three-year starter at center, and he snapped the football on a play we didn’t even call.”

It gets worse.

Alabama took over, and with time in the quarter winding down, quarterback Keelon Russell chunked a deep ball to Rico Scott, who had over 100 yards of offense alone before intermission. The two connected on a dime for a 38-yard gain into the red zone, where the offense eventually punched it in on a pass down the middle to tight end Marshall Pritchett.

The play calling got a little aggressive as the fourth quarter wound down. The offensive coordinator opted to play it safer through the air, with a few short passes to the wide receivers. Still, the offensive line couldn't hold up, and protection fell apart when Fatutoa Henry leveled quarterback Marcel Reed on the first fourth-quarter possession.

Because the offense couldn't get the job done on that drive, Russell and the offense knew the defense was starting to wear down and that the secondary couldn't tackle well enough to limit explosive plays. Two of the five plays the Crimson Tide stemmed were 14-plus-yard gains, and A&M did nothing to keep it manageable.

Down 11 points at the 10-minute mark, A&M's third-down struggles tormented them once again, as they converted only four of 11 attempts all day. Three straight pass plays went wrong as the offensive line let Henry get through again to truck Reed.

Circle those two back-to-back possessions where A&M couldn't move the chains, and the trajectory of this game might look different.

Alabama caught a break after an uncharacteristic decision not to go for it on fourth-and-five on their own 22 with under four minutes to go in the fourth quarter, down by two scores. Guess what that entailed?

Not touching the football the rest of the matchup and tough questions to answer.

“I just felt like we had a better shot at that point,” Elko said. “We were really stopping them on the run. Marcel had just got walloped. Just felt like we had a better shot of going out and trying to stop them. Call the timeout and go, then did converting with how we were holding up and protecting at that point. It just didn’t seem like we were in a position to convert that.”

Numbers do not lie either.

The fourth-quarter summary statistics show it was one-sided. Alabama controlled the last 15 minutes by outscoring A&M 14-0. Tack on the total yards, 102 to 15, and the rush yards, 34 to -2. Alabama's lack of penalties helped keep the quarter cleaner, while A&M drew three yellow flags for 35 yards.

Tally numbers like these, and it is a recipe for disaster.

“It's definitely frustrating,” Reed said. “We felt like we had a good week of practices and thought we were prepared for this game. I think we were, but we didn't execute down the stretch when we needed to.”

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