For the first time since 1994, Texas A&M beats LSU in Tiger Stadium in order to continue their undefeated season improving their record to 8-0.
“Obviously, really proud of our team. Five straight SEC wins, that’s not easy to do. Winning back to back road games in this conference is not easy to do and we set a lot of marks tonight.”
Texas A&M HC Mike Elko
Also, for the second year in a row, LSU falls apart in the second half after building a lead against the Aggies. It was a tale of completely two different halves of football.
“I think the last two years now in the second half against LSU, we outscored them 66-6. That’ll win you a lot of football games and that’s a testament to Coach Tommy Moffitt. What he does with these guys and how he trains them and I think a little bit about how they feel about him when we played this game. Proud of our group, proud of what we did. We went out there and made a lot of plays to win a football game. We’ll enjoy this bye week and then we’ll get back to work and get ready to finish.”
Texas A&M HC Mike Elko
LSU took a 18-14 lead into halftime and Tiger Stadium was rocking. The first half was shaping to be another Death Valley classic until the second half happened.
The Aggies outscored the Tigers 35-7 in the final 30 minutes as Texas A&M fans took over an empty Tiger Stadium when the third quarter ended.
The third quarter was a total implosion in particular for the Tigers getting outscored 21-0 and outgained 132 yards to 14 in what was a putrid 15 minutes of football.
“We couldn’t get off the field in the first drive defensively. I made a concern going into halftime about going out and getting a stop defensively. However, then, we had a three and out, then the punt return touchdown. We just did not execute at the level necessary in that.”
LSU HC Brian Kelly
Trailing 18-14 at halftime, Texas A&M scored on a five yard touchdown run from Marcel Reed to give the Aggies the lead and they never looked back. The key play that took the life of the entire LSU team and Death Valley was a silencing 79 yard punt return touchdown from KC Concepcion to give the Aggies a 38-28 lead.
“Back to back touchdowns right out of the gates and then the inability offensively to get into rhythm hurt our team today. We did not play to the level that is needed to be successful. We struggled with protection and we were not effective enough offensively to sustain any kind of rhythm. All three phases of the game put us into that situation.”
LSU HC Brian Kelly
Once again, Marcel Reed was a dynamic factor for the Aggies with his legs rushing for 108 yards and two touchdowns, but he also showed his improvement as a passer completing 12 of 21 passes for 202 yards and two more touchdowns through the air to add to what is a Heisman Trophy contending resume this season.
“Obviously, we are going to celebrate what we have accomplished from historic things. Us not being 8-0 since I don’t know when, we are happy about it for sure, but there is still a lot of things to be proven. I feel like a lot of people in this country don’t respect us as a team so no, we are not trying to prove anybody wrong. We are just going to prove ourselves right. Week in and week out going to play our game of football, championship execution every week.”
Texas A&M QB Marcel Reed
While LSU’s defense failed to stop Reed, it was their offense that failed to protect Garrett Nussmeier as he was sacked five times and threw for only 168 yards. Nussmeier was pulled out late in the game and backup Michael Van Buren Jr. threw a late touchdown to Kyle Parker to add a last minute score.
“We just have to come out and execute better. We have to find out what we have to do as a team and as coaches to have a better outcome.”
LSU TE Trey’Dez Green
What ended in a collapse did not start that way as there were positive things for LSU early on including a blocked punt by Jhase Thomas that resulted in a safety, two interceptions from AJ Haulcy and Harold Perkins Jr., a touchdown pass from Garrett Nussmeier to Trey’Dez Green, and a touchdown run from Harlem Berry to help them build an 18-14 lead going into the locker room.
However, all that momentum that was built up was gone within the first couple of minutes in the third quarter.
“Extremely disappointed in what happened out there. No one is more disappointed than our football team. They are looking for answers, and I have to be able to provide that for them. The performance in the second half was the most disappointing part of this game.”
LSU HC Brian Kelly
Under Mike Elko, the Aggies continue to end bad trends like the losing streak in Tiger Stadium since 1994 adding to other achievements earlier this year including their first win on the road against a Top 10 team since 2014 with their win over Notre Dame and their first SEC road win since 2022 with last week’s win over Arkansas.
On the other side, LSU’s season has now fallen apart after such high expectations. It was just a month ago that LSU was sitting as the number three team in the country and now fast forward to tonight, the Tigers’ College Playoff chances are dashed with their third loss of the season.
Entering a do or die season in year four under Brian Kelly, the LSU football program is at a serious crossroads and right now, there are a lot of tough questions regarding the future under Kelly.
“I will have to figure this out for our football team. If guys are playing hard, and I know they were which was seen in how they prepared well this week, then that is a football issue. So, I have to take a long look at what we are doing and how we are doing it, both from a coaching and a personnel standpoint.”
LSU HC Brian Kelly
LSU will have to look themselves in the mirror heading into a bye week working on a lot of major issues before finishing out the final four games of the season.
A gloomy raining night ironically cast a dark cloud in Baton Rouge regarding the LSU football program.
67
0
24.77k
20
