Five takeaways from Texas A&M’s blow against New Mexico State

The No. 15 Texas A&M Aggies were able to return to the winning ways they had previously become familiar with, cleaning house against the New Mexico State Aggies, 38-3.

Texas A&M scored on their first two offensive drives and never looked back, never trailing once in the game and mounting an offensive charge against their fellow New Mexico Aggies.

It was clear that A&M had put the painful loss to South Carolina behind them, taking a much more aggressive approach on both sides of the ball to start the game and performing much better than what was seen in Columbia.

While Texas A&M is heading into arguably its two biggest games of the season, here are five takeaways from their win tonight.

No moss? No problem.

Losing star running back Le’Veon Moss with a lower-body injury in the loss to South Carolina would certainly put a pretty big dent in the Aggie offense, especially in the running game.

That wasn’t the case tonight.

Sans Moss, A&M’s rushing attack still took off for 209 yards on the ground, led by Amari Daniels’ 84 yards on just five carries, including an explosive 71-yard score midway through the first quarter. EJ Smith added 15 carries for 60 yards and Marcel Reed kept it four times for 41 yards and a touchdown of his own. It’s as if Moss never sank.

Mike Elko will certainly expect to see this feat repeated over the next two weeks now that he knows what his team is capable of without Le’Veon Moss in the backfield.

Marcel Magic returns

After being tormented by the Gamecock defense two weeks ago, Marcel Reed enjoyed a nice return to form tonight against New Mexico State, completing 20 of 31 passes for 268 yards, two passing touchdowns and an interception. Luckily, the interception came with two seconds left in the first half, so no real damage came out of it other than leaving points off the board.

Reed’s legs were also still on display at times during the game, four times for 41 yards and a touchdown. Not having to run as much also showed how strong Neville was all night, so kudos to A&M’s offensive line as well.

A tight takeover

The top two A&M receivers of the night? Theo Melin Ohrstrom and Tre Watson. Texas A&M has a history of tight ends heavily involved in the passing game, a throwback to the days when Jace Sternberger and Jalen Wydermeyer were in Aggieland. However, that wasn’t really the case under Elko this season.

Coming into the game tonight, Ohrstrom had just four receptions for 69 yards and two touchdowns. He would erupt for five receptions for 111 yards. Marcel Reed said in the postgame interview that he told Ohrstrom in practice that he would try to get the Swede a touchdown, but instead put the tight end over 100 receiving yards for the game for the first time this season. He should be at peace with that outcome.

Same story with Tre Watson, who transferred to College Station after finishing second in the national championship to the Michigan Wolverines last season as part of the Washington Huskies. With just eight receptions for 109 yards and a score for tonight’s game, Watson was called four times for 67 yards. A great performance from the A&M tight ends tonight and should help them earn the trust of Mike Elko and Collin Klein in the future.

The demolition crew strikes again

It’s no wonder New Mexico State was only able to put one field goal on the board the entire game. They were tackled for losses 10 times by the A&M defense and the quarterbacks were sacked twice. They spent almost more time going backwards than forwards.

Lineman Malick Sylla recorded three tackles for loss and both of A&M’s sacks, including one on the final play of the game, to put the cherry on top of a dominant victory in a career night for the junior defensive lineman.

Jay Bateman and Elko clearly struck a chord with the defense during the two-week practice. We’ll see if it moves on to Jordan-Hare Stadium next week and then back to Kyle Field to close out the season the following week.

Sharing is caring

A&M’s game plan has been tested for most of this season. While that was still the case tonight, A&M’s quarterbacks got the ball to twelve different receivers, including receiver Moose Muhammad III who got his second touchdown of the season on his only reception, and freshman receiver Ashton Bethel-Roman who racked up three receptions for 35 receipts. yards and his first career touchdown. Having multiple players who can play the football will make this a dangerous Texas A&M team to face in the coming weeks.

Texas A&M heads to Auburn next week to take on the Tigers in their final SEC road game of 2024.

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