BG Presses TAMU, loses 26-20.

Let us take a moment to see where we are.  

Reflecting on how bad we were in 2020-21.  Even last year's OU game.  We were just awful.  It was the worst period in our program's history and it isn't close.

Today, we offer a fully competent and competitive football team that has played ranked teams on the road to the end twice now.  We are, in Coach Loeffler's words, "this close."  (Imagine him holding his fingers up).

And that's about right.  We are very close to where we want to be.  And the MAC is chaos already.  The non-divisional format makes every game important...NIU has a loss already.  It's possible you will have to go 6-2 to make it to Detroit.  UT had a classic letdown week.  The team that can bring a winning performance--pretty or ugly--every week will take this thing.

And I think Coach is right.  We are "this close."  He says everyone needs to tighten up--staff, coaches, players, support staff.  And I think that's right, too.  That's often how it works.  Before we were making big, obvious mistakes and getting killed.  Now we are making smaller, more subtle mistakes and they are the difference between beating good teams and narrow losses.

He says we need to "close the deal."  Which is interesting because that was a Clawson phrase, plastered on off-season T-shirts worn by the team.  

Anyway.  Last night was a terrific football game and a terrific performance by our team.  We were indeed that close.

It didn't look good at the start.  The Aggies took the opening kickoff and drove 75 yards in 11 plays over 5 minutes, including converting a 3rd and 8 and a 4th and 1 that came after a 3rd and 8.  (That close). 

BG made some progress on offense and stalled out at the A&M 48, putting the Aggies to their 10.

BG started at their own 45, got to the Aggie 42 before taking a 3rd down sack and punting the Aggies to their 4.

The defense gets another 3 and out and BG starts at their 49.   BG drives to the 18, Stewart was hit with a 4-yard loss and then BG tried on a run on 3rd and 11 and came up 4 yards short and the results of a quarter's field position was to make it 7-3 in the early 2nd.

Here, BG rolled the dice.  They thought they had something they liked and they tried a surprise onside kick, but we kicked the ball about 10 yards over the head of our guy, who would have had it all to himself. (That close).

Still, BG's defense held when Reed ran on 3rd and 11 and TAMU was only able to make it 10-3 off that break.

BG's next drive stalled at the TAMU 45 and BG punted them to the 11.  TAMU asserted themselves up front, running 17 plays and killing the remaining 6 minutes of the half. Even with that, BG kept it in front of them.  In the last seconds, the Aggies had a 2nd and 2 on the 12, and BG forced 2 incomplete passes including a Jacorey Benjamin breakup.  BG's defense was good enough to hold them to a FG and it's 13-3 heading to the half.

Starting the offense, it is clear we need a spark. We had great field position for most of the half, and netted only 3 points.  We had moved the ball some, but not enough.

On the first play, Bazelak found Fannin wide open and Fannin proceeded to put on a one-man show, running around #3 twice like he was a pylon and then outracing like four Aggies to force his way into the end zone.  It was a thing of beauty. Fannin is as good as we have had in this program.  I believe he will be in the NFL next year, based on his performance in the last two games.  Now we need to ride him to a title.

It's 13-10.

A&M bounced right back, scoring a TD on an 8-play, 75-yard drive.  It's 20-10.

BG took the kickoff and drove to the A&M 40, converting a 3rd and 10 along the way.  Bazelak came out for Anderson and BG ran a reverse to Rahkeem Smith, who went 40 yards for a TD, aided by a stellar block from Anderson.  It is 20-17 with 5 left in the third.

BG gets a 3 and out, including on a 3rd and 2.  We got a ballgame.  Then, BG blocks the punt and takes over at the Aggie 8.

And so comes one of the two "this close" moments.  Starting on the 8, BG gets absolutely nothing.  They try to get the ball to Fannin with a HB pass, and Fannin was open...this is one of those things, I don't like the play call, but we were staying in the game by keeping them off balance...we were not going to grind it in.

Anyway, we don't score and then miss the 28-yard FG.  That's a killer.

The defense is hanging in.  A&M drives the ball into the 4th Q and inside the BG 20 before the Falcons get a stop and a FG makes it 23-17.

13 minutes left.  BG has a chance...and goes 3 and out.

The Aggies drove to the BG 30 and the Falcons stopped EJ (Don't call me Emmit) Smith for 5 on a 3rd and 7 and the Aggie FG put them up 26-17.  Now a two-score game with 7 to play.

BG comes back, kind of limping along.  Convert two 4th downs in their own territory. They get to the A&M 15 and BG has Fannin wide open, I mean wide open and Bazelak overthrew him by a mile for an Aggie INT. (this close)

With 1:38, that should have been it.  Except A&M fumbled the ball right back on their first play.

Bazleak found Fannin for 30 and BG was on the 5.  The Falcons failed to get into the end zone, hit the FG with :38 left and BG did not get the onside kick and that was all there was to it.

So, there's going to be a focus on the QB.  When Loeffler was asked about him, he jumped to answer about 1 microsecond after the questioner finished.

"He needs to be better."  He went on to say that Bazelak has incredible gifts but needs to be more consistent.  He was 20 of 36 for 250 and 1 INT.  QB is the highest leverage position in sports, only in comparison to a goalie.  So, if we tightened something up, it would be there.

It won't be all on him.  BG was not able to run the ball against TAMU and threw it 39 times on 60 offensive plays.  With other opponents, we should be able to establish the run and open things up a little.  He still needs to be consistently making those plays when they are open.

I'm sure he is going to be "challenged" this week.  Even average QB play makes it tough to win a title.

Also, BG really relied on the big play to stay in this one.  That's fine--I'm proud of us for having a plan B rather than slamming the ball into the wall because that's how we play.  We won't always need that, either.

The BG defense did everything it could do.  A&M ran the ball on 43 of 72 plays.  They averaged 5.5 yards per carry with a long of 18.  They ran for 5.6 against Florida. They came in as #21 in yards per rush in the country.

Overall, they had 5.7 yards per play, which was less than the 6.8 per play in the Swamp.

Also, BG had only 4 penalties for 39 yards.

Special teams were excellent.  Yes, there was the missed FG, but he came back and made the next one.  People will miss. We also missed the onside kick, but that's a long-shot play.  Henderson had 4 punts averaging over 40 while keeping 3 inside the 20.  He is #19 in the country in net punting.

The return game was a non-factor on both sides.

So there you have it.  We are right there.  But every game matters from here on in.  We need to start by not letting down on homecoming to ODU...we are this close.