The only thing standing between Missouri and a SEC East championship is Texas A&M.
That might have been a daunting challenge considering that prior to last weekend’s games the Aggies led the SEC in scoring at 49.2 points and 578 yards of total offense a game. Fueled by defending Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel, Texas A&M led the conference in passing, with 379.2 yards per game, and passing efficiency, with a 180.7 rating.
Bu the LSU defense came alive, holding Manziel to 224 yards passing and 54 yards rushing. He threw one touchdown but was intercepted twice as the Aggies only scored 10 points in the 34-10 loss in Baton Rouge.
“It was just one of those days,” said Manziel. “We came in with a lot of energy and excitement. It had nothing to do with being on the road or the rowdiness. We just didn’t play fundamental football like we needed to. That’s the bottom line.”
If the Aggies are going to win at Missouri and open the door for South Carolina to represent the East in the SEC Championship Game, the Aggies need to get those offensive problems straightened out in a hurry.
“You have to come out and establish a tempo, get some things going, and we could never really get it going,” Manziel said of the LSU loss. “You have to give a lot of credit to them. They came out and mixed a lot of things up. They kept us guessing, and it really took us awhile to figure it out. You have to give a lot of credit to them. We’ve got to get back to the basics, the fundamentals of pitch and catch and throwing the football around. If we don’t establish that and don’t get that going, we don’t have much chance.”
Wide receiver Travis Labhart agreed with his quarterback on the unusual Aggies’ offensive struggles.
“We arrived and had a lot of good energy. Early on, like Johnny said we had trouble getting down the field, and we’re a team that likes to start fast,” he said. “We didn’t do that tonight and a lot of credit to them for making us change up our game plan and who we are. We have to be able to overcome adversity, and we weren’t able to do that tonight. We have to make more plays.”
LSU gashed the Aggies’ defense with a pounding ground game that produced 324 yards on 55 carries, good for a 5.9-yard per average.
“We knew what we were getting into. The type of offense LSU is usually run-run-pass. So, we expected a lot of runs from LSU,” said Texas A&M defensive lineman Julien Obioha. “We knew that had a talented back and talented offensive line. We expected runs coming into today’s ball game.
“I grew up watching LSU football so I knew that had a talented back. I know they do not have just one running back; they have a feature of running backs. I knew that they were going to have four good running backs to hand the ball off to.
“Now it is all about Missouri,” said Obioha. “I know this loss hurts. Guys are very disappointed with the way that we played (against LSU) but it is all about Missouri now, we cannot do anything about the (LSU) game.”
It doesn’t get any easier this weekend. Missouri will hit the Aggies with a fierce ground attack that ranks second in the SEC (238 yards per game), four spots higher than LSU.
Henry Josey leads the Missouri rushing attack with 855 yards and 12 touchdowns on 140 attempts, but he is not the only Tiger that Texas A&M will have to deal with this weekend. Russell Hansbrough and Marcus Murphy, both of whom have more than 550 yards rushing, are two more good options that quarterbacks James Franklin and Maty Mauk can hold the ball of to.
Texas A&M’s defense will be facing a big challenge stopping the Missouri offense, but more of a concern for the Aggies is getting Manziel and the offense back to its pre-LSU ways. Unless that happens, Kevin Sumlin’s team is facing the possibility of concluding the regular season on a two-game losing streak.