COLLEGE STATION — First Missouri’s Brady Cook questioned the acoustics of Kyle Field and lived to regret it, then LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier did the same. Do they not have WiFi in Baton Rouge? Now, if visiting quarterbacks want to make a stink about the engineering of Kyle Field, be my guest. Please. The press box bobs like a cork when fans so much as get up to let someone out of their row. Practically needed Dramamine just to type this.
But never, ever challenge Aggies about how loud they can get, because they take it personally.
Turns out their football team is making a little noise, too.
Backup quarterback Marcel Reed conducted 14th-ranked Texas A&M’s thunderous second-half comeback against eighth-ranked LSU in a 38-23 win, sending a message loud and clear to the rest of the SEC and up the road to their old rivals in Austin, who narrowly escaped Nashville with a win Saturday over Vanderbilt.
The top team in the SEC is the one with the best built-in advantage in the league, as 108,852, the third-largest crowd in stadium history, demonstrated yet again.
“There’s a lot of things we’ve got to elevate,” said Mike Elko, who started his postgame presser with a shout-out to the crowd, “but our home atmosphere is not one of them.
“That was really special.”
The Aggies and Tigers shared a couple similarities going into the game. Both had bounced back from an opening loss with six straight wins, and both were the last undefeated teams left standing in SEC play.
The biggest difference between the two?
One has an NFL-caliber quarterback.
The other is simply a winner.
Nussmeier — who succeeded Jayden Daniels, the NFL’s odds-on Rookie of the Year and maybe even an MVP challenger — waited a long time for his shot. Three years. An eternity by today’s standards. Some of his peers coming out of Flower Mound Marcus are on their third different fight song by now.
Back at Marcus, Nussmeier passed for 8,160 yards and 83 touchdowns while his father, Doug, a former quarterback himself, was an offensive assistant for the Cowboys. Dad, now the Eagles’ quarterbacks coach, raised his son right. Nice arm, good vision, a little bit of a gambler.
First example of the latter: Spinning out from under a rush in the third quarter, Nussmeier rolled to his left and, near the sideline, floated a pass to the middle of the field. Not good. BJ Mayes intercepted and returned the ball to the LSU 8, where Reed, subbing for an ineffective Conner Weigman, started what would be a 31-6 comeback in the second half.
Second example: Only two possessions later, after the Aggies had taken their first lead of the game on a 60-yard drive capped by Reed’s 8-yard run, Mayes picked off Nussmeier again, this time on a dangerous sideline route, to give A&M the ball deep in LSU territory again.
Even a targeting penalty that wiped off Le’Veon Moss’ touchdown run didn’t keep the Aggies out of the end zone. Simply ran the ball twice with Reed taking the last 4 yards and a 28-17 lead.
Considering the events of the first half, when Weigman completed 5 of 14 passes for 49 yards to Nussmeier’s 259 yards and two touchdowns, the second half was a stunner. Reed’s production — just two attempts, both completed, for 70 yards and nine carries for 62 yards and three touchdowns — gave the Aggies the “spark” that Elko said he was looking for and supported his idea of winning football.
LSU coach Brian Kelly gave it his stamp of approval, too.
“Right now,” he said, “I would run the quarterback against us.”
Elko has built a 7-1 record on defense and a productive running game. A&M ran for a whopping 242 yards while holding LSU to 24. Nussmeier passed for 405 yards, but the Aggies also sacked him six times and forced the three picks.
But the difference was Reed, who started the Aggies’ wins over Florida, Bowling Green and Arkansas and added one in relief Saturday.
And this is what he told Weigman after it was over: “I got you.”
“We’re brothers,” Reed said. “We’re teammates.”
But who’s the starter? If it’s Reed — who gets the fan vote, judging by the chants of his name — can he offer enough as a passer once defenses load the box?
Before the Aggies can think about a run at the conference championship game and Texas, you’d think they’ll need more complete play at quarterback. Say what you will about Quinn Ewers, who threw two interceptions against Vandy. He still passed for 288 yards and three touchdowns. No play is out of his reach.
Then again Nussmeier has all the tools to play at the next level, too, and the Aggies’ defense short-circuited everything he tried in the second half. It’s not clear if he regrets saying Kyle Field isn’t as loud as Death Valley. For that matter, he might even be right. But it was another quarterback — a closer, at that — who had the last word Saturday.
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