NCAA Football: Aggies escape with a win after the Tigers drop the ball
College Station, Texas - The Texas A&M Aggies clashed with the Auburn Tigers in a game that wasn’t the prettiest, but was still a nail-biter when everything was said and done.
The Aggies beat the Tigers 20-3 on Saturday afternoon for their fourth-straight win, improving to 7-2 while the Tigers fell to 6-3.
In this week’s only college football matchup of two top-25 teams, who also happen to be SEC conference rivals, the spectacular scoring was hardly anywhere to be found.
In fact, there was only one touchdown in the game and that was scored off of a defensive fumble recovery in the fourth quarter.
Luckily for the 14th-ranked Aggies, a poor-performing offense from the 13th-ranked Tigers only mustered three points on the scoreboard.
But even though A&M racked up 409 yards of offense, they never scored an offensive touchdown.
It was a game of field goals through the first three quarters as the 6-3 score looked like something out of a baseball game – until the Aggies managed to pull away in the fourth quarter to victory.
The player spotlight
In a rare contest of ranked teams who didn’t score a lot, a placekicker earned the spotlight.
That was A&M’s senior kicker Seth Small (21), who took the liberty of leading his team in points scored on Saturday.
He practically was his team’s offense and could’ve beaten Auburn with just his field goals, even if you took out the fourth-quarter fumble recovery for the touchdown.
He was nearly perfect, hitting four out of five attempts for 12 points scored.
The big picture
Both teams in this game didn’t wow anyone concerned with ranking each school for the upcoming slate of bowl games to end the season.
But since A&M won instead of the Tigers, they just might land in the top 10 by next week, especially after they previously beat the then number-one-ranked Alabama last month.
Next Saturday, the Aggies are on the road to face the Ole Miss Rebels while the Tigers take on the Mississippi State Bulldogs at home.
Cover photo: Imago/UPI Photo