The Texas A&M Aggies played the South Carolina Gamecocks on Saturday, in what only a very few, who may not have witnessed it, are calling a "football game." It was more accurate to describe it as an assault on the senses, an exercise in how not to conduct yourself on a football field from both teams in each half.
Let's start with A&M, who looked absolutely sapped of any ability to play the sport for the entire first half. Quarterback Marcel Reed completed six of 19 passes with two pretty bad interceptions, including one in the end zone. Their kicker missed two field goals. Their best receivers kept dropping passes, even when Reed was able to throw one well. The Aggies might point to injuries as part of the problem, but that doesn't really explain what happened in that first half. It looked as if someone on A&M team bet against them in that first half. South Carolina looked like the undefeated team, rather than one of the worst teams in the SEC. It was a total collapse, so much so that even an asshole A&M trooper was feeling the sting. It was as bad of a football game as a team could play.
That is, until South Carolina's second half. Texas A&M had done the Gamecocks a favor by spotting them 27 points, though I did think it was bad form for South Carolina to not punch in for a touchdown to end the half and go up 34-3. I figured it was fine. Even this awful South Carolina team couldn't choke away 27 points, right? If the first half was a case study in how not to play football from the Aggies, South Carolina taught a second-half masterclass in how to not maintain a lead. Not only did the Gamecocks allow 28 straight points from the Aggies, without ever scoring again themselves—they couldn't even muster up 100 yards of offense, amassing 76 yards in the second half after recording 312 in the first. Quarterback LaNorris Sellers returned to the poor football he's been playing all year, while Reed spent the second half going 16-for-20 with three touchdown passes.
"I'm not lost for words very much, but I was lost for words with the team in the locker room after the game," Texas A&M's coach Mike Elko said. "To score 28 straight points and win a football game that ends with a 99-yard drive, there's just not a lot of words for that. It's really impressive."
That's one word you could use. Frankly, this was the kind of game where it's hard to see a winner. Texas A&M remains undefeated but the Aggies still resemble a pretty flawed football team. But at this point, what SEC team isn't that true for? If there's one thing you can credit the conference with, it's marketing ability. They've been able to sell the idea of an SEC schedule as this major gantlet compared to every other conference, so Alabama can lose to Oklahoma, Texas can lose to Georgia, and Texas A&M could nearly blow it all to South Carolina and it's treated less as an indictment than as further proof of the SEC's toughness. Good for them, but anyone who actually watched this football can tell you that championship quality was nowhere to be found.
