LAS VEGAS, Nevada — In the final two minutes of the Vegas Bowl Friday night, USC, was able to march down the field and score the go-ahead touchdown with 12 seconds remaining to take down the Aggies 35 to 31. This Aggie team that started out the 7-1 dropped 4 of their last 5 to finish out the season. After the game Friday night, you could clearly see frustration across players and coaches' faces.
“I think the story of the game is the story of our season,” head coach Mike Elko said. “We can't cover the forward pass well enough to be a good football team, and so that's my fault.”
“We really wanted this one,” junior receiver Noah Thomas said. “We was trying to use this one as the first win of the season next year, So, it's going to drive us, push us hard every time we [about to] give up we got to think about times like this like just got to push through and win these games. Win. For real.”
It was a tale of two halves for the Aggies. After going into halftime knotted up at 7, the offense came out firing in the 3rd quarter, scoring 17 points, but the defense was a different story.
“We were obviously confident, you know,” junior defensive lineman Cashius Howell said. “Whenever we were up, what was it 7 to 24 and.you know, we just, couldn't get it done. It came down to, you know, the little things being done right and, obviously we didn't do that right.”
Halftime adjustments by the Trojans exposed the Aggies passing defense after only throwing for 69 yards in the first half, USC put up 226 yards in the air in the second half.
“Yeah, I mean, I have a lot of apprehension when the other team's going to drop back and throw the ball,” Elko said “I had apprehension all season, starting with Florida, we got lucky starting against Missouri, we got lucky. LSU threw for 400 yards. It's been a problem all season, so it's on me and I got to fix it.”
It's hard to find positive takeaways from this one, especially after A&M dropped their last three straight, but this program no longer has a culture problem, now it's a football problem.
“I think we learned how to become accountable, I think we learned how to care for each other. I think we learned how to practice hard, I think we learned what work ethic looks like,” Elko said. “None of those things existed in this program when I got here, not one of them.
We had kids on the football team, not at the bowl game last year. That's where we were when I took over. What we didn't do was get good enough at football, and that's ultimately my responsibility. So we are fundamentally not good enough we are just not good enough right now. So the challenge is when we get back here in January that everything has to get turned up, We are now where we need to be from a culture standpoint now we have to become a good football program and so that's the next step that we have to take.”
“I think he's [Elko] right,” Thomas said. “The past couple of years before him coming, we had some culture issues, so we had to get that that all figured out first and then you feel me try to work with what we got.”
“We can't keep talking about it and then when it comes down to it like, I guess just shrivel up and shy away from it,” Howell said. “We just have to like you said, bro, just play football better like it's, it's that simple.”
Well, you know what they say, ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,’ and I think the Aggies are going to want to keep the memory of this one in Sin City as they shift gears and focus on 2025.
