All No. 14 Texas A&M needed was a QB switch to beat No. 8 LSU.
Okay, maybe it took a little more than that. But Aggies coach Mike Elko traded Marcel Reed for Conner Weigman in the second half and the Aggies cruised to a 38-23 comeback victory over the Tigers.
“We needed the continued threat there with the way they played us,” Elko said before the fourth quarter on the ABC broadcast.
A&M trailed 17-7 in the third quarter when Elko went to Reed. The move came after Texas A&M’s BJ Mayes intercepted Garrett Nussmeier and returned the ball to the LSU 8-yard line. One play later, Reed ran into the end zone to cut the deficit to three.
The Aggies led just over seven minutes later after Reed scored on another eight-yard run. That came after a seven-play, 60-yard drive following another special teams disaster for the Tigers. On a night when kicker Damian Ramos missed two field goals, a miscommunication between the long snapper and the holder gave the Aggies the ball and set up that score.
From that point on, A&M’s defense started forcing turnovers and Reed continued to have the game of his life. Nussmeier threw three interceptions in the second half and A&M scored TDs on the first four drives Reed led.
Reed entered the match after Weigman was struggling. The Aggies’ starter had played well since returning from a shoulder injury early in the season, but wasn’t very good Saturday night. Weigman was just 6 of 18 passing for 64 yards before being benched. Reed, meanwhile, threw two passes for 70 yards thanks to a 54-yard completion to Noah Thomas.
Before Reed entered the game, it appeared LSU’s defense was continuing the improvement it had shown over the course of the season. After Reed took the field, LSU looked lost. The Tigers simply had no answer for the extra dimension Reed showed.
Saturday night was by far Reed’s best game of the season. Reed was far from as spectacular in the three games he started in Weigman’s absence. He failed to throw for more than 178 yards in any of those games and rushed for just 13 yards in his last start against Arkansas. Although he did enough to keep A&M afloat in Weigman’s absence, there wasn’t much controversy when Weigman started against Missouri on October 5.
Great playoff chances from Texas A&M
Saturday’s game featured the last two undefeated teams in conference play in the SEC. And now A&M has a significant lead over everyone else in the conference standings thanks to the tiebreaker against the Tigers and a very manageable schedule through the final four weeks of the season.
A&M heads to South Carolina on Nov. 2 before visiting Auburn in the penultimate week of the season. Yes, No. 5 Texas looms in the final week of the regular season. But the Aggies could have a spot in the SEC title game by then, capped off with wins over the Gamecocks and Tigers.
We won’t go so far as to say this is likely, but wins at Columbia and Auburn are both plausible, even in a very deep SEC. Could everyone else in the SEC be playing for just one spot in the title game in the month of November?
