Texas A&M
3-1 , 1-0
Bowling Green
1-2 , 0-0
Team Stats
BG 0, A&M 7
A&M - Melin Öhrström,Theo 27 yd pass from Reed,Marcel (Bond,Randy kick) 11 plays, 75 yards, TOP 04:56
BG 3, A&M 7
BG - Kleather,Jackson 33 yd field goal 7 plays, 36 yards, TOP 02:10
BG 3, A&M 10
A&M - Bond,Randy 28 yd field goal 7 plays, 33 yards, TOP 02:28
BG 3, A&M 13
A&M - Bond,Randy 29 yd field goal 18 plays, 77 yards, TOP 06:14
BG 10, A&M 13
BG - Fannin Jr.,Harold 65 yd pass from Bazelak,Connor (Kleather,Jackson kick) 1 plays, 65 yards, TOP 00:12
BG 10, A&M 20
A&M - Walker,Jahdae 5 yd pass from Reed,Marcel (Bond,Randy kick) 8 plays, 75 yards, TOP 04:05
BG 17, A&M 20
BG - Smith,Rahkeem 40 yd run (Kleather,Jackson kick), 9 plays, 81 yards, TOP 05:13
BG 17, A&M 23
A&M - Bond,Randy 34 yd field goal 12 plays, 64 yards, TOP 04:01
BG 17, A&M 26
A&M - Bond,Randy 42 yd field goal 9 plays, 50 yards, TOP 04:20
BG 20, A&M 26
BG - Kleather,Jackson 23 yd field goal 6 plays, 30 yards, TOP 00:51
Game Leaders
Players Mentioned
No. 25 Aggies Defeat Bowling Green, 26-20
Sep 21, 2024 | Football
Marcel Reed led the Aggies (3-1) as the freshman threw for 173 yards on 16-of-29 passing to go along with two touchdowns. The signal caller also racked up a team-best and career-high 91 rushing yards on 12 carries in the win. Le'Veon Moss followed with 90 yards on 16 carries, marking his third straight game with 80-or-more yards on the ground. The junior also added a catch for 20 yards.
On the defensive side, the Aggies racked up 7.0 tackles for loss and 2.0 sacks. Scooby Williams led the Maroon & White with seven tackles, four of which were solos. Shemar Turner made his presence known up front, logging a game-high 2.0 tackles for loss to go along with a sack.
Randy Bond matched his career-high with four field goals from 28, 29, 34 and 42 yards out in the win.
The Aggies registered the lone score of the first quarter as Reed connected with Theo Melin Öhrström for a 27-yard touchdown on the opening drive. Prior to the touchdown pass, the Maroon & White converted a fourth-and-1 as Reed hit Terry Bussey on a crossing pattern to keep the drive alive.
In the second, the Falcons (1-2) cut into the lead, 7-3, with a 33-yard field goal with 13:35 remaining in the half. Texas A&M responded on its ensuing drive as Bond connected on a 28-yard field goal to make it 10-7 at the 10:17 mark.
Bond added another field goal in the closing seconds of the half, this time from 29 yards out, to give the Maroon & White a 13-3 lead at the break. The field goal capped off an 18-play 77-yard drive that lasted over six minutes.
The Aggies remained in front in the third thanks to a 5-yard touchdown pass from Reed to Jahdae Walker that was sandwiched between two Falcon scores. Following a blocked punt by Bowling Green, the Falcons looked to even the score with a 28-yard field goal, but Jackson Kleather missed wide right and the Maroon & White took a 20-17 advantage into the fourth.
A pair of Bond field goals from 34 and 42 yards out gave the Aggies the cushion they needed in the fourth as the lead stretched to 26-17 with 7:15 left. Following a pair of turnovers from both sides on back-to-back possessions, Bowling Green totaled the final points of the night on a 23-yard field goal with :38 left in the game. On the ensuing kickoff, the Maroon & White secured the onside kick attempt to seal the win.
Postgame Notes
Team Notes
- The Aggies have scored on all four opening drives this season, after connecting on a 27-yard pass to the end zone on their first possession against Bowling Green.
- Texas A&M limited Bowling Green to 89 rushing yards on 23 attempts. It marked the second consecutive game the Aggies held an opponent under 100 rushing yards. Opponents have averaged 70.5 rushing yards over the last two games after averaging 189.0 the first two games.
- The Aggies equaled a season-high 7.0 tackles for loss, matching the 7.0 TFL registered against Notre Dame.
- Texas A&M was 2-of-2 on fourth down conversions. The Maroon & White were successful on fourth-and-1 in the first half on the touchdown drive and fourth-and-3 in their second field goal drive of the second quarter.
- The Aggies amassed over 400 yards of total offense for the third consecutive game, also marking the third straight contest with over 200 rushing yards.
Individual Notes
- Freshman QB Marcel Reed completed 16-of-29 passes for 173 yards and two touchdowns. It marked his second consecutive game with multiple TD passes.
- Reed's career-high 91 yards on the ground made him the first Aggie quarterback to rush for 75-plus yards in back-to-back games since 2019 when Kellen Mond ran for 76 yards at Ole Miss (10/19) and 76 yards against Mississippi State (10/26). It marked the first time Reed has led the Aggies in rushing yards.
- After catching the first touchdown pass of his career a week ago at Florida, sophomore TE Theo Melin Öhrström brought in a 27-yard strike to put the Aggies on the board early in the first quarter.
- Sophomore DB Marcus Ratcliffe snuffed out a late Bowling Green drive with an interception in the end zone, giving him three straight games with a pick.
- Ratcliffe became the first Aggie to record an interception in three straight games since Jason Glenn did the deed in 2000 against Kansas State, Oklahoma State and Oklahoma.
- Senior DL Shemar Turner registered 2.0 tackles for loss in the game, marking the second time in his career he has had multiple solo tackles for loss in a game, also doing so against Arkansas last season.
- Turner and Junior DL Shemar Stewart each recorded a sack in the contest, giving the Aggies their second consecutive game with multiple QB takedowns.
- Junior LB Scooby Williams led the Aggies in tackles with a season-high seven, including four solo takedowns. The tally was one short of his career high.
- Junior DE Nic Scourton logged a season-high six tackles, including five solo jobs. He also recorded one TFL and one QB hurry.
- Graduate K Randy Bond broke into the top-15 on A&M's all-time scoring list with 14 points in the game, moving into 13th place with 230 career points. He moved to ninth place on the Aggies' kicker-only career scoring list.
- Bond equaled his career high with four made field goals, previously set last season against ULM. He has made three-or-more field goals in a game six times in his career, while it also marked the 15th career game with multiple field goals.
Postgame Quotes: Mike Elko
transcript courtesy Caption Pros
COACH ELKO: Yeah. First of all, hats off to Bowling Green. That's a very good football team who came in here and certainly didn't take a backseat in any way to us and in a lot of ways took it to us for a good part of the night.
You know, I'm proud of our guys for making enough plays to win the game. When you get into those moments and those situations and it feels like it's spiraling out of control, you see a lot of teams not find ways to win that football game. And I think a credit to our guys that we found a way to win it. Other than that, just so many things to fix and clean up. We got to get back to work Monday and get a lot better. From there, I'll open it up for questions.
Q. Two things. First of all, obviously you're somewhat frustrated. Is there any one or two areas that caused you the most frustration tonight?
COACH ELKO: No, I mean, it was a lot. I mean, defensively, we bust the coverage to start the second half to kind of get them going and give up an easy one. We did a horrible job managing the tight end all night. Obviously, he was their best player. We knew it coming in, and we let him go for 8 for 145. You know, that's not acceptable.
I thought we did a decent job stopping the run. I thought we made plays on third down. But a lot to do.
And then just offensively, it was just so choppy at times. And then we didn't finish drives in the red zone. We got down in the red zone, and I think -- What did we kick? Four field goals? Three field goals?
So you put three touchdowns in there, you put two touchdowns in there, and it kind of changes the makeup of the game. But we couldn't finish drives. Yeah, so many levels of frustration.
Q. And just off the top of your head, early evaluation of Marcel's [Reed] showing tonight.
COACH ELKO: Yeah, obviously there was some good. I thought he made some plays with his feet. He kept some drives going. I thought he made some good throws.
Obviously we started fast. The first drive going down the field and scoring the touchdown was good. I thought there were just times in the middle of the game where we just didn't operate the way we needed to. Some of that was on Marcel; some of that was on other people. But we just got to find ways to get him a little bit more comfortable operating on some of the stuff we're doing tonight.
Q. What was your initial rating of the offensive line tonight?
COACH ELKO: That's always hard to tell from the big picture. You watch it on the video. And I thought we still ran the ball for 235 yards. I don't know. Did we give up one sack maybe? And so it didn't feel like we played poorly on the offensive line. Certainly feel like we could do better.
Q. Any update on TJ Shanahan?
COACH ELKO: TJ should be fine.
Q. I think you told the TV crew going into halftime you all needed to get Marcel [Reed] settled down. Did you feel like you guys were able to accomplish that during the second half?
COACH ELKO: No. I mean no. At times -- again, at times he did the things we needed him to do. At times, we didn't. Again, it's not all on Marcel.
When you talk about getting your quarterback settled down, you use the word "quarterback" because he's the guy with the ball in his hands and that's what makes it go. But it's not just him.
When you talk about settling him down, it's across the board. We got to make sure we're getting the right calls against the right looks. Sometimes that's the quarterback. Sometimes that's the line. We've got to make sure we're running the routes at the speed and tempo we've got to run them.
When you talk about settling down your quarterback, it's probably a catch phrase for just we've got to operate more consistently with what we're doing. So I don't want to make it sound like it's just on Marcel. It certainly isn't just on Marcel.
Q. You mentioned not being able to finish in the red zone. How important was it for Randy [Bond] to connect on all those field goals? He missed a couple late in the game against Florida last week.
COACH ELKO: I thought that was critical. I thought he went on. He made the ones that he needed to make. Then it was really good for him to go out in the fourth quarter and make the big one. Obviously, in the fourth quarter we had a couple of chances last week to put the game a little further in line. It didn't go right. It was good to see him bounce back the way he did. I thought he was a big part of the game tonight.
Q. Last week Conner Weigman suited up. What went into him not suiting up tonight? And what's his latest as far as status?
COACH ELKO: Yeah, we didn't want to give him the shot again. He's still just dealing with the pain of that shoulder injury. So, it's just trying to get him to where he can throw comfortably. We just didn't feel like it was the right thing to try to go back through the same process again. And so we decided to just kind of go with Jaylen [Henderson] as number two tonight.
Q. I know you would like a much cleaner victory by a wider margin, but are there any positives to draw on this going into league play in terms of kind of a wake-up call or whatever you want to call it.
COACH ELKO: Yeah, the positive is we won the game. Again, you see this happen all over. And it's happened in the SEC a decent amount this year that you get into these games where you're not playing your best, and all of a sudden it gets away from you. And the next thing you know you're a 2-2 football team, right?
So the positive is that we did the things that we needed to do. We bust a coverage, and it becomes a three-point game. Then we respond, and we push it back out to ten. We give up the block punt, and the defense goes out there and gets a great stop when they haven't been playing well at all and force the field goal, and the kid misses the field goal which keeps the lead. We make the pick in the red zone. Then we fumble on the four-minute drill, and we go out and get the stop to hold them to a field goal.
There were certain positives, for sure. And again, all of that, ultimately, leads to us winning the football game, right, which at the end of the day is the most important thing.
Q. Mike, kind of going off that, of drawing some of these positives, is there anything defensively that sticks out that maybe you did like, despite the overall performance?
COACH ELKO: We held them under 100 yards rushing. I thought we pressured the quarterback again. I thought we were good on third down again. We got to find ways to cover people better.
Q. Shemar Stewart went down late. What's his status?
COACH ELKO: I think he's okay. I didn't get an update because it was so late. I think he's okay. I don't think that was a big thing.
Q. And then, also, just after what you guys showed last week at Florida, did this performance surprise you guys? And how much better do you think you guys are capable of playing?
COACH ELKO: Yeah. This is what I said to the guys. This is a message I've delivered to football players for years. If you ever relax in this game, this game will find a way to humble you instantly. And that is across the board. You can look at college, NFL, good teams, bad -- like, across the board. If you ever think you've got this game, you don't. That's human nature sometimes.
So you go on the road, you have a big road win and you want to relax because that's human nature, and you can't do that. If you do that, you're going to put yourself at risk.
Q. Mike, what did happen on that big bust at the start of the second half that led to [Harold] Fannin's touchdown?
COACH ELKO: Yeah, we just flat-out busted the coverage. I don't know how else to word it. We just busted the coverage. We had a man uncovered down the field for a touchdown.
Q. Coach, can you talk about Marcus Ratcliffe and the weapon he's been there in the secondary this season with three picks so far.
COACH ELKO: Yeah, I mean, I think he's got a good feel for the ball. Obviously tonight they kind of threw that one to him, but he was in the right spot to go catch it. I think he's got a good feel for the ball. He's got really good ball skills and really good length. That's the beauty of having a 6'3" safety. He's got a lot of range and a lot of length. It kind of puts us in the window to make more plays.
Postgame Quotes: Nic Scourton
Q. How did you feel like the defensive line played as a whole? And is there anything that y'all can play into some of the coverage issues in the game as well?
NIC SCOURTON: I felt like the D-line, we played okay. We're supposed to be a dominant force on the defense end. I think for us to, you know, win and dominate game, we've got to dominate. Obviously, I think we played okay. But I think it's a lot of holes and stuff that we can fix so we can go out there and make plays and take some stress off those guys in the back.
Q. Kind of piggybacking off of that, Coach (Mike Elko) talked about wanting to see better run defense. Felt like maybe that was there tonight, although a little bit worse in the secondary. As far as the run part of it, what do y'all have to do to be able to perform better without maybe necessarily taking away extra help from them and putting them in a bind?
NIC SCOURTON: Like I said, I mean, we just got to dominate. We got guys who are in position to go get drafted. I think we need to make more plays. I think we need to stop runs before they get to the second level. I think we're going to practice harder. We're going to go and work harder, and we're going to try to stop that.
Q. Nic, did you notice any difference first half, second half-wise defensively? And maybe why they were kind of able to get going a little offensively?
NIC SCOURTON: Just think we got loose. Going against a team like this, a very skilled team. Obviously, they're in the MAC. I think some guys got loose. I think we got to stay focused and come out with more intensity in the second half, because that's when it's important. I think some guys got loose.
Q. How do you feel you guys did pass rush-wise and just pressuring the quarterback maybe opposed to past weeks?
NIC SCOURTON: I think a lot better than we have in the previous weeks. But obviously, like I said, we've got some guys who are going to get drafted and we need to get more sacks and pressure. I think we've just got to go back to work.
Q. Nic, between those first two games and this one and the last, to hold the last two punts to under 100 yards rushing, was there any sort of message to y'all's unit after those first two games that has really led to that upgraded performance?
NIC SCOURTON: I mean, like I said, I'm going to keep going back to the D-line. We got a lot of guys in that room, and a lot of that weight falls on us. We've got to stop the run. I just think Coach [Mike] Elko challenged us. Our coaches challenged us, and we're going out there and getting better every week.
Q. What do you guys take from this one knowing you jump back into SEC play next week against Arkansas?
NIC SCOURTON: We're going to go back and watch the tape, see what we got to improve on. Fix some things. Get some guys glued in. And we're going to go to work.
Postgame Quotes: Ar'Maj Reed-Adams
Q. Coach [Mike] Elko said he told you all about that relaxing is kind of the worse thing you do. Do you feel like at times in the game the team was kind of too relaxed in the game?
AR'MAJ REED-ADAMS: Yeah, we started with preparation. We just got to get back to work and finish the week off the way we know how and stay locked in.
Q. You talk about the preparation, did it feel like maybe -- last week, I know y'all were trying to end that road streak, and it seemed like y'all were hungry to get out there. Did you feel like maybe not having that type of motivation, y'all struggled kind of maintaining that intensity?
AR'MAJ REED-ADAMS: Not at all. It just got a little loose at the end. We kept the same intensity all week. We practiced how we always practice. Things don't change because we want to win road games. We just got to do better, finish.
Q. You guys struggled to put the ball in the end zone. Had to kick four field goals. Can you put your finger on why you guys weren't able to finish drives in the end zone and had to settle for three?
AR'MAJ REED-ADAMS: Combination of reasons. We just got to play better and finish. We talk about this every week. Since fall camp, we talked about finishing in the red zone, being better on third down. So we just got to take our opportunities and do the most with them.
Q. Especially after the way y'all ran the ball last week, how do you feel about the way the run blocking was tonight?
AR'MAJ REED-ADAMS: It was ugly at times just because they had more than we could handle in the box. They had eight at all times. So we just had to block who we could, block and let our running backs be who they are. But at the end of the game, we got 200-plus rushing yards, so it was a good night. Just down and dirty is how it had to be tonight.
