By admin 
BATON ROUGE, La. – Only 11 months ago, Texas A&M ran LSU’s football team off the field, its fans out of the stadium and Brian Kelly out of a job. Pretty neat trifecta, at that. Down in the southeast corner of Tiger Stadium, awash in the afterglow, A&M fans chanted their head coach’s name.
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If they’re evoking it now, chances are it’s not with the same reverie.
Not after Saturday’s 35-6 rout by the 10th-ranked Tigers before 102,321, a beatdown of the 23rd-ranked Aggies that provided a perspective diametrically opposed to the one from last October, when the Aggies pummeled LSU by 24 points on their way to an 11-0 start.
And you thought a 10-point loss at home last week to Kentucky was bad.
“The issues,” Elko said, “appear to be worse.”
“Rock bottom,” Marcel Reed called it.
Both teams Saturday were coming off losses. One mostly embarrassed the Aggies’ defense; the other, only Lane Kiffin, who learned just how long Ole Miss can carry a grudge.
Elko said after the Kentucky loss that his defense would have to “catch up quick.” The numbers suggest they’ve been lapped instead.
The Tigers outgained A&M, 506-197; went 4 of 6 in the red zone; and kept the Aggies’ hands off their quarterback, Sam Leavitt, who looked like the guy Kiffin was expecting after transferring from Arizona State. He was 17 of 23 for 312 yards, two touchdowns and an interception and showed no signs of the skittish, panic-prone quarterback outplayed by Ole Miss’ Trinidad Chambliss the week before.
And to think that Leavitt was, according to his coach, “very injured” Saturday.
“I joked to him that maybe it was the best thing that happened,” Kiffin said, “because he had to stay in the pocket and throw on time. He knew he couldn’t run.
“Really gutsy performance by him.”
No one would ever question Reed’s heart or courage, but that’s pretty much the end of any comparisons with Leavitt. For that matter, he didn’t look anything like the quarterback who threw for two touchdowns and ran for two more in last year’s rout of LSU.
Elko, who stood by Reed after a poor performance by the senior last week, didn’t alter his stance even after his quarterback completed just 10 of 26 passes for 106 yards and an interception.
“No,” was all Elko said when asked if he was considering a change.
Frankly, he may not have any better options. Brady Hart, a sophomore, played in the fourth quarter with the game all but over. His only pass resulted in an interception.
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One play Saturday summed up the Aggies’ offense and Reed’s problems this season. On a third-and-goal from the 6 in the second quarter and the game still in reach, the Aggies’ Aaron Gregory appeared to get away with pushing an LSU defender, who ended up on his backside in the end zone. Gregory turned to his quarterback and waited for his six points.
He watched Reed’s pass sail over his head instead. An eight-minute drive, and all the Aggies got out of it was a 24-yard field goal from David Olano, who added a 53-yarder in the second half.
And that was a wrap for A&M’s offense.
“We have to play better,” Elko said. “I don’t know what else to say.
“We have to look at everything, as if we haven’t already.”
He might want to give a second or third look at this: On a fourth-and-1 from LSU’s 47 in the third quarter, A&M’s defense pressed hard up against LSU’s offensive line like Christmas shoppers at Macy’s window. Not a safety in sight. That is, until Jackson Harris had snuck into the Aggies’ secondary, where Leavitt found him for a 57-yard touchdown.
“One of my favorite plays,” Leavitt said.
Elko blamed a lack of execution for the fiasco, which reminds me of a favorite line from the late, great John McKay, Tampa Bay Buccaneers legend. Asked after a loss about the “execution of his defense,” he said, “I’m all for it.”
The 57-yarder proved to be a turning point, because, over the next five minutes, A&M failed on fourth down in its own end of the field, and the Tigers turned the gift of field position into points. An 11-point lead bloomed to 25, and the rout was on.
Since that 11-0 start last year, A&M is now 2-4 over its last six games. Not where the Aggies looked like they were headed going into Elko’s third season. After the loss to Kentucky, he said there wasn’t a single positive to take from it.
And now?
“Every single aspect,” he said, “was not close to good enough.”
Reed is an easy target, but put yourself in his shoes. Last year, he accounted for more than 300 yards of offense against the Tigers, running and throwing. This time around, the Tigers bottled him up, sacking him four times and limiting him to minus-13 yards rushing.
As a result, the Aggies are 0-2 in SEC play with Alabama, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Texas still to go. All the makings of a Kevin Sumlin 8-4 special. When I asked Reed how he felt about their chances in the SEC and a shot at the College Football Playoff, he noted that Florida beat Ole Miss a week after a big win over LSU. An excellent point, too. Except that Saturday’s loss was on top of the one to a basketball school. Four games in, it’s already been a long season.
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This story was originally published September 28, 2026 at 2:33 AM.