Elko proud to see Texas A&M serve up Arkansas more Southwest Classic sadness

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

Texas A&M first-year head coach Mike Elko continued a seeming Aggies tradition on Saturday by notching a close win over Arkansas in the Southwest Classic.

Despite the Razorbacks scoring on a 75-yard bomb on its first possession, Elko’s Aggies steadied themselves and rallied late to take down the Razorbacks 21-17 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

It was the 11th win in the last 12 Southwest Classics for Texas A&M in a trophy game that will return to campus sites next season in Fayetteville.

“It’s a great win,” Elko said. “ It’s another great step in the right direction for us. Obviously, we have got more to do, more to work on, more to improve. So we’re going to enjoy this one.

“…Anytime you play a trophy game, any time you play a rivalry game, you want to walk
away with that. That thing sits in your building for a year and so that certainly means a lot to the team.

“If this is the last time we play this series up here, then we know we’ll have left with the trophy.”

It was the 7th time in the last 10 match ups that the game has been a one-score game with three of those going to overtime.

“Arkansas and Texas A&M in AT&T Stadium, how else did you think it would go?” Elko said. “All the way down to the stretch, and you needed to make plays in the fourth quarter to win it.”

The Razorbacks have beaten the Aggies just one time in last 4,745 days.

It looked like the tide might be turning as Arkansas took the early lead, then used a fake punt to set a second score and go up 14-7.

Arkansas had a 385-297 total offense advantage with 187 yards in the first quarter, 42 in the second, 105 in the third and 52 in the final stanza.

Texas A&M’s defense would also limit the Razorbacks to three points after the first quarter.

“I’m a defensive guy by nature, so you always look and try to find ways,” Elko said. “I wish we didn’t start by giving up a 75-yard touchdown on third and 11.

“I thought the way we played that game, through the middle part of the game on defense — when the offense wasn’t able to put drives together, the offense wasn’t able to sustain drives, the defense just kept going.

“Again, there was no panic. There was, oh, man, we gotta get back. There was none of that on the sideline. There was none of that at halftime. There was none of that when we lost the lead in the third quarter. There was nothing.

“There was just a group of kids that went out that there and fought together and just kept making plays.”

That included sniffing out what looked like an Arkansas fake field goal in the third quarter after giving up the 27-yard run by Razorback punter Devin Bale in the opening quarter.

“Yeah, it wasn’t even a fake punt that they ran,” Elko said. “It was a rugby punt. It’s on us as coaches that we didn’t do a good job of getting communicated of how we wanted to handle that. It wasn’t a fake. He just rolled out and took off.”

The Aggies were ready for the Razorbacks’ second kicking game surprise.

“It was coming out of a timeout on the fake field goal, and the distance of that was probably right at the end of his (Kyle Ramsey’s) range. We had some conversations in the huddle about being prepared for that.”

Texas A&M tailback Le’Veon Moss came alive in the fourth quarter and finished the game with 13 carries for 117 yards.

“Yeah, a really talented back,” Elko said. “He got dinged up a little bit early and so we didn’t have him a good part of the middle of the game. He was kind of working through some different things, and we finally got him healthy and ready to roll when it was time.

“And he was able to go out there and rip off some really big runs. He’s a talented back. He runs hard. He runs behind his pads. Certainly put the game on ice for us.”

Photo by John D. James