Texas A&M Football Faces Brutal Finish After Week 9 Coaches Poll

Texas A&M football spent Week 9 on a bye, but the US LBM Coaches Poll offered no comfort. The Aggies are 4-4 overall, 1-4 in SEC play and absent from both the Top 25 and the list of teams receiving votes.

Now Mike Elko and quarterback Marcel Reed have four games to turn a disappointing season into a bowl trip.

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The rankings show what A&M is chasing. Miami stayed No. 1 with 68 first-place votes, followed by Georgia, Indiana, Utah and UCLA.

Ohio State fell from second to 10th, while Texas remained No. 11. South Carolina, the Aggies’ next opponent, missed the rankings but drew 91 votes.

Reed’s numbers help explain A&M’s position. Through eight games, the senior has thrown eight touchdown passes and eight interceptions while completing 56.8 percent of his throws.

Elko is sticking with him. “We’re going to do what we believe is the right thing to do for us to win on Saturdays,” the coach said last week.

That decision puts the focus on more than the quarterback. Reed needs to make better choices with the ball, but A&M also needs its offense to give him manageable situations.

Elko said after the Missouri loss that the unit’s “failures were at every level.” The bye gave the Aggies time to work on those problems. South Carolina will show whether the work took.

The closing schedule offers little room to ease back in. A&M travels to South Carolina on Nov. 7, hosts Tennessee on Nov. 14, visits Oklahoma on Nov. 21 and finishes at home against Texas on Nov. 27.

Two wins would bring the Aggies to the six-win mark; four losses would leave them 4-8.

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Texas, meanwhile, improved to 6-2 with a 31-3 win over Mississippi State. That Thanksgiving week rivalry game could carry high stakes for both teams, but A&M can’t look that far ahead.

Its first job is to handle a road game against a South Carolina team still drawing poll support. The Aggies don’t need voters to give them a chance. They need to earn one on the field.