Columbia, Mo. — I don’t even know where to start with this disaster.

I’ve never been more frustrated with the Texas A&M football team than I am right now. I am just shocked at how bad this team is. It’s terrible to go in to the locker room down 10-3, your defense is playing its butt off and I took a look and said, “game over.”

And I was right. And I know a lot of you felt the exact same way. This team is offensively inept, and it wears the defense down over time as it did today. This, consistently, the worst offense since the Franchione years. Nobody has a clue, the playcalling is incomprehensible and the quarterback has no faith in himself. This game could have been won by a halfway respectable offensive performance. Instead, it was one of the worst dogs I’ve ever seen, going back to 2002 against Virginia Tech.

And that game got a coordinator fired.

Offense

What can you say? Well, you can say a lot: pathetic, pitiful, disgraceful, garbage and a lot of things that could get me in trouble. But that was, the singular worst performance I’ve ever watched from a Texas A&M offense (note: I was working on the Saturday of 77-0).
I don’t know what it is about Texas A&M and wrecking the minds of quarterbacks, but it seems to happen at least once a generation. Jerrod Johnson (though his shoulder had a lot to do with that), Kyle Allen (also a shoulder contributing), Mark Farris (shoulder) and now Reed. Maybe his shoulder needs to be looked at.

All offseason we heard about how good he had looked in practices and during workouts. The playbook was expanding for him. Now we’re here at 3-3 and Reed looks scared and like he doesn’t trust himself. He has totally lost whatever skill set he had last year. The mechanics and footwork are terrible. His reads are bad. He runs when he shouldn’t and he doesn’t when he should. And he’s starting to run backwards out of pressure instead of either standing in the pocket or going forward. He’s not Johnny Manziel. That’s not going to work.

Reed ended up 19-39 for 187 yards and two interceptions. Those are the most worthless 187 yards in the history of Aggie football. When the game was in doubt, he did nothing. Missouri ended up winning this thing going away because the Aggie offense had 3 yards of offense in the third quarter.

Coach Mike Elko says he doesn’t know what good could come from going to Brady Hart. I do — it sits down a guy who has lost faith in himself and who’s teammates are starting to do the same (if they haven’t already). This season is lost if the status quo continues, so what do you have to lose?

We heard about how tough this offensive line had become and they were going to get physical with opponents. They ran the ball 23 times for 29 yards. KJ Edwards had the best go of it, picking up 20 yards on six carries, and then vanished after the first quarter. Jamarion Morrow had a couple decent runs. Rueben Owens provided very little, but did have the longest run of the day — 9 yards. You can’t establish a running game if you don’t run. But they were in 2nd and 8 so many times today that the had no choice to throw. They didn’t help much there, either, as Owens let a blitzer run right past him to drill Reed. More on that play in a secoind.

The receivers were tragically bad today. Ashton Bethel-Roman bears a lot of responsibility for both interceptions. On the first, he ran a pitiful route and Reed never looked off him, so they’re both wrong. On the second, that’s a ball that has to be caught and he muffed it. Plain and simple. Like Reed and Owens, he has regressed. Isaiah Horton and Mario Craver were non-factors. Horton was targeted six times and caught two, because he couldn’t get open. Craver was targeted six times and caught one pass. For the second straight game, TK Norman was the receiver who could hold his head up after things were done.

The offensive line got its as* kicked. Point blank, no sugarcoating it. They couldn’t do anything right. They were absolutely humbled. They couldn’t get a push for a yard, couldn’t defend a three-man pass rush, they couldn’t do anything.

The big investments on the offensive line are looking like big busts. Tyree Adams struggled today and Trovon Baugh was so bad he was benched for true freshman Sam Roseborough. An aside — if Roseborough is in there, how bad are Tyler Thomas, Papa Ahfua and Coen Echols?

Baugh was brutal. He got busted for holding twice, both wiping out first downs, and completely whiffed on the same sack Owens did. It was if they’d jointly decided to let Reed get hit. And then they both did the “what was that” move after the Missouri defender shot past them.

Mark Nabou had an awful game, and that’s not something you say often. Again, he totally botched an assignment that ended up in a sack. It was deplorable.

I really don’t know what you do at this point. The big ticket items should be returned and something else has to be tried. Because this is not acceptable at any level and if people are pissed, they have every right to be.

If your opponent just decides to run the ball and run out the clock in the middle of the third quarter while up 10, you should be humiliated. That’s the same as being laughed at (or worse) in your face. That’s insulting your manhood.

Defense

I feel bad for them. They did their damndest to keep this game close and finally just ran out of gas. They shut down Austin Simmons and it didn’t matter. Missouri challenged them, man to man, and beat them down — 252 rushing yards. That’s…embarrassing.

First, the good: Dezz Ricks once again shut down an entire side of the field. Brandon Davis-Swain played really well. They blitzed. They had six tackles for loss.

And they still gave up 399 yards of total offense.

A&M’s biggest problem this year, outside of basic assignment football in the secondary, has been stopping the run. They did a good job with Jamal Roberts early, but as the game went on, the Missouri offensive line just wore them down. They ran the ball 15 straight times, right at A&M. It was a direct challenge. They couldn’t handle it.

We can safetly say Tawfiq Byard is the real deal. He played well again today and put some shots on folks. Dalton Brooks and Marcus Ratcliffe both missed some critical tackles that led to big runs. If you’re in the hole, you can’t whiff. They did.

Ray Coney and Noah Mikhail made some nice plays, and Daymion Sanford had his pick. But that clearly wasn’t enough. I’m very concerned about the play of DJ Hicks, who seemed completely absent today. He was outplayed by Davis-Swain and C.J. Mims. Hicks was the third-ranked player in the country in 2023 and the light still hasn’t come on and stayed on.

The Aggies got more consistent pressure today than they have in any game this year and, honestly, Austin Simmons did not have a good day because he was being constantly harassed. But the running game was plenty good in its stead. The one touchdown Simmons threw was when Julio Humphrey was totally beat at the line of scrimmage, giving Cayden Lee a wide open middle of the field to operate with.

Special Teams

The Aggies have the best specialists in the nation. Coincidentally, I think they also did the last time they stunk like this.

Coaching

I don’t know what to say here. It seems like there’s a lot of throwing up of hands in disgust, but Muppet News Flash: there’s half a season left. Elko is a very smart guy, but I’ve never seen him this short-fused and defensive. Then again, they’ve never been in this situation before. But calling out another website as a “cesspool” when fans are already seriously pissed off is not a good idea. He knows better.

I have said for several weeks that you can’t coach scared and you can’t play scared. I think Holmon Wiggins is both scared and confused. That’s not a huge shock for a first-time playcaller, but we’re not at Bowling Green. This is Texas A&M and we’re in the freaking SEC. When absolutely nothing works, that’s not just on the players. It’s also on what they’re working with. Today, I saw no effort to get Marcel Reed moving, to run him or to even get him in a position to get out of the pocket while under control. These are things we’ve heard about repeatedly. Reed is playing a terrible brand of football right now and there’s no denying that, but he’s not getting a lot of help.

Defensively, 252 rushing yards is 252 rushing yards. Can’t happen. You can’t give up big plays on third down. You have to actually sack the quarterback, not just pressure him. Schematically, I thought today was an improvement. Results stay a different story.

I don’t know what else to say. This is the worst Aggie football has looked in five seasons and there are no quick fixes. The coordinator hires look terrible right now. Elko feels the pressure of the world and is lashing out. The veterans on offense have failed. It’s a disaster.