There is no silver lining here. This is not a team that’s supposed to still be finding itself. This is supposed to be one of the best rosters in college football. This is a coach in year three of building his program with a veteran QB. But it was nothing like it on Saturday when Texas A&M suffered a 31-21 demolition at the hands of the Kentucky Wildcats and first-year head coach Will Stein. The kickoff was a symbol of what was to come, as returner Terry Bussey suffered a lower leg injury that took him off the field. The apparent fumble on that play was overturned, but that didn’t help A&M much. The Aggies saw two promising drives end in Kentucky territory thanks to a failed fourth-and-inches and a terrible decision by Marcel Reed that led to an interception. The Aggies would put together a touchdown drive, but Kentucky quickly matched that. You weren’t happy with being tied at 7 at the half, but A&M has been a dominant second-half team in each of its first two games last season. We didn’t see anything like that on Saturday. Kentucky scored touchdowns on each of its first three drives of the second half, simply running the ball down the throat of the A&M defense and taking control of the game for good. A&M’s offense did little to stem the tide, and a failed comeback attempt was thwarted for good thanks to another Marcel Reed interception in the red zone midway through the fourth quarter. There is simply nothing positive to take away from this game. The defense, in all phases, looked as vulnerable as it has perhaps been at any point in Mike Elko’s tenure. Marcel Reed didn’t do anything that makes you think he’s improved from a year ago. And this didn’t happen against LSU, Oklahoma, Bama or Texas. It was against Kentucky, a perennial SEC bottom-ranker in the first season of a new head coach. As good a coach as Will Stein is, this is an unacceptable loss for Texas A&M. It’s such a catastrophic loss that it makes you question this coaching staff’s ability to instill meaningful change at Texas A&M. It’s certainly not something I thought was on the table heading into today, but here we are. Certainly, overreactions flow immediately after any loss. But I don’t think it’s an overreaction to say that this could be a directional turn for a program that until now looked like it was undoubtedly trending upward. The only good news is that there are still nine games left to right the ship, but it seems like a pretty Herculean task based on what we saw today.#BTHOlsu (sobs uncontrollably)
