In many ways, Saturday felt like we were about to get a valley in Kellen Mond’s up-and-down career.

Mond was coming off a dreadful 11-for-34 performance against LSU that was reminiscent of his pre-Jimbo Fisher days. The Aggie quarterback was also on the road, where he was 4-7 as a starter. In those games, Mond led just 1 offensive performance of 30-plus points. Compare that to Bo Nix, who was 10-1 at home entering the day and even with A&M’s No. 5 ranking, it was fair to wonder if Mond could finally take down the Tigers for the first time in his career.

Then there was the whole “A&M actually has a Playoff path” thing. Disappoint against Auburn and suddenly the anti-Mond crowd is out in full force. More importantly, disappoint against Auburn and the “A&M actually has a Playoff path” thing goes up in smoke.

Nope. Not on Saturday. Not the 2020 version of Mond. Not the 2020 version of A&M.

Well, maybe the post-Alabama version of Mond and A&M. That, of course, is the entirety of this current 6-game winning streak. That’s the Aggies’ longest win streak not just of the Fisher era, but of the entire time that they’ve been in the SEC. They wouldn’t have done that with a Mond valley. Instead, Saturday was a Mond peak.

That was easily the most important game of Mond’s career. No, he didn’t light the world on fire like a Heisman Trophy winner, and the Aggies leaned heavily on the Maroon Goons once again. If anybody still thinks that offensive line is only ranked No. 40 in the country, well, that just shows me they aren’t watching football. In addition to the fact that A&M rushed for 313 yards, Mond was sacked once on Saturday, which upped his season total of sacks taken to … 3.

The guy who had that sack, Zakoby McClain, should’ve taken advantage of one of the few Mond mistakes. Instead, this happened:

Yes, get ready for the people who will totally say that Mond and the Aggies just got lucky. They’ll ignore the fact that they had a kicker shank a gimme field goal early on. They’ll also ignore some of the key moments that allowed A&M to walk away with a double-digit win against a winning SEC team, which Mond had never accomplished with Fisher.

It wasn’t just Mond scrambling for first downs (he probably left at least 2 first down runs on the field when he decided to throw instead of keeping it). It was throws like the one he made downfield to Ainias Smith in the slot to set up that all-important touchdown to give the Aggies a 28-20 lead. That came immediately after Todd McShay said on the broadcast that A&M absolutely needed to take a chance downfield against Auburn’s press man-coverage with a single-high safety.

Mond made those key throws. With the exception of the aforementioned McClain throw, he didn’t make that back-breaker. It’s amazing what a quarterback is capable of when he has time. The Maroon Goons are a big reason why Mond has only taken 3 sacks and thrown just 2 interceptions all year. Plenty of SEC quarterbacks — like Mond’s counterpart Bo Nix — have hit those marks in 1 game this year.

Speaking of positive Mond numbers, his 60 rushing yards put him in some exclusive SEC company. His 60 rushing yards helped him join Tim Tebow and Dak Prescott as the only SEC quarterbacks to pass for 9,000 yards and rush for 1,500 yards. Both of those quarterbacks changed the perception of their respective programs. They had signature wins.

Up until Saturday, you couldn’t associate Mond with either of those things. Maybe you still can’t say that he changed the perception of A&M, and perhaps beating unranked Auburn doesn’t qualify as a signature win.

But think about what Mond and A&M are doing a year removed from leading for 7 minutes and 42 seconds of 300 minutes against teams who finished ranked in the top 15. We’re about to enter the second week of December, and the Aggies are still holding on to Playoff hopes. Nobody saw that coming after the Alabama game. Nobody thought Mond could be steady enough to lead this type of effort, despite the fact that he’s been calling himself the SEC’s best quarterback for the last 2 years. I mean, we’re talking about the guy who had 2 road wins entering 2020.

Yes, it would’ve helped A&M had Ohio State laid an egg on Saturday, which didn’t happen. Yes, it still might take Notre Dame and Alabama winning their respective conference title games for that path to turn into an A&M Playoff bid.

Still, all you can ask for is a chance. A&M has that.

Before the game, Fisher was asked by ESPN sideline reporter Allison Williams about what the Aggies needed to do in order to show the selection committee that they belonged among the Playoff field. His answer was predictably cliché.

“They’ll determine that at the end of the season,” Fisher said. “What we have to do is play a great football game today … then we’ll worry about that when we get there.”

A&M played a great football game on Saturday. This is easily the most complete team we’ve seen under Fisher, and it’s certainly the most complete of the post-Johnny Manziel era. By day’s end, Fisher said that his team was “growing up.”

There are a variety of areas in which you apply that statement. We watched a totally inexperienced group of Aggie pass-catchers step up. We’ve seen Isaiah Spiller take advantage of some dominant offensive line play and become a difference-maker, regardless of competition. We’ve witnessed Mike Elko’s defense stand tall and string stops together against quality competition.

It took a bit, but we’ve seen Mond finally grow up, too. He’s now more decisive, more commanding and more efficient than he was at any point of his career. After Saturday’s win, Mond credited that efficiency to his teammates showing up and taking care of business. He’s right. A&M needed a complete effort each of the last 2 weeks to beat a pair of SEC West teams who have had their number.

Now, Mond and the Aggies are riding higher than ever heading into the home stretch. Six in a row against SEC competition is darn impressive, Playoff or not.

Dare I say, there’s not a valley in sight.