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3 takeaways from Texas clinching an SEC Championship berth with a win at Texas A&M
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For the first time in 13 years, Texas and Texas A&M played an organized game of tackle football instead of fighting on the internet.
Texas was fortunate enough to be on the right side of that.
Ethan Burke’s 4th-and-goal stop of Texas A&M put the kibosh on the Aggies’ comeback attempt, and the Longhorns clinched an SEC Championship berth — and likely a Playoff berth — with a 17-7 victory. In a play-in game for the SEC Championship, Texas earned a rematch against Georgia.
Here are 3 takeaways from Saturday night’s showdown at Kyle Field:
1. Quinn Ewers’ ankle was fine, but Tre Wisner was the offensive backbone
A&M had much more success containing Ewers, and it didn’t have anything to do with the banged-up ankle. Ewers had negative passing yards in the first half, and he had a pair of costly red-zone turnovers, including a 93-yard pick-6 that gave A&M life in a 17-0 game. Ewers still made enough plays to win alongside a dominant Texas defense.
But the star of the show was Tre Wisner. The shifty Texas back continued his breakout season and in the wake of Jaydon Blue’s fumbling issues, Wisner one-upped last week’s career-high of 26 carries with 33 carries for 186 yards. A&M couldn’t bring him down and Texas won the battle up front.
The Texas offense wasn’t lights out, but it showed once again that it could adapt. It lost star left tackle Kelvin Banks Jr. to a leg injury in the first half. We also saw Steve Sarkisian bring in Arch Manning to utilize his mobility on 4th and 2, which led to him getting the pylon for the game’s first score.
2. Marcel Reed and the A&M offense just couldn’t get anything going against that Texas defense
Note that the only A&M score of the night came on Will Lee III’s pick-6. In other words, the Texas defense didn’t allow Reed and the Aggie offense to score.
That was capped by Burke’s aforementioned 4th-down stop and Trey Moore’s strip sack of Reed on the final possession. It was pure dominance by the Longhorn defense. A&M was held to 244 total yards and just 4.3 yards/play, along with 2 empty red-zone trips.
It was a brutal pill to swallow for A&M. A 4-overtime loss at Auburn and a double-digit loss to the Longhorns at Kyle Field spoiled the ending to an impressive Year 1 for Mike Elko.
3. The SEC Championship rematch is set
Well, we’re gonna get another Texas-Georgia showdown after all. After the Dawgs dominated Texas in Austin, the 2 teams will meet in Atlanta with a first-round bye on the line.
One would think that both teams will likely enter as top-5 teams and Playoff berths already locked in. The better question is whether Texas can make offensive adjustments after Kirby Smart’s defense delivered a performance for the ages.
For now, though, all that mattered for Texas was getting out of College Station with something the Aggies have never gotten in their 13 years in the SEC — a conference title berth.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
