Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college football (power complexes sold separately for one cop at Kyle Field). First Quarter: Lane Kiffin’s SEC Conundrum. Third Quarter: James Franklin’s Rebound. Fourth Quarter: Zeroing in on Candidates for Coach of the Year … and Not Coach of the Year.
Second Quarter: Which Teams Are Winning the Close Ones, and Which Teams Are Blowing Out Opponents?
The largest comeback in FBS this season contained no fluke circumstances. The Texas A&M (11) rally Saturday from 27 points down was not aided by South Carolina turnovers. There was not a blocked punt to flip the field. There were no massively controversial penalties on the Gamecocks.
Simply put, the Aggies were not lucky to win. They went and took the game back after doing their dead-level best to give it away in the first 30 minutes. And they did it as fast as possible.
Four touchdown drives, each 70 yards or longer. Three defensive stops. In just 19 minutes and 13 seconds of game time, Texas A&M went from being blown out to having the lead early in the fourth quarter. It would keep it the rest of the way, despite a truly terrible play call in the lower red zone to turn the ball over and give South Carolina its final chance.
Quarterback Marcel Reed showed remarkable resilience, bouncing back from an awful first half to perform brilliantly on those four TD drives. His fourth-and-12 scramble on the first possession of the second half was the biggest play of the game—a good decision to go for it by Mike Elko and an excellent athletic play by Reed. If the Aggies punt there, the avalanche might never have started rolling.
The A&M receivers who dropped passes in the first half made catches in the second half. The defense stopped giving up big plays. Nobody panicked.
Given how the comeback unfolded, it’s inaccurate to say South Carolina choked (12). Collapsed? Absolutely, especially in the secondary. The Aggies were running wide open during the entire comeback. But the only two moments worth second-guessing are these:
- The LaNorris Sellers freakout on the Gamecocks’ final possession, where the quarterback just wouldn’t throw the ball. On the final three plays, he took two sacks and then attempted a hopeless scramble on fourth-and-16. His presence of mind seemed to evaporate. Yet even then, South Carolina was a long way from getting into range for a winning field goal.
- The fourth-and-1 play at the A&M 30-yard line on the Cocks’ first series of the second half, still leading 30–10. Shane Beamer called timeout, then came out with a prosaic play call—a third straight rush by redshirt freshman Matt Fuller, up the middle. He was stopped well short. Seems like it would have been a good time to keep the ball in the hands of his most talented player (Sellers). Or Carolina could have attempted a field goal, although a 47-yarder would have been a 50–50 proposition for kicker William Joyce.
All things considered, if you told South Carolina fans beforehand that their 3–6 squad would lose by a point on the road to the undefeated, No. 3 team in the nation, they’d say their Gamecocks played great. But the nature of the loss turned it into a nightmare.
All that said, Texas A&M still lived dangerously against a weak opponent. Which got The Dash wondering who has gotten into the Dash Top 10 the easy way and who has gotten there the hard way. Let’s examine some game control numbers for the top teams.
Ohio State (13)
Record: 10–0. Average scoring margin: 30 points per game. Record in one-score games: 1–0. Games trailing in the second half: Zero. In fact, the Buckeyes have not trailed in the second half in 14 straight games, since the Great Michigan Meltdown of 2024. Amount of time tied or leading by one score in the second half: 14 minutes, 58 seconds. Luckiest escape: Luck didn’t have much to do with it, but stopping Texas inside the 10-yard line twice in the second half of the season opener.
Indiana (14)
Record: 11–0. Average scoring margin: 31.7. Record in one-score games: 2–0. Games trailing in the second half: Two (Iowa, Penn State). Biggest second-half deficit: Four points, against Penn State. Amount of time trailing in the second half: 8:47. Amount of time tied or leading by one score in the second half: 65:24. Luckiest escape: The Omar Cooper Jr. toe-tap to beat Penn State, which has shoved aside the Michael Penix Jr. lunge against the Nittany Lions in 2020 as the most famous play in school history.
Texas A&M
Record: 10–0. Average scoring margin: 13.5. Record in one-score games: 3–0. Games trailing in the second half: Two (Notre Dame, South Carolina). Amount of time trailing in the second half: 34:20. Biggest second-half deficit: 27 points, against South Carolina. Amount of time tied or leading by one score in the second half: 79:45. Luckiest escape: The dropped PAT hold by Notre Dame’s Tyler Buchner late in the fourth quarter that gave A&M its winning one-point margin after scoring with 13 seconds left.
Georgia (15)
Record: 9–1. Average scoring margin: 14.8. Record in one-score games: 3–1. Games trailing in the second half: five (Tennessee, Alabama, Auburn, Mississippi, Florida). Biggest second-half deficit: 10 points, against Alabama. Amount of time trailing in the second half: 89:21. Amount of time tied or leading by one score in the second half: 64:41. Luckiest escape: Tennessee’s false start and subsequent missed 43-yard field goal for the win at the end of regulation.
Texas Tech (16)
Record: 10–1. Average scoring margin: 30.3. Record in one-score games: 0–1. Games trailing in the second half: One (Arizona State). Biggest second-half deficit: 12 points, against ASU. Amount of time trailing in the second half: 28:34. Amount of time tied or leading by one score in the second half: 37:52. Luckiest escape: None, really. But Kansas State opting to turn the ball over five times in Manhattan, Kans., on Nov. 1 was a welcome development for the Red Raiders.
Mississippi (17)
Record: 10–1. Average scoring margin: 17. Record in one-score games: 5–1. Games trailing in the second half: Four (Oklahoma, Georgia, Washington State, Florida). Biggest second-half deficit: Eight points, against Georgia. Amount of time trailing in the second half: 36:40. Amount of time tied or leading by one score in the second half: 127:46. Luckiest escape: A DJ Lagway rollout, side-arm interception on a tipped ball kept Florida from tying the game in the fourth quarter Saturday, in a game where Lane Kiffin was on one of his fourth-down binges, going for it seven times.
Oregon (18)
Record: 9–1. Average scoring margin: 25.3. Record in one-score games: 1–0. Games trailing in the second half: Two (Penn State briefly in overtime, Indiana, Iowa). Biggest second-half deficit: 10 points, against Indiana. Amount of time trailing in the second half: 20:37. Amount of time tied or leading by one score in the second half: 70:16. Luckiest escape: Penn State quarterback Drew Allar’s penchant for the ill-timed interception, this one in double overtime, ended the game in Happy Valley and sent the Nittany Lions into an irrevocable tailspin.
Oklahoma
Record: 8–2. Average scoring margin: 14.5. Record in one-score games: 3–1. Games trailing in the second half: Five (Auburn, Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama). Biggest second-half deficit: 17 points, against Texas. Amount of time trailing in the second half: 60:18. Amount of time tied or leading by one score in the second half: 88:58. Luckiest escape: A trick-play touchdown against Auburn that the SEC office later acknowledged should have been disallowed. Oklahoma won the game by seven points.
Alabama
Record: 8–2. Average scoring margin: 13.8. Record in one-score games: 2–1. Games trailing in the second half: Three (Florida State, South Carolina, Oklahoma). Biggest second-half deficit: 17 points, against FSU. Amount of time trailing in the second half: 65:37. Amount of time tied or leading by one score in the second half: 84:42. Luckiest escape: Sellers fumbling in Gamecock territory in a tie game with less than two minutes remaining, setting up the winning Alabama touchdown.
Notre Dame (19)
Record: 8–2. Average scoring margin: 20.1. Record in one-score games: 0–2. Games trailing in the second half: Three (Miami, Texas A&M, USC). Biggest second-half deficit: 10 points, against Miami. Amount of time trailing in the second half: 35:54. Amount of time tied or leading by one score in the second half: 85:56. Luckiest escape: None, really, although beating Boston College while three different kickers missed place kicks was an interesting flourish.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Forde-Yard Dash: What Texas A&M’s Comeback Reveals About Top 10 Teams’ Game Control.
