Texas A&M football falls to Notre Dame Fighting Irish

COLLEGE STATION — A strong performance from Texas A&M’s defense Saturday night was not enough to overcome an inept offense, as Notre Dame defeated the Aggies 23-13.

A&M’s defense, which held Notre Dame to 250 yards of offense through three quarters, could not hold the Fighting Irish back. With 2 minutes left, Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love ran the ball in from 21 yards to end an 85-yard drive that ate up 4 minutes, 29 seconds. The No. 7 ranked team on the US LBM Coaches Poll finished with 356 yards of offense overall.

Texas A&M quarterback Conner Weigman’s resulting attempt to lead the team down the field proved futile. He threw two incompletions before missing another throw on a failed fourth-and-2 attempt. Notre Dame would make its third field goal of the night to provide the final score.

TEXAS A&M TAKEAWAYS:Conner Weigman hurt the Aggies, his NFL draft stock vs. Notre Dame

“I don’t think it was anything that they did. I think it was ourselves. We beat ourselves. We weren’t consistent mentally and physically,” Texas A&M offensive lineman Trey Zuhn III said.

Through the air, Texas A&M coach Mike Elko’s defense stifled Riley Leonard, his former quarterback at Duke. Leonard finished with 158 passing yards on 18 of 30 attempts.

Weigman was worse. He threw for 100 yards on 12 of 30 attempts with two interceptions.

“We lost the turnover battle 2-0. That’s not going to lead to a lot of successful games,” Elko said.

He overthrew 6-foot-6 Noah Thomas on the first one, then hit Notre Dame safety Xavier Watts between the numbers when he jumped the route on the second. The first turnover led directly to a Fighting Irish field goal, and the second killed an offensive drive right before halftime.

None of Weigman’s 10 completions looked easy, even though the offensive line gave him time to throw. While some of it can be chalked up to a very good Notre Dame defense, his wide receivers or the scheme, Weigman simply didn’t play well enough to beat a top 10 team.

“Seemed like whether it was him missing — he had a chance to hit Noah (Thomas) on the big over route … and he kind of overshot him (Thomas) by a little bit and got the pick, or guys not getting the separation that we needed to get. Just one way or another, we just weren’t able to get it done,” Elko said. “It was really, really hard, because he was, he was not in rhythm.”

Another Aggies mistake came midway through the third quarter. After stopping Notre Dame on a fourth-and-2, Elko responded by going for a fourth-and-8 on Notre Dame’s 37-yard line. Weigman’s pass, intended for Micah Tease, was nowhere close. The Fighting Irish proceeded to score the game’s first touchdown a few plays later on a 47-yard run by Jadarian Price.

Despite holding Notre Dame to 65 yards rushing in the first half, the Irish would finish the game with 198 yards rushing.

“I thought the way we defended the run was really poor, and so we gave up almost 200 yards rushing,” Elko said. “You’re not going to win football games in this conference doing that.”

The Aggies’ offense showed life in the fourth quarter. E.J. Smith and LeVeon Moss began to wear down Notre Dame’s vaunted defensive line. With 13:20 left in the game, the Irish committed a pass interference on Jahdae Walker to place the ball on the 20-yard line. On third-and-1 with 11:49 left, the offense finally got its touchdown to tie the game. The Aggies finished with 146 yards on the ground.

However, Weigman didn’t complete a single pass the entire drive. He rushed for 8 out of the 65 yards on that drive with E.J. Smith’s 14-yard rush being the single longest run. The biggest chunk of yards came on a 15-yard face mask penalty.

Weigman, making his just his 10th start, will have to be better he was than in the opener but that doesn’t apply just to him. Each piece of the offense had its struggles.

“It’s going to be Connor delivering the ball in the right spots on time. It’s going to be receivers creating separation. It’s going to be the O-line protecting,” Elko said.

“For us to get this program over the hump, we’re gonna have to learn how to put ourselves in position to play the game the way we need to in those moments. We just didn’t do that tonight.”

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