COLLEGE STATION, Texas — It was to be determined whether the Texas A&M football team’s frustrating first half or its superb second half would stand out more until the game clock hit zero Saturday afternoon at Kyle Field.
Then again, Aggies second-year head coach Mike Elko may have had his mind made up even before that point.
“I’m not lost for words very much, but I was lost for words with the team in the locker room after the game,” Elko said. “A lot of that emotion was just pride in who they were, how they conducted themselves. There’s not a lot of teams that have a culture and a core that will just keep going.”
Redshirt sophomore Marcel Reed threw for a career-high 439 yards and three touchdowns, and third-ranked Texas A&M rallied from a 27-point halftime deficit to remain undefeated with a 31-30 victory over South Carolina.
The comeback was the biggest in Aggies history, eclipsing the program’s 21-point rally in a 52-48 win over Duke in the 2013 Chick-Fil-A Bowl, 2012 Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel’s final season as Texas A&M’s quarterback. Going into Saturday, teams were 0-286 in Southeastern Conference play since 2004 when trailing by 27 points or more.