Game
one is under our belts, as the Aggies defeated the UTSA Roadrunners 42-24 Saturday night at Kyle Field. It was a game that was a bit closer than some would have liked (especially early in the third quarter), but ultimately ended in a comfortable A&M victory.
Let’s see what the numbers tell us.
Salient Stats
- 0: Turnovers for either side. Kind of a good news/bad news, as it’s nice to see the offense have a clean game, but a bit disappointing that A&M couldn’t find a takeaway on defense. Marcus Ratcliffe in particular was painfully close to an interception in the second quarter.
- 10: Total tackles by Taurean York (7 solo, 1 for loss). York is a team captain and the leader of this defense. To nobody’s surprise, he led the team in tackles yet again.
- 10.2: Yards per rush for UTSA’s Robert Henry. This number is obviously somewhat skewed by his 75-yard TD run to open the second half, but the proclivity for giving up chunk plays in the run game is a scary holdover from last season, even if it appeared to get cleaned up as the game wore on.
- 12:th Man kickoff team!
- 13: Combined carries by A&M running backs. While we assumed they’d split carries up between this group, the low overall volume came as a surprise considering RB and OL are both supposedly strengths of this team. Though you wonder how much of this was just UTSA loading up and making Marcel Reed beat them through the air (which he definitely did).
- 100%: Red zone efficiency for A&M. Our friends in Austin showed us earlier in the day how catastrophic it can be when you don’t convert on your trips inside the 20, so it was nice to see the Ags get six on each of theirs, including a fantastic play call on a fourth and goal from the 1 (kinda wish we’d seen that play call on Nov. 30, 2024, if I’m being honest).
- 109: Total return yards for A&M on the day. KC Concepcion’s punt return for a touchdown accounts for a good chunk of this, but Terry Bussey also looked dangerous in the return game as well, averaging 33.5 yards on two kickoff returns and adding a 16-yard punt return for good measure.
- 194: Combined receiving yards for transfer WRs KC Concepcion and Mario Craver. We heard a lot about how much more dynamic the A&M receiving corps was, and they lived up to that hype on Saturday night, threatening to go the distance seemingly every time they touched the ball. They each had two total touchdowns on the night (with one of Concepcion’s coming on his aforementioned punt return).
- 107,521: The sixth-largest crowd in Kyle Field, history, believe it or not. I guess having 40,000 students pull tickets pays dividends.
