Texas A&M must process Auburn loss ‘let it get out your system’ with rival Texas coming for a shot at SEC championship

Longhorns-Aggies will meet on Saturday with the winner advancing to SEC title game

Brian Davis
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Auburn’s social media team wasted no time kicking Texas A&M while the Aggies were down Saturday night after a four-overtime loss at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

“Good luck vs. Texas,” the Tigers posted on their official football account.

The sarcastic comment was accompanied by a video of A&M coach Mike Elko’s verbal gaffe at last week’s press conference when he mentioned his focus was “single handily on Texas” instead of Auburn.

With Auburn fans storming the field to celebrate, A&M players appeared too stunned to comprehend that they’re still in the SEC championship mix. Oklahoma’s upset over Alabama in Norman means that the Texas-Texas A&M winner advances to Atlanta.

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“Process this game Sunday, you know, let it get out your system and Monday, I mean this in the past,” A&M defensive lineman Albert Regis said. “Everybody else who doesn’t play on this team can remember this game, talk about it until the Texas game. But we’re over it by Monday, because we’re on to our next team, which is Texas.”

A&M fans may be down in the dumps now. But going into the regular-season finale, this is as close the Aggies have ever been to clinching a spot in the SEC title game since joining the league in 2012.

“I mean, this one’s certainly going to hurt, and we’re obviously extremely disappointed, because, you know, we’ve had ourselves in a really good position and this is back-to-back road games where we haven’t been able to get it done,” A&M coach Mike Elko said.

“And so that part of it’s not going to go away. But obviously, with who we play and what we’re still playing for, obviously there’s still going to be a lot of energy going into that stadium next weekend.”

A&M fans can grumble about Auburn’s early 21-point lead. They can be upset over quarterback Marcel Reed dropping a critical snap that cost the Aggies field position late. They can be apoplectic about Amari Daniels’ drop in the end zone that sealed A&M’s fate on the Plains.

Or, they can focus on A&M can still win the national championship.

Beating their lifelong rivals at Kyle Field would launch the Aggies into the stratosphere. Then, a win over Georgia in the SEC title game would put A&M in solid position to clinch a first-round bye as a league champion in the College Football Playoffs.

“Yeah, coach Elko talked to us about that in the locker room right after the game,” Reed said. “We still know that there’s business to take care of. Just because we lost today doesn't mean we're not going to get back to work this week and try to prepare to go get a win this weekend against Texas.

“Then maybe that can, you know, boost us into the championship, and we can play on getting the playoffs and do all that. So, I mean, it's really just one game at a time, and now we're focused on Texas.”

It’s a dynamic matchup, to be sure. Tickets started at $600 on Stubhub as of Sunday morning, and that’s just to sit in the upper deck in the Kyle Field end zone. Some tickets were listed for $3,500.

The Aggies simply have to dust themselves off. The Longhorns are coming to College Station, and this game is everything fans on both sides wanted.

“I love these dudes, every one, every single one of them,” Regis said of the Auburn loss. “I mean, y’all gonna tell us this, that and the third. And frankly, I'm sitting here in front of these cameras looking directly at y’all, and I'm saying we don’t care.

“Like at the end of the day, this is a brotherhood, and there’s nothing less about it. We played as the game went on. I mean, we got better, but we still have some issues that we couldn't finish on properly, and it caught up to us once again.”

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