Texas A&M fell to the Alabama Crimson Tide by a final score of 31-20, and this one stings a lot more than the final score suggests.

As somebody that is a fan of Texas A&M football, I hate when this team gives me hope and optimism throughout a ball game, and that is mainly for the fact that they went into the fourth quarter with the lead standing at 20-17.

Which was crazy in its own right, knowing that Texas A&M, within their first two drives of the football game, had a pick-six and an additional interception. And yet — the game still stood at 7-7, giving opportunity to this offense to be able to rebound and bounce back.

And credit to quarterback Marcel Reed. Even with the two interceptions, he went 14-of-21 for 163 passing yards and still created plays on the ground. This was the best the Aggies offense had looked all season. I understand the bar was not that high to begin with, but it was good enough to be competitive on the road against Alabama.

Mike Elko coached not to lose

But I can’t put the blame on Reed this time. I have to look at the coaches, starting with head coach Mike Elko, who played it conservative and passed on chances to go for it. I hate that from coaches, especially on the road in the SEC.

You always play to win. You don’t play not to lose.

Then I look at Holmon Wiggins and the offensive game plan. You can make an argument the best offensive player on this team has been a true freshman, running back K.J. Edwards, and he started this game on fire. Unfortunately, he got banged up and had to go tough through the rest of the game less than 100 percent. Because of that, as the Aggies got closer and closer to winning, the offense tightened up more and more.

That’s brutal.

The middle of the field is free eats

Defensively, teams have figured out something about this A&M unit. The secondary is not one to be tested anymore, and that group has bounced back from the earlier parts of the season. But the linebackers and the intermediate area of the field are free eats for any quarterback who can throw there, and opponents are happy to dink and dunk their way down the field.

Alabama quarterback Keelon Russell did exactly that. He bounced back from the worst performance of his entire career against Tennessee, going 19-of-30 for 311 yards, three touchdown passes, and an interception. Then you let up 14 points in the fourth quarter, Alabama walks away with the win, and A&M is left standing there thinking it had an opportunity right before the wheels fell off.

Pair that with losing the turnover battle 3-1, and it gets more and more frustrating every time it happens.

Aggies are crawling toward a bowl game

You may say two interceptions on the first two drives is on the quarterback. Fair, and I don’t want to let Reed completely off the hook. But I’m also not going to blame him for everything, because the decisions on the sideline did just as much damage in the fourth quarter.

Here’s where it leaves the Aggies. Texas A&M sits at .500 heading into the bye week with four games left: South Carolina on the road, Tennessee at home, Oklahoma on the road, and Texas at home. A&M has to win two of those four just to get to a bowl game.

A real possibility exists that this team stays home in December. I’ll dig into each of those final four matchups during the bye week, but my position is already set. As it stands, A&M is going to have to crawl its way to a bowl game this year, and nothing about Saturday’s fourth quarter tells me it gets there easily.