Late in the third quarter Saturday, trailing Kentucky 21-7, Mike Elko left his offense on the field for fourth-and-2 from the Texas A&M 33. Marcel Reed threw for running back Carsyn Baker, the ball fell incomplete, and in the closing seconds of the quarter Baxter ran in from the 2 to make it 28-7. Elko said afterward that the plan was to go if Kentucky showed a look A&M liked and take a delay of game if it did not. "The look was there. We felt like the play was there." Kentucky won 31-21 at Kyle Field, and the Aggies opened SEC play with a loss.
That is the strange part. A&M outgained Kentucky 423-408, led in first downs 23-18 and converted nine of 17 third downs. It moved the ball all night and scored only 21 points, because three trips inside the Kentucky 30 produced nothing, including a fourth-down stop at the 11, an early Reed interception, and Jordan Castell's pick at the 7 in the fourth quarter. Elko did not spread the blame around. "There's no positives. Not an ounce of a positive anywhere," he said, and, "That starts with me." He also said, "I did not do a good enough job of coaching this team and preparing this team," and listed physicality among the failures.
The line play explains why those drives kept stalling. A&M's line allowed no sacks but was charged with a season-high 18 pressures on Reed, five of them on Tyree Adams. The Aggies rushed for 187 yards, but Reed's own 10 carries accounted for 80 of them; the other 25 handoffs gained 107 yards, about 4.3 a pop.
Saturday in Tiger Stadium
A&M plays at No. 10 LSU on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. CT on ABC. The Aggies are ranked 23rd and given a 44% chance to win. Both teams arrive in the same shape, 2-1 overall and 0-1 in the SEC, each coming off its first conference loss. One of them leaves at 0-2 in league play, three weeks into the season, with the first of five SEC road games already gone.
The venue is not a neutral detail. LSU has won 25 of its last 27 night games in Tiger Stadium, and this is the Tigers' fourth straight night opener of 2026. Elko's answer to that, on Monday, was to lean in. "We've got a great opportunity this week to go on the road and play a top-10 team in an environment that's going to be electric, and we have to respond... That's what this program was built on... I fully expect that we'll go out to Tiger Stadium and do that." A coach who just called his team's effort a butt-kicking is also telling you this trip is the point of the whole operation. Watch whether he coaches like it. If Elko is still sending the offense out on fourth-and-short in LSU territory in the second half, he has not flinched. If he starts punting from the 40 down two scores, that tells you something too.
He will do it with less. Terry Bussey, A&M's second-leading receiver at seven catches for 92 yards and the primary kickoff and punt returner, is out for the season after the non-contact leg injury he suffered on the opening kickoff against Kentucky. KJ Edwards, whose day against Kentucky ended with an injury, had not had his status clarified. Jamarion Morrow and Ashton Bethel-Roman were already out against Kentucky. Mario Craver came back from a first-half injury to catch 11 balls for 119 yards, and he is going to have to do that again, probably with more attention on him. Field position matters more when the returner is gone and the road crowd is loud.
The stakes are real without being season-ending. A win in Baton Rouge puts A&M's playoff chances near 23%; a loss drops them to about 11%, and the SEC title path, already thin, all but closes. Lane Kiffin's Ole Miss teams went 3-0 against A&M before he took the LSU job, all of them close, and he has said he missed the series. He gets it back Saturday, from the other sideline, against an Elko team that needs to prove Kentucky was a bad night rather than a description.
Nothing else on this week's slate moves A&M's math. Watch the game, and watch the fourth downs.
The interactive guide for Week 4 has the full picture, and the methodology explains where the numbers come from.