COLLEGE STATION — With four minutes left in Texas A&M’s 10-3 loss to Miami Saturday, Hurricanes running back Mark Fletcher Jr. broke free for his team’s longest play of the day.
Fletcher found a hole and ran down the sideline to the A&M 30-yard line with the score tied 3-3, fighting off defenders for the last 30 yards of his run.
Five plays later, Miami’s Malachi Toney scored an 11-yard touchdown, which was enough for Miami to advance to the College Football Playoff quarterfinals at the Cotton Bowl.
A&M’s season, which once had promise of a national championship run amid an 11-0 start, came to a rapid end. Two losses in their final two games sent the Aggies to the offseason — and a challenge they faced all season ultimately caught up to them.
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The Aggies struggled to stop the run all year. Despite finishing ninth in the SEC in rushing yards allowed per game last year (135.2), greater attention was given to the passing defense, which ranked 13th (232.2). That group improved to third (176.6), but the run defense barely made any progress, finishing ninth in the conference again and allowing just 4.4 fewer yards on average.
“You’re not really in a position to talk about these things as the year is going on because you’re just trying to find ways, but clearly, that was a weakness of ours,” A&M head coach Mike Elko said. “That goes without saying.”
The Aggies allowed Fletcher to finish with 172 yards on 17 carries, averaging 10.1 yards per rush. It was the sixth 100-yard performance that A&M allowed by an opposing running back this season.
From the first game of the season, the Aggies showed that weakness. UTSA running back Robert Henry Jr. posted 177 yards rushing and two touchdowns on the road in College Station. A&M then showed some progress over its next few weeks, even holding Heisman finalist Jeremiyah Love to under 100 yards in the win over Notre Dame.
But their run defense couldn’t hold up in the second half of the season. Arkansas’ Mike Washington rushed for 147 yards. Missouri’s Jamal Roberts and Ahmad Hardy each posted over 100 yards rushing and a touchdown. Texas’ Quintrevion Wisner had 155 yards on 19 carries.
Fletcher rushed for 141 of his 172 yards in the second half.
“He just got loose,” Elko said. “They found some surfaces and some runs. They started getting the wide receivers involved and inside gaps. It was a heavy, power football they were playing.”
To make matters worse, A&M couldn’t answer with a run game of its own. The Aggies rushed for just 89 yards on 35 carries with quarterback Marcel Reed rushing for a team-high 27 yards on 15 carries. That’s despite being sacked seven times by the Miami defense.
“We became one-dimensional,” Elko said. “When you can’t establish the run game, it’s really challenging. … Marcel Reed can’t be our leading rusher. He can’t have the most carries. It can’t happen that way. We’ve got to go into the offseason and figure something out how to do that better.”
That’s where A&M’s focus now turns. Linebackers Taurean York and Daymion Sanford could return, but defensive tackles Tyler Onyedum and Albert Regis and defensive end Cashius Howell are out of eligibility.
The Aggies also lost defensive coordinator Jay Bateman to Kentucky and will turn to Lyle Hemphill to replace him, who also worked with Elko at Duke.
Hemphill will have his hands full upgrading personnel with hopes that if the Aggies can return to the same stage next season, the same weakness won’t cost them.
“It’s a foundation-setter,” York said. “We’re in year two, though, you’ve got to realize that. … We have finally gotten to this stage, so we know what it feels like. So when we get back here next year, those jitters shouldn’t be how they were today.”
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