Texas A&M football can still hit its biggest goals this season, but the Aggies’ suffered their first real setback Saturday.

A 27-17 loss to the Texas Longhorns might’ve actually been uglier than it seemed. The Aggies just scored just once in the second half and struggled to mount substantive drives over the last two quarters.

Now they will miss out on a chance of their SEC title-game appearance and look forward to the College Football Playoff selection show.

Here three things we learned in the loss:

Texas hadn’t been able to establish the run against any team in SEC play. Until Friday.

The Longhorns beleaguered run game averaged 6.2 yards over 35 attempts. The 218 rushing yards was the most for Texas was not only a season high, it doubled the previous season high in SEC play of 97 versus Arkansas. 

A&M had built a nationally respected reputation for its work on the game’s most important down. A 4-for-11 effort on defense isn’t horrible (Texas ran or knelt the ball on its last two third downs while up two scores), but it was enough to keep Texas on the field for far too long. A&M won the time of possession battle, thought that turned turned into just two touchdowns and a field while punting six times with two interceptions and a blocked field goal. 

The Aggies’ 4-for-13 on third down offense means their now 6-for-24 in their last two games, a far cry from the elite third-down offense ofefnsive coordinator Collin Klien had directed. 

Texas A&M had fours straight punts to begin the half including three three-and-outs. The run game found some traction on the last possession of the third quarter, with four gains of 4-plus yards but that ended in a punt as well.

The Aggies went the entire third quarter without completing a pass of longer than 5 yards.