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Texas A&M Football Loses to Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Vaseline September 1, 2024

COLLEGE STATION — A strong performance from Texas A&M’s defense Saturday night wasn’t enough to overcome a fumbling offense, as Notre Dame defeated the Aggies 23-13 to open the season.

A&M’s defense, which limited Notre Dame to 250 yards of offense through three quarters, could not stop the Fighting Irish. With 2 minutes left, Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love ran the ball in from 21 yards out to cap an 85-yard drive that lasted 4 minutes, 29 seconds. The No. 7 team in the U.S. LBM Coaches Poll finished with 356 total yards of offense.

Texas A&M quarterback Conner Weigman’s subsequent attempt to lead the Aggies down the field proved futile. He threw two incompletions before missing another throw on a fourth-and-2 attempt. Notre Dame would make its third field goal of the night to set the final score.

TEXAS A&M CLASSES: Conner Weigman hurt the Aggies, his NFL draft stock against Notre Dame

“I don’t think it was anything they did. I think it was us. We beat ourselves. We weren’t consistent mentally and physically,” said Texas A&M offensive lineman Trey Zuhn III.

Through the air, Texas A&M coach Mike Elko’s defense held off Riley Leonard, his former quarterback at Duke. Leonard finished with 158 passing yards on 18 of 30 attempts.

Weigman was worse, throwing for 100 yards on 12 of 30 attempts with two interceptions.

“We lost the turnover battle 2-0. That’s not going to lead to a lot of winning games,” Elko said.

Weigman knocked down 6-foot-6 Noah Thomas on the first, then hit Notre Dame safety Xavier Watts between the numbers as he jumped the route on the second. The first turnover led directly to a Fighting Irish field goal, and the second ended an offensive drive just before halftime.

None of Weigman’s 10 completions looked easy, even though the offensive line gave him time to throw. While some of it can be attributed to a very good Notre Dame defense, its wide receivers or its scheme, Weigman simply didn’t play well enough to beat a top 10 team.

“It looked like he missed — he had a chance to hit Noah (Thomas) on the big over route … and he kind of overshot him (Thomas) and got the pick, or guys didn’t get the separation that we needed. Somehow we just couldn’t do it,” Elko said. “It was really, really tough because he was, he wasn’t in rhythm.”

Another Aggies mistake came midway through the third quarter. After stopping Notre Dame on fourth-and-2, Elko responded by going for fourth-and-8 at Notre Dame’s 37-yard line. Weigman’s pass, intended for Micah Tease, went nowhere near it. The Fighting Irish scored the game’s first touchdown a few plays later on a 47-yard run by Jadarian Price.

Despite Notre Dame being limited to 65 yards rushing in the first half, the Irish finished the game with 198 yards on the ground.

“I thought the way we defended the run was really bad, and we gave up almost 200 yards rushing,” Elko said. “You’re not going to win football games in this conference by doing that.”

The Aggies’ offense showed life in the fourth quarter. EJ Smith and Le’Veon Moss began to wear down Notre Dame’s vaunted defensive line. With 13:20 left in the game, the Irish committed a pass interference on Jahdae Walker to put the ball at the 20-yard line. On third-and-1 with 11:49 left, the offense finally got its touchdown to tie the game. The Aggies finished with 146 yards on the ground.

Weigman, however, did not complete a single pass on the entire drive. He rushed for 8 of the 65 yards on that drive, with Smith’s 14-yard rush being the longest run. Most of the yards came on a 15-yard face mask penalty.

Weigman, making just his 10th start, will have to be better than he was in the opener, but it’s not just him. Every piece of the offense had its own issues.

“It’s going to be Connor getting the ball to the right spot at the right time. It’s going to be the receivers creating the spacing. It’s going to be the O-line protecting the ball,” Elko said.

“To get this program over the hump, we’ve got to learn how to put ourselves in position to play the game the way we need to play the game in those moments. We just didn’t do that tonight.”

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