Golden: How the Aggies pulled one of out the air to shock the Hogs

ARLINGTON — Momentum is one heck of a drug.

Just ask the Texas A&M Aggies, who were about to be left for dead before 63,580 at AT&T Stadium on Saturday.

When future generations recall their 23-21 win over No. 10 Arkansas, they'll verbally illustrate how Arkansas kicker Cam Little somehow found the top of the upright on a 42-yard kick that would have plunged the Aggies into a 2-2 nightmare after a summer spent mostly discussing championship aspirations.

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While that play all but decided the game, it wasn’t the one that turned everything around.

The honest among us will all agree the Aggies were well on their way to becoming Metroplex roadkill after falling behind 14-0 in the first quarter. With an A&M offense that’s been stuck in park for most of the season, the first eight minutes foreshadowed that rare occasion where the hog would actually be the one behind the wheel of the semi and avoid the fate of so many relatives who checked out on the highway shoulder.

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That is, until something amazing happened near the end of the first half. The Aggies had clawed their way back behind new quarterback Max Johnson but were in real danger of falling behind 21-7 with the Hogs on the doorstep.

Arkansas quarterback KJ Jefferson, a 6-foot-3, 242-pound tank, was just a couple of strides from a commanding halftime lead when his number was called on a quarterback draw. For some reason, this Hog thought he could be a bird, but the wings weren’t operating at peak efficiency.

Jefferson inexplicably dove from the 3-yard line, but a forest of A&M tacklers was waiting, including linebacker Chris Russell Jr., who popped the exposed ball into midair despite taking a Jefferson shoulder to the helmet. Teammate Tyreek Chappell snagged the pill and was off to the races — that is, before Arkansas running back  Raheim Sanders confronted him at the 18-yard line.

Aggies defensive back Demani Richardson was originally blocking for his teammate downfield but circled back behind Chappell, somehow grabbed the ball and high-stepped the remaining 82 yards to paydirt. Aggies fans didn’t really bother to complain about the missed extra point because the defense had given the team some much-needed oxygen.

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“It was probably the clutchest part of the game,” Johnson said.

When a reporter asked if he had yelled at Chappell to give hm the ball, Richardson confirmed that indeed he had.

And what if his teammate hadn’t given it up?

“I was going to take it anyway,” he said, drawing laughs.

A 2-2 record four games in would not have been a laughing matter in College Station.  These haven’t been great days for coach Jimbo Fisher. While giddy to open SEC play with a win, the bile from the unconscionable home loss to Appalachian State in Week 2 still bubbles in the guts of Aggie Nation.

With that No. 6 preseason ranking, this was supposed to be the year when Jimbo would Pied Piper the program through a banner season. This was supposed to be the year the Aggies would give the powerful Alabama Crimson Tide a run for their money and qualify for the CFP for the first time.

And who knows? If everything fell into place, the maroon and white championship confetti could fall from the Sofi Stadium rafters onto the heads of this long-suffering fan base.

The Aggies would party like it’s 1939.

Things were bad from the start. Any enthusiasm from last week’s 17-9 bounce-back win over Miami quickly dissolved after the No. 25 Canes took a 45-31 home pounding earlier Saturday at the hands of 25-point underdog Middle Tennessee State. Even Aggies conqueror Appalachian State blew a 28-3 lead and lost to James Madison.

So it was incumbent coming in for A&M’s $90 million coach to deliver a quality win at the Southwest Classic. It wasn’t a thing of beauty, but Jimbo will take it. The Fates must have been patrolling the goal posts in that north end zone. That’s the only logical explanation for an illogical kick that turned despair into thoughts of a possible historic SEC run.

They needed this. Wins like these can galvanize a locker room. The Aggies, 3 yards from oblivion, are no longer on the verge of flatlining thanks to a defense that continues to make timely plays, fleet-footed running back Devon Achane — who scooted for 159 yards — and Super Bowl winner Brad Johnson’s kid Max, an experienced LSU transfer who has brought some calm and cool to the huddle after supplanting Haynes King as the starter last week.

Like most coaches, Fisher predictably describes his team as a work in progress and recounted the frustrations of the early deficit, alert clutch Richardson and how the Aggies dominated the third quarter and held on for dear life down the stretch.

"It was this thing called execution," Fisher said. "... We just executed. That’s what it is. It’s relaxing and doing your job."

The playmakers showed up at the perfect time, and even though A&M lost its second best offensive player — wideout Ainias Smith, who suffered a lower leg injury — the Aggies will walk onto the field at Mississippi State next Saturday feeling battle-tested and ready after a second straight win over a top-15 opponent.

No one wants to lose to App State, but Fisher believes in some strange way that no-show of a performance aided his team against the Hogs.

“There was one two or three weeks ago when we didn’t make those plays,” he said. “We could be sitting at 4-0 and in the top five in the nation and have people talking about us. And we’d still be the same football team.”

They’re not unbeaten, and they aren’t regarded as a playoff threat, but the Aggies are in position to do some damage because they figured out a way to get one they needed.

They're behind the wheel now.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: How the Aggies pulled a win out of the air against Arkansas