Yes, the refs were not calling holding. And yes they were biased. And yes the refs were very suspect.

But we couldn't not stop their running game. We were missing assignments and they were running it with great success while we didn't make good choices when deciding when to run and pass. We were inaccurate when passing. We were ineffective when running and they were not.

We need to be able to force a win by running the ball. They weren't calling holding on either team really and we needed to stop their running game and use our own more and we couldn't.

That's it. It's been an issue all year. We need to be better.

Just like ND, Arkansas and SC, we are going to have to out score teams in the playoffs.

Defense just needs to do enough to keep it manageable. We still dont match up against running QBs.

We don't have a big physical overpowering D-line that can shut opposing running games down.
We also don't have big physical linebackers.
And some our db's aren't great physical specimens either who are good at tackling.
The longhorns just exposed what other teams already knew..that A&M has problems with good running teams.
If we get matched up against a big strong O-line in the playoffs we'll be forced to score a lot.
Our defense is soft.

King of the Dairy Queen said:

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I thought the refs were actually pretty easy on us

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Me too. I've seen much worse.

BigSneezy said:

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Yes, the refs were not calling holding. And yes they were biased. And yes the refs were very suspect.

But we couldn't not stop their running game. We were missing assignments and they were running it with great success while we didn't make good choices when deciding when to run and pass. We were inaccurate when passing. We were ineffective when running and they were not.

We need to be able to force a win by running the ball. They weren't calling holding on either team really and we needed to stop their running game and use our own more and we couldn't.

That's it. It's been an issue all year. We need to be better.

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You first paragraph makes the rest of your post pretty much irrelvant.

This. We don't have a nose tackle that can absorb 2 blocks and our "stud" LB runs a 5.0. Not a good combo and was known before the season started

King of the Dairy Queen said:

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I thought the refs were actually pretty easy on us

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I agree. Not sure what OP saw that leads him to believe the refs were a factor. Felt like it was called pretty evenly.

We lost because they ran the ball well.

That's it. If we would have been able to stop it, we would have won.

Playoff teams know if they can establish the line of scrimmage, they can beat this team.

Agreed. Seems like the most fair-called game in this matchup that i can recall.

King of the Dairy Queen said:

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I thought the refs were actually pretty easy on us

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Agree. The refs are not the reason we got spanked

The refs were trying to help us to start the game. We blew it.

We've been a bad run defense all season long…lb play is below avg and middle DT play is inconsistent. It has happened most of the season and even against lesser opponents (didn't we make the UTSA RB look all world?).

It's an obvious defensive issue that Elko has yet to fix and unsure if he can (either lacks proper personnel or they don't understand leverage and fits or his scheme doesn't work in the SEC). It's a problem.

We've overcome via explosive offense covering up this weakness and also keeping defense off the field.

Why we can easily be ousted in first rd by a strong running team as think we played tight last night (too much at stake and don't know how to lead as a top tanked team) and will play even tighter in the playoffs with win or go home.

Even with the amount of rushing we have up, we lost because we made too many unfortunately timed unforced penalties. We should've been able to score 28.