Marty Smith: Saturday's upset boosts A&M into national limelight

Key notes from Marty Smith interview

• Congratulations to everybody in Aggieland. Fantastic performance. As Mike Elko said, that was a door they had to kick down, and they've now done it and are legitimately in the national spotlight as a contender and a team to be reckoned with.
   
• A lot to clean up. Can't have the penalties, blocked punts and the miscues, but to have nearly 500 yards of offense and win the game on that play... The coaching staff said it was supposed to go to KC Concepcion, but Marcel Reed did a great job of evading the rush and finding the check down to a guy in a one-on-one matchup, a guy who had eight catches in his career and Nate Boerkircher will never have to buy a beer in Brazos County ever again.
   
• This win signifies legitimate relevance in the national conversation, and we've been waiting for this for a long time. A&M has always recruited well, but it has always been about expectations coming to fruition. I looked at the schedule before the season and thought the Notre Dame game would be a loss, so they've already proven me wrong.
   
• I'm always impressed when a team takes on the personality of its head coach, and when that personality is about toughness and having a chip on your shoulder, that's Elko. I loved it when he was chuckin' a chair. I love when a guy is so fired up and believes deeply in his guys, even when they're not performing to the level he expects them to. That's not about berating anybody. That was making a statement.
   
• Those receivers are some boys. When you're catching swing passes and taking them for house calls, we're starting to expect that from A&M. They're closing the deal.
   
• We're going to learn a ton about Auburn this weekend. Oklahoma is really good, and that defense flies to the football with their hair on fire. It's very Brent Venables, and when you have a guy under center with the kind of moxy that John Mateer has with the weapons he has at his disposal, there is a lot to work with. Jackson Arnold is returning to Oklahoma as Auburn's quarterback, so how will he handle that? There were times when he was a deer in the headlights. He is an example of a guy going into the transfer portal for a new start after it didn't work in Norman. Right now, it's going OK at Auburn, but I'm high on Oklahoma.
   
• Texas is very confusing to me. Arch Manning was out of sorts, and there was some confusion there. There are a lot of lackluster offensive plays, and they have a lot to figure out. I cannot believe Manning got boo'd, and that, to me, is ridiculous. He'll get better, and Steve Sarkisian will continue to put him in position to win games, and that's the job, as Brian Kelly made it very clear this weekend.
   
• A&M is multi-dimensional, and we knew they'd be able to run the football, whether that was lining it up and running it down your throat or with Reed in the QB run game. Reed passed for 360, but only completed like 45 percent of his passes. It's there. It's more than just the bones are there. It's a lot of meat. I went to BBQ class at A&M once, so I learned all of the different meat cuts on a cow and whatnot. It was fun and educational, but they gave me a "Texas A&M Meat Judging" shirt. It's a hell of a t-shirt.
   
• There are a couple of things to be noted about Notre Dame. One, Miami is very good, and I'm as impressed with Miami as I am with any team. Mario Cristobal has it humming, and Carson Beck is playing high-level football. Notre Dame botched a snap on an extra point. That happened, but it's a rare occurrence that had a very important impact on the outcome of the football game. There was a tackle that occurred on the last A&M touchdown that was not called. Every play in a football game adds up to the outcome. Coaches will tell you it comes down to one or two plays, but every single play, cumulatively, matters. If you look at those two plays, the narrative is not the same narrative because A&M is really good. They'd be 1-1 with only one more top-25 team left on your schedule in USC. The ACC is better than I thought it was, so who knows what's going to happen. This is a season with a lot of unknowns in it. I have no clue what's going to happen.
   
• Last year, we all thought Clemson was done after a couple of weeks, and they wound up going to the College Football Playoff anyway. Notre Dame lost to Northern Illinois and ended up playing for the national championship. To lose games the way they have, it looks rough on paper, but the Associated Press voters still have them in the top 25. The last 0-2 team to be in the top 25 was the 1988 Michigan Wolverines. People still believe in their opportunity.
   
• I spent last Monday and Tuesday in Knoxville, and my College GameDay story was on Joey Aguilar, who has an incredible story after starting at City College as a zero-star, zero-offer recruit. He went all the way across the country to Boone, North Carolina. The Diego Pavia rule happened and gave him another year of eligibility. He took the portal to UCLA before Nico Iamaleava showed up, so he went back in the portal and took Iamaleava's job at Tennessee. He won the job and is absolutely ripping at Tennessee. He's a phenomenal young man, and to see his mother and grandmother in tears, it's awesome. They lost, but they're a problem.
   
• Gunner Stockton was a question coming into the season, but he's not a question anymore. That throw he made on fourth-and-6 and then the two-point conversion to tie it and then to go win the football game... It's movie stuff.
   
• It's fair to be confused about LSU. There are a couple of things to look at. Let's start with LSU: DBU is back, and they are loaded in the backend defensively. When you consider Whit Weeks was ejected for targeting minutes into the game, Blake Baker is an unbelievable defensive coordinator and the linebacker coach, so it shows the depth he has built to lose the leader of the defense to still play at such a high level when they had five picks. To me, the No. 1 player out of the portal is Mansoor Delane, No. 4 for LSU. The guy is going to be an All-American and a first-round draft pick if he keeps playing like this. He is playing at a very high level.
   
• Florida has had so many mistakes, fundamentally, discipline, etc., that have really hurt them. Once the blood was in the water, the Bayou Bengals had DJ Lagway seeing ghosts. When you're in that place and that Voodoo comes out, it can mess with your head.
   
• LSU hasn't been as explosive offensively as we were expecting. They haven't run the football. To Florida's credit, they have one of the best defensive lines in the country, and LSU has four new offensive linemen. Two of those guys came from the portal. Forming that cohesion and communication takes some time. Garrett Nussmeier hasn't been as dynamic throwing the ball vertically, but I also have to agree with Kelly in that you play to win the game. They keep winning, but they have some things to clean up in order to keep winning.