COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – The No. 14 Texas A&M football team entered Saturday’s rankings matchup with No. 8 LSU with one question to answer: which of the two programs will take the pole position in Southeastern’s home stretch Conference game?

The Aggies summoned a thunderous response with a 38-23 victory over the Tigers in front of the third-largest crowd gathered at Kyle Field, 108,852. For the first time since joining the SEC, the Aggies are 5-0 in conference play and sit alone atop the standings at the end of October.

That answer, however, spawned an even more pressing question. Who is the right quarterback to lead the Aggies (7-1, 5-0) through the most important November in a generation? On Saturday, it was on the legs of backup quarterback Marcel Reed that the Aggies staged a 10-point comeback against the Tigers to put them in the conference driver’s seat.

“We just felt like we needed a spark and we pulled the trigger and went with Neville and what a spark he gave us,” head coach Mike Elko said after the game.

Recalling the Aggies’ season-opening loss to Notre Dame, Weigman couldn’t find the key to sparking the A&M offense. He started the game 2 for 6 for 25 yards as the Aggies bogged down on the first two drives of the game. By halftime, A&M racked up 49 passing yards and found itself in a 17-7 hole.

As the ABC broadcast welcomed commentators Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit back to the air to start the second half, Herbstreit, the former quarterback, weighed in on whether Elko would make a move for Reed.

The freshman from Nashville stepped into the starting role for the Aggies in three games this season while Weigman recovered from a sprained AC joint. Although all three matches were a mixed bag of performances, Reed claimed victories in all three, including two conference wins.

“As far as I’m concerned, whatever plan you come into this game with, make some subtle adjustments,” Herbstreit said on the broadcast. “But Marcel Reed may come in in the second half. He’s been played. He can provide a spark with his athleticism. But I think you have to run the ball and get the play-action passing game going.

A few minutes earlier, in the A&M locker room, that’s exactly what the coaching staff started to set in motion.

“(LSU was) doing a really good job of mixing up the coverage,” Elko said. “It caused us a lot of problems in getting the right route combinations. We had a hard time. Not many people were open. I went through the whole passing game in the first half and there just weren’t a lot of open windows to throw the ball.”

After the first two drives of the second half totaled 14 yards, Elko walked over to Weigman for a quick chat.

“I just told him, I said, ‘It’s not you. This is not your fault. I’ll tell everyone it’s not your fault,” Elko said. “We let him down. We all did that. But we needed a spark. We had just gotten to a point where we needed to try something different and we felt that, if nothing else, Neville’s athleticism would give us another variable that they probably hadn’t spent time preparing for. ‘

Players and coaches walked up to Reed and offered short words of encouragement and pats on the shoulder pads as he prepared to enter the game.

The Aggies had some success with the ground game in the first half, thanks to running backs Le’Veon Moss and Amari Daniels. The duo combined for 92 yards on 16 carries and a touchdown before halftime.

Elko and his coaching staff believed the read option play would create much-needed space for the Aggie offense. The tactical change, including the quarterback change, worked immediately.

On his first play of the game, Reed pulled a handoff and ran around the outside of the defense for an 8-yard touchdown, putting the Aggies back within three. It was the start of a string of three straight rushing touchdowns by the replacement quarterback that gave and extended the Aggies’ first lead of the game.

“They just bumped into our running backs,” Reed said. “They put me in it, you know, to get my legs sparking a little bit. When they crashed, I pulled the ball and ran. They did it a lot and I had a lot of opportunities to get some space and run. And they didn’t really make any adjustments, so that’s it.”

Reed finished the game with 62 rushing yards on nine carries and three touchdowns. He was only called on to attempt two passes, both of which he completed. The second was a perfectly placed 54-yard pass for wide receiver Noah Thomas to run under and snag midway through the fourth quarter.

For the rest of the game, Weigman stood at the edge of the sideline, moving with the offense as it moved toward the end zone. After each Reed run, he clapped enthusiastically. When Reed was tipped to enter the game, the quarterback said Weigman offered him words of encouragement before taking the field.

“I told him, ‘I got you,’” Reed said. ‘We are brothers. We are teammates. I support him. He has mine. He was as excited as I would be for him to compete.”

Elko emphasized after the game that the decision to cut Weigman was tactical, a gamble that ultimately paid off. So a decision still needs to be made when the Aggies head to South Carolina next Saturday and enter a conference game for the first time as the SEC frontrunner.

“The price of success and the price of winning games like this is you have a target on your back,” Elko said. “And so we’re definitely going to be in an extremely hostile environment. It’s going to be the toughest environment this team has ever played in… So what 5-0 means is that we’re going to have a really hard time getting to 6-0.”

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