Texas A&M football at Kyle Field returns some sense of normalcy

COLLEGE STATION – Texas A&M fan Mike Frederick never realized he’d miss the gridlock typically surrounding Kyle Field on a fall game day at A&M.

“There’s no traffic in town and it’s sad, really,” said Frederick, who graduated from A&M in 1982. “There aren’t many people at the hotels and in the restaurants … it’s sad.”

A&M fans almost grew much sadder by night’s end, before the No. 10 Aggies bumbled past Vanderbilt 17-12 on Saturday night in a quarter-full Kyle Field in the teams’ season opener.

“A victory is a victory but in all three phases we did not play how I thought we would and how we can,” A&M third-year coach Jimbo Fisher said. “That’s my fault as head football coach, and we’ve got to get that fixed.”

The SEC is playing a 10-game regular season schedule, all within the league, because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Aggies thought they’d gotten a break for an opener when the league revealed the Commodores, the worst program in the SEC East last season, would be coming to Kyle to kick things off. But Vanderbilt and true freshman quarterback Ken Seals of Weatherford looked more like Florida for much of the game’s 60 minutes, and the Commodores made the outcome closer than many had prognosticated.

“All the sudden we were in a dogfight,” Fisher said.

A&M sophomore running back Isaiah Spiller had runs of 57, 30 and 24 yards in the second half to help lift the Aggies out of a persistent offensive lull and an overall poor night by senior quarterback Kellen Mond (three fumbles, including two lost).

“I played pretty clean,” said Mond, who finished 17 of 28 for 189 yards and a touchdown. “I missed a couple of throws I wish I could have back … (But it’s) Week 1 and me and the receivers are still building chemistry. We’ll be a lot cleaner next week, because we have to be.”

Spiller finished with a game-high 117 yards on only eight carries. Defensively, safety Leon O’Neal hauled in a deflected pass for an interception with 6:39 remaining helping seal the unwieldy victory. A&M senior defensive end Micheal Clemons finished with 1 ½ sacks, matching his career total prior to Saturday.

“We knew Vanderbilt was going to come in and try and make a name off of us,” A&M senior linebacker Buddy Johnson said.

The Aggies (1-0) will now prepare to go on the road for the first time this season – and it’s a doozy. A&M plays at No. 2 Alabama, a 38-19 winner at Missouri on Saturday.

“I promise you this, it’s a lot easier to fix mistakes when you win than when you lose,” Fisher said. “And I’m not just saying that because we won the game.”

Meantime Frederick and his wife, Theresa Frederick, had strolled to the edge of Spence Park next to Kyle Field about an hour to kickoff, and Mike took a picture of an empty field to share with his fellow tailgaters from seasons past.

“There are usually thousands of people in this field tailgating,” said Theresa, pointing toward a desolate setting across Houston Street from the Aggies’ football home.

The Fredericks are usually part of the Spence Park tailgate crowd, and chose to go ahead and use their season tickets although there is no tailgating allowed on campus so far this season because of the pandemic, along with Kyle Field being reduced to 25 percent capacity for now.

“We wanted to see the game regardless, and it will be interesting to see what it’s going to look like inside the stadium,” Theresa said.

About the same time inside the stadium, Mike Fitch, 55, was preparing for his new role as Kyle Field’s public address announcer. Fitch, a 1983 Dulles High graduate, takes over for Mike Wright, who moved to Huntsville, Ala., to serve as a television station’s general manager.

“We’ve been season ticket holders for as long as I can remember, and to be here in this capacity, it’s a great honor for me,” said Fitch, longtime public address announcer for A&M basketball and soccer. “Right now I’m just kind of soaking it all in. You want to make sure you’re ready to go, but what does ‘ready to go’ look like in this atmosphere?

“This year will probably be more memorable than any of them, regardless of how it goes from here on out.”

Plenty of former A&M students appeared to go ahead and renew their season tickets, and then hand them over to current students, some of whom are taking in A&M football for the first time.

The east side of Kyle Field, primarily the student side, had more fans on it than the west side of former students on Saturday night, and many of the students went ahead and linked arms for the swaying part of the “Aggie War Hymn” at the end of the first quarter – dubbed “sawing ’em off.”

The Aggies also debuted a “UNIFIED” patch on their jerseys Saturday against Vanderbilt, and all A&M sports teams will wear the message in 2020-21.