Texas A&M isn’t interested in ghosts. On Saturday night in Tiger Stadium, the No. 3 Aggies flattened LSU 49-25, ripping off 35 unanswered points to empty Death Valley and stamp an emphatic 8–0 start – their first since 1992 and their first win at LSU as an SEC member.

Head coach Mike Elko made the program’s mindset crystal clear.

“It’s not about the past. We got to stop, like, worrying about the past, thinking about the past, talking about the past. I’m excited for what this team is doing right now. This team is doing some really special things.”

It didn’t begin like a laugher.

No. 20 LSU led 18-14 at the half after a chaotic second quarter in which A&M endured a blocked punt for a safety and two interceptions. The Aggies still outgained the Tigers 258-89 before the break, but trailed for the first time all season.

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Elko’s halftime message landed.

“I said, ‘You’re the better team, but you have to play better football, and if you don’t play better football, you’re going to let one slip away tonight.'” Quarterback Marcel Reed added with a grin, “Elko definitely said some things. I can’t really remember every detail. It was aggressive, though, for sure.”

Texas A&M then authored its most complete quarter of 2025, bludgeoning LSU 21-00 in the third and outgaining the Tigers 132-14. The exclamation point came from KC Concepcion, who detonated a 79-yard punt-return TD to blow the game open. From there, the Aggies punted once the entire second half while the defense forced four straight LSU punts.

Reed was the best player on the field with 202 passing yards and 2 TDs, plus 108 rushing yards and 2 scores. He never blinked at the noise.

“They tried to put a quote up there that I said that Death Valley was underwhelming. And shoot, I guess it was. They didn’t do much to me.”

Elko credited A&M’s finish to S&C director Tommy Moffitt, the longtime LSU strength coach (2000–21).

“Moffitt wanted this game just as bad as anyone else.” Reed laughed about the week’s tone-setter: “I remember Thursday, he kind of brought in a tackling dummy with Brian Kelly’s face on it. Yeah, this one was an important one to him.”

Meanwhile, LSU’s night unraveled. Some fans chanted for Brian Kelly’s job as the Tigers dropped their third in four and fell to 20-2 in night games under Kelly. Elko dryly corrected a reporter on the spot. “20–2.” Kelly owned the result.

“Our fans are disappointed like any fan base would be. It stops with the head coach, so that responsibility falls with me.”

The numbers underline how different these Aggies are. Four straight road games with 40-plus points (tying the SEC record) and the most points vs. a ranked LSU team in Tiger Stadium since Georgia’s 52 in 2008.

Elko remembers the scars.

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He was DC when LSU smashed A&M 50-7 in 2019, but he’s not living in them.

“I told the kids this the other day, ‘I was the starting point guard on my high school basketball team the last time [Texas A&M] won here.'”

Now comes a well-earned open week and a November that will decide a first-ever CFP bid. Reed’s focus won’t waver.

“There’s definitely still a lot of things to be proven, and I feel like a lot of people in this country still don’t respect us as a team. So no, we’re not trying to prove anybody wrong. We’re just going to go prove ourselves right.”