COLLEGE STATION, Texas — For a program that likes to wear its badge of double-digit comebacks on its shirt sleeve, it will be interesting to see how LSU reacts to folding up like a cheap polo.

At least head coach Brian Kelly owned one of the worst melt-downs in LSU memory.

He’s a good coach. He’ll get over the second-half collapse where, with one not-so-subtle adjustment, Texas A&M dominated for the last quarter and a half for a 38-23 massacre of a game that LSU seemed somewhat in control of at the beginning.

If there’s a bright spot — forget that; really, there’s nothing of the sort — but still, it’s hard to imagine Kelly ever getting thoroughly out-coached any worse than he was Saturday night by his former assistant at Notre Dame, current Aggie head coach Mike Elko.

Kelly’s long list of LSU’s on-field mistakes is too gruesome to mention them all in mixed company. Just say that three botched field goal attempts were little more than comic relief amidst the Tigers’ mere 24 yards rushing, Garrett Nussmeier’s three interceptions and a defense, which was just beginning to show some promise,  that brought flashbacks to last year.

“But from a coaching standpoint,” Kelly said. “We need to help our team too, and I didn’t feel like we had the answers necessary on defense, nor on offense.”

No kidding.

Elko actually had the easy job in this coaching chess match. All he had to do was change quarterbacks — which is what the fans are always calling for anyway.

Apparently that’s legal. Pure genius.

If Elko has any questions to answer, it would start with why he didn’t start Reed over Conner Weigman to begin with.

It took him three drives into the second half to make the move — and, immediately, LSU’s defense  was … looking for the right word  here … probably equal parts off-balance, confused, dumbstruck,  discombobulated, bewildered, befuddled, rubbery-legged clueless and curiously helpless.

The same defense that seemed to have a firm grasp on Weigman in the first half turned Reed, armed only with the Run Pass Option, into an Aggie cult figure.

It almost seemed like a desperation move by the Aggies at the time.

And LSU’s answer was?

Still scratching their heads. One good adjustment deserves a counter move, but … crickets.

It wasn’t like LSU shouldn’t have been prepared for the Reed  Option.

He’d started three games while Weigman was nursing a shoulder injury earlier in the season, so there was documented film evidence of his derring-do.

But LSU, with Kelly and the nation’s highest paid assistant coach in defensive coordinator Blake Baker, never seemed to make any adjustments.

Not when he scored all but untouched from 8 yards out on his first play.

OK, that was different. A shock to the system.

But nothing changed, as Reed eventually led the Aggies on four consecutive touchdown drives, each seemingly easier than the previous — pop-pop-pop-pop — while blowing past LSU’s 17-7 halftime lead.

A&M, a good running team, had run for just 86 yards when Reed entered the game midway through the third quarter — and the Aggies finished with 242 rushing yards while throwing only two more passes.

This was the same LSU defense, in name at least, that just last week held Arkansas and its mobile quarterback to only 38 yards rushing yards (same Hogs, by the way, who ran for 359 Saturday against Mississippi State).

Maybe LSU had a plan for Arkansas’ Taylen Green.

“We have a plan for a running quarterback” Kelly insisted. “Should we have spent more time on it. Sure looks that way. But I don’t think there was a sense that we weren’t capable of doing it.”

LSU linebacker Greg Penn must not have gotten the memo.

“We didn’t really prepare for it,” Penn said. “(Reed) coming into the game caught us off guard. We didn’t really know what runs they were going to run.”

Kelly said it wasn’t really RPO, per se, but just a running quarterback that threw LSU for a loop.

Football semantics, perhaps. There was scant little passing for sure. No need for it as the Aggies optioned the Tigers out of position and into oblivion.

Reed described it thusly: “One guy comes off the edge, he has to make a decision, then I made my decision.”

However the Aggies did it, the Tigers had best find a solution.

“It’s the million -dollar question,” Kelly said. “I think we need to spend more time, each and every week … Because right now, I would run the quarterback against us.”

You think?