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For the second-straight year, Goliath escaped the wrath of the Nicholls football team by the skin of his teeth.

The Colonels lost to Texas A&M on Saturday night in College Station, but the game was nowhere near as lopsided as the experts predicted it to be.

Las Vegas had the Aggies as a 30-plus-point favorite in the game, but the score was tied at 14 midway through the fourth quarter.

In crunch time, the Aggies sustained two scoring drives to pull away with a 24-14 win – the second-straight season Nicholls challenges an SEC foe.

Last year, the Colonels played Georgia to the final minutes in Athens to kick off their 2016 campaign.

“I was just very proud of our players,” Nicholls coach Tim Rebowe said after the game. “I thought there was tremendous effort. They fought all the way to the end. … We gave them a run at the end, but we have to be able to get off the field there on third down. … I was really proud of the effort by our players.”

It was hard to tell which team was “supposed to win” for a lot of Saturday’s game.

Early on, Texas A&M made its mark, jumping out to a quick 14-0 lead at the end of the first quarter thanks to a pair of 80-yard touchdown drives.

But with nerves out of the equation, the Colonels settled in and fought back.

Nicholls kicked a pair of short field goals in the second quarter to trim the deficit to 14-6 going to halftime, while also playing dominant defense against the Aggies’ two-quarterback system.

Embattled Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin said he knew from watching the Colonels’ game against McNeese that they were talented and would be a tough out.

Sumlin said he didn’t think Texas A&M played well for a lot of the game, but quickly prefaced that a lot of that was because of the way the Colonels were playing to attack them.

“We weren’t perfect. There were some things that happened in the game that were frustrating to players and coaches,” Sumlin said. “But hey, give Nicholls credit for that. It wasn’t just about execution. They were playing hard. We weren’t able to run it the way we wanted to as we did in the first part of the first quarter and they were able to run it on us. … That’s a good football team there. Give them credit.”

In the third quarter, the teams traded empty possessions, which took the game into the fourth quarter with the score still just 14-6 in favor of the heavily favored Aggies.

That’s when the game got interesting.

Nicholls converted a long pass from quarterback Chase Fourcade to explosive receiver Damion Jeanpiere, which set up first and goal at the Aggies 6-yard-line.

Two plays later, Fourcade struck for gold again, hitting tight end Stephen LeBouef to make the game 14-12.

On the next snap, Fourcade dropped back and found Mason Roberts for the 2-point conversion, which tied the game at 14 with 12 minutes to play.

Nicholls had chances late, forcing several key third down plays which could have given the team the football back with a chance to take the lead.

But the Aggies converted ‘em all, including a big third and eight pass from the Nicholls 20-yard-line, extending a long drive into a touchdown drive, which made the score 21-14 with 7:34 to play.

Nicholls had a chance to answer but went three and out

With their next possession, Texas A&M grinded down the clock, going 64 yards in 15 plays while using more than six of the near-seven minutes left in the game.

The drive was capped with a short field goal, which put the Aggies up 24-14 – the game’s final margin.

Rebowe said the loss hurts because he coaches to win every, single time the Colonels take the field.

But he added that the moxie the team showed in both the season opener and also in the game against the Aggies shows him that this group has a chance to win championships later in the season – something the Colonels program has been starving for over the past decade.

“This team is special,” Rebowe said. “I said before the game that I wanted to walk in that locker room win, lose or draw and have no regrets – leave it all on the field. We surely did that and I think we have something special here. But it’s still one loss. We have a big home game next weekend. We have to pick ourselves up and be ready to go.”

The Colonels are hosting Prairie View this weekend in Thibodaux.