Texas A&M Football 2017: 5 takeaways from loss to Auburn in Week 10
3. Kiss the West goodbye
Most Aggies were thrilled to move to the SEC. The conference represented a step up in the hierarchy of college football and a step away from the shadow of Texas. In 2012 the Aggies beat Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide, lulling the fanbase into a false sense of what being in the SEC West was going to be like going forward.
The following season, 2013, Texas A&M found out that beating Nick Saban every year is hard. In 2014 the Aggies learned that the West without Johnny Manziel is in fact a much more daunting task. The inflated expectations left from the Manziel era are still having their repercussions on Texas A&M football today.
Texas A&M fell to Auburn 42 to 27 in Week 10. That means that as the calendar turns to November, Texas A&M is not a contender in the SEC West race once again. Given the ups and downs of the 2017 season reaching this point wasn’t unexpected, but it still stings. There will undoubtedly be some weird math that gives the Aggies a chance to claim the crown, but that assumes Alabama losing more than once and the Aggies finding a way to beat LSU and more.
No, winning in the SEC West isn’t as easy as we thought it might be when the Aggies got there. Like 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 the Aggies will not have achieved their stated goal. And that doesn’t lessen the pressure on head coach Kevin Sumlin.