Texas A&M Football: 5 games you definitely want to watch in 2018
3. Texas A&M @ Arkansas (Saturday, September 29 – Week 5)
There are a lot of storylines surrounding this year’s Arkansas/Texas A&M game. Former Aggie DC John Chavis now holds the same position at Arkansas. New Razorback head coach Chad Morris is an A&M grad, and he wanted the job that eventually went to Jimbo Fisher.
If the Aggies go 2-2 in August/September and then lose to the Razorbacks, they’ll be sitting at 2-3 roughly halfway through the season.
And of course, there’s the fact that A&M hasn’t lost to Arkansas since joining the SEC. You might say the Aggies beating the Razorbacks is a new Aggie tradition.
There aren’t a lot of expectations for Texas A&M in 2018 or 2019. The Aggies have mostly been written off until 2020, when they’re supposed to finally be a legit contender in the SEC and for the College Football Playoff.
Technically, A&M can afford to lose this game in the grand scheme of things. That said, this is one game that would still really hurt to lose.
The Arkansas game also comes in the middle of a critical three game stretch of the season for the Aggies, mentioned previously. This stretch plus the Auburn game later in the season will ultimately make or break 2018 for A&M.
The Aggies need to find one – if not two – wins in this stretch in order to call 2018 a successful season. They have the talent to win this game. Texas A&M has gotten incredibly lucky in some of these games in the last six years, and at some point that luck is going to run out. If that was going to happen anytime in the next couple of years, I would expect it to be 2018 or 2019.