Texas A&M Football 50 in 50: Which is Aggies’ most likely upset win?

Texas A&M football is 14 days away, and in the days leading up to the Aggie opener we’re answering the 50 biggest questions for the 2018 season.

The 2018 schedule is not going to be kind to Texas A&M football. There are several factors that came together to make this one of the toughest years for the Ags.

First and foremost, they begin a home-and-home against Clemson this year. Thankfully this year’s version is at Kyle Field, otherwise, given the rest of the SEC road schedule, someone within the program might have cried foul.

The Clemson game is the second of the season. They get another tune up prior to traveling to Tuscaloosa to take on Alabama — the 2017 National Champions.

The Aggies will be underdogs in both of these contests, probably by a wide margin.

They also have two road contests they are almost certainly to be the underdog for. They face off with Mississippi State on Oct 27 and Auburn on Nov 3.

There is also a possibility, depending on how their seasons play out, the Aggies could be underdogs against South Carolina and LSU, but it’s too early to call those for sure yet.

So, of the four games the Aggies have a high probability of getting points from the oddsmakers, which of them is their most likely upset win?

You can rule out Clemson and Alabama immediately. Even though I predicted A&M would get a victory against the Tigers in Week 2, the likelihood of that happening is far less than that of Auburn or Mississippi State.

When you break it down to the latter two teams, the difference is the returning experience for the Bulldogs. Based on the S&P+ returning production metric, MSU ranks eighth and Auburn ranks 47th.

The Bulldogs have former Penn St offensive coordinator Joe Moorehead as their head coach now. PSU finished 19th in yards and seventh in points per game last season. Mississippi State returns all but Martinas Rankin to their offense, and his backup Greg Eiland started four games last season.

So Moorehead inherits an offense with an All-SEC quarterback, a 1000-yard rusher in Aeris Williams, and basically everyone else from an offense that was top 50 in yards and points.

That’s scary.

Auburn is going to be a good team in their own right. Jarrett Stidham indicated he might have an axe to grind with Texas A&M not recruiting him a couple years ago. He had a great game at Kyle Field last year.

However, for whatever reason, the road team has won all six games since Texas A&M joined the SEC. It’s beyond a fluke at this point. The Aggies feel comfortable playing at Auburn and much of the starting lineup will remember what that is like from the win in 2016.

If you bet against the Aggies in all four of these games, you have a good chance to win all four. The Auburn game is the one you’ll be most worried about going in.

Jeff Shull is the Site Expert for the Gig Em Gazette on FanSided. Follow him on Twitter, and be sure to follow the Gig Em Gazette on Facebook and Twitter.