Should the Texas A&M Football team be on upset alert against Kent State?

The Texas A&M Football team has an undeniably easy schedule in 2021. The Aggies only have two currently ranked teams on the docket in top-ranked Alabama and 16th-ranked LSU.

But even though they don’t have many high-profile opponents that are having a good year, they have more than a handful of sneaky teams that will be eager to pull an upset. Teams on that list include schools like Auburn, Ole Miss, and even a stingy Colorado team, who the Aggies will face away from home in a hostile environment.

Even beyond all of those teams, however, the Texas A&M Football team will get a week one challenge that may not look like much on the surface.

The Texas A&M Football team’s offense will have little room for error

You can say what you want about Kent State’s subpar defense and their complete inability to stop the running game, which I detailed in an article about Isaiah Spiller, but one thing will not change — the Golden Flashes know how to put up points in a hurry.

Again, this is something that I’ve detailed a few times in the past but here are some statistics on Kent State’s offense along with their rank in college football.

Points Per Game: 49.8 (1st)

Yards Per Game: 606.5 (1st)

Passing Yards Per Game: 323.5 (10th)

Rushing Yards Per Game: 283.0 (3rd)

To put it bluntly, they have one of the best statistical offenses in college football. That said, their rushing attack is the team’s pride and joy. Luckily for the Texas A&M Football team, the Aggies’ rushing defense is their own pride and joy.

Last season, Texas A&M had the second-best rushing defense from a yardage perspective in the country. This is even more impressive considering the level of competition that A&M faced on a weekly basis. While the Golden Flashes accumulated their impressive statistics against teams like Eastern Michigan, Bowling Green, Akron, and Buffalo, the Aggies were playing teams like Alabama, LSU, Florida, and North Carolina.

Still, the only team that defeated Kent State in 2020 was Buffalo, who had to drop 70 points to get a victory against the high-octane KSU offense.

At the very least, this will be an extremely entertaining game. With a last-second shuffle on the defensive line, Texas A&M could struggle early against Kent State defensively, while the new-look offensive line-quarterback combo will be settling in on the attacking side of the ball. The likelihood of this being an upset is still extremely low, but the factors are in place for it to happen.

Definitely do not count on a 3-1 MAC team with a whisper of a defense to take down Texas A&M, a team that was on the verge of the College Football Playoff last season. Still, this one could be too close for comfort.