Texas A&M Football: 3 X-factors vs. Kent State in Week 1

The Texas A&M Football season officially kicks off on Saturday. The Aggies will face a team that could be a sneaky-upset contender in Kent State, though it’s unlikely that an upset actually happens. More realistically, it’ll be a relatively high-scoring game, especially compared to most MAC matchups. Texas A&M should win the game with relative ease though.

Still, there are more than a handful of things that need to go right for the Aggies to kick off their season at 1-0. Players need to be on their game, working cohesively to get the win.

Today, I’m going to go over three players, two for Texas A&M and one for Kent State, who will be X-factors in this game, starting with an obvious choice.

Texas A&M vs. Kent State X-Factor No. 1: TAMU RB Isaiah Spiller

The first X-factor in this game will be the player who should have the biggest impact, at least when it comes to the box score. I’m giving Isaiah Spiller the half-slide because I’ve already covered this topic with relative depth. Still, I couldn’t talk about the most impactful players in this matchup without bringing up Spiller’s name.

Kent State had one of the worst rushing defenses in the country last season. As of right now, there’s no reason to believe that we’ll see an overwhelming change that takes them out of the bottom ten in college football in that category.

The Aggies, on the other hand, had a top-30 rushing offense and return one of the best runningbacks in college football. In other words, this one could get ugly against a Kent State team that struggled to defend the run, even against MAC teams.

Isaiah Spiller has rushed for nearly 2,000 yards and almost 20 touchdowns in his Texas A&M career. He’s virtually a lock to crack both of those numbers on Saturday night and may even flirt with a school record.