The Texas A&M Football team is coming off of a performance that can only be described as an extremely close call against Colorado. The Aggies lost starting quarterback Haynes King after the second-year passer had only thrown two balls.
For A&M fans, it’s been a stressful week more than anything. As a result, the team has been the topic of more negative headlines than positive, notably dropping two spots in this week’s AP Poll. Jimbo Fisher’s team has hit its lowest spot of the year as the now-7th-ranked team in the country.
Thankfully, college football moves on. On Saturday, the Aggies will take on New Mexico in a hopeful bounce-back game. Today, I’m going to give five predictions for A&M’s Week 3 matchup.
Prediction No. 1: The Texas A&M Football team’s starting quarterback in Zach Calzada will finally get into a rhythm
A lot of Texas A&M Football fans will wish they didn’t watch the Aggies’ Week 2 game against Colorado. With just ten points, A&M saw their lowest scoring output since 2019, a year that saw them score ten or fewer points twice. That season, both rough offensive performances happened against the then-number one team in the country.
This time around, it seemed like more of a testament to how bad the Aggies’ offense was with Zach Calzada under center. The sophomore quarterback struggled badly, missing easy passes and at times, struggling to get a completion.
Thankfully, he got into a rhythm on the Aggies’ most important offensive drive in the fourth quarter, marching his team down the field en route to the game-winning touchdown pass.
New Mexico has had a below-average passing defense against subpar teams thus far, allowing over 200 passing yards per game and three total touchdowns against Houston Baptist and New Mexico State. This should be a much-needed confidence-building game for Calzada.
Prediction No. 2: The Texas A&M Football team will win by a very wide margin
It’s easy to get sent into a downward spiral in regards to your football team after watching a game like the one in Boulder. The Aggies looked awful offensively and even after a pretty confident win against Kent State, it was hard to maintain a positive outlook.
This game against New Mexico should do just that.
The Lobos do not have a favorable record against ranked football teams. In their last 15 contests against teams in the top-25, New Mexico has lost by at least 28 points 14 times, according to Bleacher Report. That’s really bad.
I don’t say that for the sole purpose of disrespecting the Lobos, who are off to an 0-2 start, I’m simply stating the truth. It’s hard to see them breaking that trend, especially considering that their only loss within 28 points came against a 24th-ranked Boise State team. A&M should take care of business and they should do it convincingly, even with a backup quarterback.
This could function as a huge confidence-building win.
It’s not really a hot take to say that A&M will win big, though I think it’s still worth mentioning in this post. Expect Texas A&M’s offense to return to strong form, with a resurgence by the player listed on the next slide.
Prediction No. 3: Order will be restored in the Texas A&M Football runningback room
It’s hard to say that things were ever out of order in Texas A&M’s runningback room, though it has been odd to watch Devon Achane overshadow Isaiah Spiller. Achane leads the team in rushing yards and holds a 2-0 edge over Spiller in terms of trips to the endzone on the ground.
Spiller, on the other hand, has been more effective through the air with 80 receiving yards. This is enough to give him more yards from scrimmage than his sophomore counterpart. Still, we expected more from Spiller as a runner.
This game could see the Aggie runningback finally have an explosive outing. Against Colorado, there wasn’t much time to establish the run. King was out early and A&M was served with a couple of choices: either run the ball, which everybody is expecting, or pass frequently with your backup quarterback. More often than not, they chose the latter.
Against New Mexico, Texas A&M will have more of a cushion to run a balanced offense. The game shouldn’t be close and as a result, we’ll see a coaching staff that is more committed to running the football than we did a week ago.
Expect Spiller to be the go-to guy, as most fans expected prior to the season.
Prediction No. 4: The Texas A&M Football team will allow its first passing touchdown of the season
This is the first and only negative slide that you’ll see in this article. Even so, this isn’t me saying that Texas A&M’s secondary is bad — quite the opposite is true. That said, New Mexico’s passing attack has been elite thus far in 2021.
Even more specifically, they’ve had a near-perfect season from their quarterback, Terry Wilson, in 2021. On the year, Wilson has passed for 555 yards, six touchdowns, and zero interceptions. The former Kentucky QB has been balling out.
That said, as good as Wilson has been, the Texas A&M Football team’s defense has matched it. The Aggies have allowed the third-fewest passing yards in the country thus far and haven’t allowed other teams a trip to the endzone through the air. That may change against New Mexico State.
Something’s got to give on either side of this and I think both will meet somewhere in the middle. Wilson will have a so-so performance, scoring at least one passing touchdown and squashing the Aggies’ hopes of a perfect season through the air (as if that was realistic in the first place).
Again though, this slide is based more on a hunch than anything else. The safe bet is probably to say that New Mexico doesn’t reach the endzone. Still, something tells me that they will.
Prediction No. 5: The Texas A&M Football team will finally force a fumble against New Mexico
Looking at Texas A&M’s defensive stats thus far in 2021, something stuck out to me. The Aggies, who have one of the best defensive lines in college football, haven’t forced a fumble yet.
This can partially be chalked up to the fact that two starters were missing in their Week 1 contest against Kent State. Fast forward to Week 3 and McKinnley Jackson was still out of the football game. The other part is likely just dumb luck — sometimes situations don’t present themselves to allow for forced fumbles.
Still, we expected more out of a D-line that featured players like DeMarvin Leal, Micheal Clemons, and the emerging Shemar Turner.
I think this week will mark a shift in this team’s outlook on the game. Yes, the defense has been elite thus far, but they now have more weight to carry with an injured starting quarterback on the offensive end. This has to be a huge point that Jimbo Fisher is stressing during practice, and as a result, we should see a more energized defense.
Expect a harder-hitting, feistier unit than we’ve seen all year against New Mexico. Hopefully, this will result in the team’s first forced fumble of the season.