Texas A&M Football: Should Aggies be on upset alert at Arkansas?
The Texas A&M Football team is 3-0. To a certain extent, nothing else matters through three weeks of college football. Still, there has to be a certain level of worry as the Aggies approach a matchup with one of the most surprising teams in college football in the Arkansas Razorbacks.
Prior to the season, Arkansas was a team that had won seven games in the past three seasons. Without a doubt, they were one of the worst Power Five programs in the country. Suddenly, they look like a threatening team.
Props have to be given to Sam Pittman, who has already matched his team’s highest win total in the past four seasons with three. It almost seems odd to say this without using some sort of sarcastic overtone — there hasn’t been a better-looking team in the country than Arkansas. That’s not to say that they should be the top-ranked squad in college football, but they’ve played nearly flawless football.
They kicked it off with a three-score win over Rice. At that point, most fans assumed Rice was just a terrible team. Then, they followed up that win with another convincing victory by pounding the Texas Longhorns 40-21 in one of the most surprising upsets of the season. In Week 3, they took care of business against Georgia Southern 45-10.
Should the Texas A&M Football team be on upset alert against Arkansas?
At this point, it’s extremely difficult to give a yes or no answer — the Razorbacks are on a nine-game losing streak against A&M that began when the Aggies joined the SEC in 2012. Only a single one of those games was decided by fewer than seven points, indicating a distinct gap between these teams.
That said, Arkansas has always been within striking distance. The last four contests between these squads have been decided by an average of a single-digit margin. At the very least this could be a scary matchup for A&M.
Again, it wouldn’t be a smart move to pick the Razorbacks in this game, but if there’s a season where the tides will turn in this head-to-head, it’s 2021. Thus far, the Razorbacks are trending up, while the Aggies have been hurting without their starting quarterback.
That said, the Hogs have been primarily functioning based on their passing game, led by KJ Jefferson, who has looked like one of the best quarterbacks in the SEC. Unfortunately for Arkansas, A&M has had the best secondary in the SEC and it hasn’t been close.
I do think that this will be a game to watch, but the specific positional matchups in this game favor the Aggies.