With a handful of replacements at hand for the Alabama football team, it looked like this could be the year that a team finally overtakes Nick Saban’s squad in the SEC, with the Texas A&M football team looking like the primary challenger.
Last year, the Aggies lost just a single game in an early-season matchup with the Crimson Tide. Granted, they were blown out, but Alabama blew out virtually every team on their 2020 schedule, A&M just happened to be in the way.
But the Tide lost a lot of talent after that season.
As a result, the Texas A&M football team, which was coming off of a 9-1 season, looked like a squad that could potentially knock off Alabama. Now, it looks like that may not happen.
The Texas A&M football team has taken a step back, now positioning them as a potential trap game for Alabama
Sure, this isn’t the 50-50 shot of a game that we originally thought it would be against Alabama, but the Texas A&M football team has a better chance than most people are giving them. Allow me to explain.
On the surface, Alabama seems like a much better team than Texas A&M. Heck, the Crimson Tide look like a much better team than anybody not named the Georgia Bulldogs, a team that isn’t on their regular-season schedule. The Tide lead the Aggies in total offense and total defense; points for and points allowed.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a category that A&M leads ‘Bama in — though that’s not really the point that I’m trying to make here.
The point that I’m trying to make is that Texas A&M has all of the odds stacked against them. Even though Aggie fans would have liked to enter this game at 5-0, 3-2 gives them an entirely different strength against the Tide.
That strength comes in the form of having absolutely nothing to lose in this mid-season matchup.
Rather than the nerves that you’d expect in a game like this, the Aggies will be fighting a battle that virtually everybody has counted them out of. Alabama, on the other hand, will be fighting to hold onto an undefeated record in a year where they don’t look nearly as dominant as they have in seasons past.
Again, I can’t come up with any statistics to support the fact that Texas A&M can beat the Tide, but the stage is undeniably in favor of Texas A&M.
A&M will have their home crowd at their back, and despite still playing without starting quarterback Haynes King, this is a game that Jimbo Fisher will want to win. At the very least, the Aggies can give the Tide a scare.
The Aggies’ pass defense isn’t as great as we originally thought it was, but after giving up a lot of yardage (408) through the air against Mississippi State, it may be part of Texas A&M’s defense that the Tide overlooks.
‘Bama has already taken down three ranked teams on the year and they’ll likely be looking ahead to their contest against a Mississippi State team that beat the Texas A&M football team. I’m not saying you should expect A&M to win, but they’ll be motivated to give Alabama the fight of a lifetime at Kyle Field.
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