Texas A&M Football: Why Nick Saban thinks A&M is a trap game

The Texas A&M football team has been demoted quickly from a team that is Alabama’s best challenger in the entire country this season to a trap game for the Tide. That said — at least it still seems like the Aggies have a chance, no matter how far-fetched it might be.

The concept of this being a trap game for the Tide was something that I pondered earlier in the week. With a motivated Aggie squad that has lost two straight games, a “nothing to lose” mentality could go a long way in a home matchup against the top-ranked team in the country.

It’s a lot easier to motivate your team to make history rather than avoid losing to a team that you’ve beaten for nearly a decade straight. In the latter part of that sentence, I’m referring to the Arkansas game, which seemed flat-out demoralizing for the Aggies.

Thankfully, I’m not the only one who thinks that.

Nick Saban referred to his Alabama team’s game against the Texas A&M football team as a “trap game”

This week, Nick Saban talked about the Texas A&M football team in his weekly radio show. I haven’t watched it fully through yet, so I’ll be referencing the highlights of the show given by AL.com.

Here’s what Saban said about the Aggies.

"“I think this is a dangerous team. I think this is a little bit of a trap game for us.” He said Alabama played an “emotional” game against Ole Miss and Texas A&M is coming off two losses. Saban added the Aggies’ QB Zach Calzada is trying to get up to speed after an injury to starter Haynes King but the rest of the team is as good as anyone in the country."

Nick Saban is absolutely right. Historically, when a higher-ranked team drops a game against a team that they weren’t supposed to, it comes on the back of an emotional win, which Saban referenced on his radio show.

There’s no better example of this than when the Johnny Manziel-led Texas A&M football team took down the first-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide in 2012 in one of the Aggies’ biggest wins of the century. That Alabama team would go on to win the national championship.

Prior to their game against the Aggies that season, Alabama won two ranked matchups. The first game against the 13th-ranked Mississippi State Bulldogs in blowout fashion. The next, however, was a nailbiter against LSU, which ‘Bama won by just four points. This year, the circumstances are similar.

For starters, A&M is a two-loss team, as they were in this matchup in 2012. The Tide, on the other hand, remain undefeated, though they’ve had some tough opponents in the last few weeks. The first and most notable was Florida, who ‘Bama beat by just two points in a nail-biter. Two weeks later, Nick Saban’s squad won what Saban refers to as an “emotional” game in a 21-point win against a ranked Ole Miss team.

Texas A&M vs. Alabama may not be the collision of two top-five teams that many expected it to be, but this one could get gritty.