The Texas A&M football team did what virtually nobody expected them to do — they beat the No. 1-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide.
The list of reasons why this shouldn’t happen is endless. ‘Bama hadn’t lost to an unranked team in over 100 games, Nick Saban had never lost to a former assistant, and the Tide hadn’t even trailed in a game since 15 contests ago.
Texas A&M defied all of those odds in a single night. And with a huge victory like this come implications, three of which I’m going to discuss today.
Implication No. 1: The Texas A&M football HC Jimbo Fisher is a different breed
There are a lot of reasons why Jimbo Fisher is a great coach. In a couple of years at Texas A&M, he has created a culture of winning that hasn’t been seen in College Station in nearly a century. He had brought the best talent that this program has ever seen to the roster on a yearly basis.
That said, on Saturday night, he gave us another reason to worship him.
In 24 previous contests against coaches from Nick Saban’s coaching tree — meaning players who coached under him — Saban took home a win in every single contest. He had a 24-0 record, including a victory in each contest. Even more jarringly, he had a 4-0 record against Jimbo Fisher, which is the most wins he has against any individual assistant.
In this year’s matchup, things changed.
Jimbo Fisher finally did the impossible in beating his former boss, which puts him on another level among legendary coaches like Mark Dantonio, Kirby Smart, and Will Muschamp.
Implication No. 2: The Texas A&M football team can still be competitive
Unfortunately, the Aggies’ two conference losses still have them near the bottom of the SEC West. They do not “control their own destiny” in this situation. That said, there is good news.
For starters, they just knocked off the only undefeated team remaining in their division. Even though they’ll still be fighting an uphill battle, a world of possibilities just opened up for the Aggies. They’ll likely still fail to qualify for the SEC title game, but at least it seems like there’s a chance now.
There are four teams with a single loss in the division — it’s not far-fetched to think that this division is up for grabs this season.
We also learned that the Aggies are still competitive. Granted, it never felt like they were a terrible team, but it seemed like the offense was so cripplingly bad that they’d never be able to keep up with the best programs in the country. That primarily included Alabama and Georgia, the class of the SEC.
That said, A&M accumulated 379 total yards of offense, most of which came in the first half. That said, their first-half offense was dominant enough to keep them in the game against the top-ranked team in the country. They scored 41 points against Alabama — I’d say that’s good enough.
Even in the long term, this is a great sign for the program. Tricky injury-related circumstances caused them to drop two games early, but by beating ‘Bama, Jimbo Fisher announced that his team wasn’t going anywhere.
Implication No. 3: Backup QB Zach Calzada can be a serviceable SEC quarterback
After a few bad weeks as Haynes King’s replacement, a large chunk of the fanbase had given up on the backup quarterback. And in fairness to those fans — he looked pretty bad.
At times, the ball was glued to his hand and when he did throw it, he didn’t look confident. This resulted in performances against three Power Five teams that totaled just 42 points for the Aggies. That’s just one more point than the Texas A&M football team scored against Alabama in a single game on Saturday.
On Saturday, Calzada bounced back in a huge way.
“The Cuban Missile” not only showed serious heart but arguably out-dueled the Heisman frontrunner in Bryce Young of the Alabama Crimson Tide. Calzada did have a single interception on the night, but it looked like a simple miscommunication between himself and Ainias Smith.
Outside of that single interception, Calzada had an incredible game, completing 21-of-31 of his passes, a new season-high in completion percentage. Of those passes, three of them landed in the endzone, including a crucial touchdown score on a dime of a pass to level the score in the fourth quarter.
To be honest, I don’t really know what else to say about Calzada, The Aggie quarterback will always be a legend in College Station from this one game alone. Even if he doesn’t play well for the remainder of the year, he showed more heart in this one game than most players do in their entire career.