Halfway through the 2021 college football regular season, the Texas A&M football team finds itself in a strange spot.
Most experts and fans expected the Aggies to win most of their games thus far, only dropping a single contest against the Alabama Crimson Tide. That’s not even close to what has happened. Instead, the Aggies lost two of their games — one to Arkansas and one to Mississippi State. Oh, and did I mention their close call against Colorado?
It looked like all hope was lost on the year leading up to their contest against the Alabama Crimson Tide. As an 18-point underdog, the Aggies looked like they might as well forfeit the game and drop to a .500 record. That’s not what happened.
Instead, the Aggies dominated Alabama in the first half, gaining a big enough lead to warrant a second-half comeback from the Tide. But the comeback would never be completed, with A&M knocking off a top-ranked Nick Saban-led Alabama football team.
Now, A&M is in limbo.
What does the second half of the 2021 season have in store for the Texas A&M football team?
After the excitement of the victory died down, the Texas A&M football team was left with a single question — what now? The argument could be made that the Aggies are not yet out of the College Football Playoff race. After all, they have an excuse for their two losses with the injury to their starting quarterback. Still, it seems like a long shot. Like, a really long one.
That said, there’s no reason why the Aggies can’t have a meaningful finish to their year. Today, I’m going to go over three bold predictions for the remainder of the 2021 Texas A&M football season.
The Texas A&M football team will finish the season undefeated and make some noise in the College Football Playoff race
Fortunately for Texas A&M, they don’t have the most challenging schedule in the world. It’s not as easy as we thought before the season, with Ole Miss slipping into the top-25 and making a statement against Arkansas. Still, it’s a pretty easy back six.
The Aggies will take on struggling Missouri and South Carolina teams in the next two weeks in games that should be wins for Texas A&M. After that, they’ll move on to a tough Auburn squad before taking on a red-hot Lane Kiffin-led Ole Miss squad. The Rebels are currently ranked 13th in the country.
After this, they’ll face Prairie View A&M, which is as close to a guaranteed win as you’ll find for an SEC team. Then, they’ll cap off the year with a contest against LSU that would have looked more interesting a couple of years ago.
Out of all of those teams, the only game that A&M shouldn’t be favored in comes against Ole Miss, who just knocked off a ranked Arkansas team in one of the best games of the week. If the Aggies are able to use their momentum, two strong performances against Mizzou and South Carolina could go a long way for this squad.
And if a win against the No. 1-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide doesn’t give you momentum, I’m not sure what will. I think the Aggies will win out and finish the year at 10-2.
The Texas A&M football team will have an everlasting quarterback competition
Prior to the game against Alabama, Texas A&M’s quarterback situation seemed extremely simple. I’ll give you a clue — it rhymes with Paynes Ping. It’s Haynes King.
That said, Calzada’s out-of-nowhere master-class performance against Alabama turned this offense in an entirely new direction. In the game, Calzada threw for three touchdown passes and allowed only a single pass to land in the opposing team’s hands. Heck, even his interception looked more like a miscommunication than a bad throw.
The most important stat from this? His 67.7% completion percentage. Did I mention that he did this against the Alabama Crimson Tide?
I know that it would be stupid to overreact to a single performance, but it’s not just that performance. Calzada looked terrible when he originally replaced Haynes King, and since that point in time, he has gradually improved. A week prior to the Alabama game, we saw him reach 60% passing for the first time this season. Last weekend, he played his first good game from start to finish.
If Calzada continues to improve at this rate before Haynes King returns, there’s no guarantee that King’s spot will be waiting for him when he gets back.
Buckle down Aggie fans, because the end of this season could get interesting.
The Texas A&M football team’s offense will get on track
Piggybacking off of the last slide, it seems like the Aggies’ offense is gradually improving from week to week. Think about where this unit started.
At the beginning of the year, Texas A&M was struggling to put up points against anybody with a pulse. They dropped 10 points against both Colorado and Arkansas. Even against New Mexico, they put up just 34 points, a relatively disappointing total against a bad football team.
The last two weeks, however, have told a different story.
In a loss against Mississippi State, the offense managed to score 22 points. Doesn’t sound like much, I know. Still, this was a big milestone for a Texas A&M football team that could hardly put together a single scoring drive against a Power Five team before this contest. Their 297 yards of total offense against the Bulldogs wasn’t ideal, but it showed significant strides.
These same strides would be on display against Alabama.
Texas A&M dropped 379 total yards of offense this past weekend, setting a new season-high against Power Five teams. Again, it wasn’t a jaw-droppingly high number, but it was another step in the right direction, and they took that step against the best team in college football.
This is another momentum thing — can you look somebody in the eye with a straight face and tell them that you don’t think A&M will have some offensive momentum after this week?