After rising as high as the fifth spot in the AP Poll, the Texas A&M football team lost a pair of games. This sent them tumbling down for two consecutive weeks before they dropped out of the AP Top-25 entirely.
A win against Alabama would send them back into the ranks of the best teams in the country, landing the Aggies at the 21st spot. They’d beat Missouri convincingly, and with a handful of losses ahead of them in the Poll, A&M moved up to the 17th spot.
This week, the Aggies took another step forward following a dominant victory over South Carolina, sending them all the way up the 14th in the poll. Along with this jump comes a handful of implications.
Implication No. 1: The Texas A&M football team is one of the hottest squads in the country
It sounds weird to say — just a few weeks ago, we were talking about how this might be a throwaway season for the Aggies. With a two-game losing streak coming at the hands of two teams that are now unranked, things looked bleak.
Somehow, in just a three-week span, things have done a full 180. The Aggies kicked things off with a huge upset win against Alabama. This was a strong victory, but many fans thought it was a fluke.
Jimbo Fisher would prove those people wrong by recording a dominating victory against Missouri in 35-14 fashion. He’d head home the next weekend and take South Carolina to the cleaners. Because the fourth quarter was not competitive, the numbers don’t look as bad as they were. That said, A&M completely dismantled the Gamecocks.
So with a win over one of the best teams in the country and two blowout wins over middling SEC teams, the Aggies have become one of the hottest teams in the country. This is even more evident based on their 14th ranking in the AP Poll, something that seemed out of reach not long ago.
Implication No. 2: The Texas A&M football team can still reach a top-4 spot
As mentioned, the Aggies dropped out of the AP Poll just three weeks ago. No Texas A&M football fans would argue with it either — without Haynes King and some other key contributors on offense, A&M looked like an average football team.
Nothing about that squad looked like it deserved to even be in the top-25.
Less than a month later and you could make the argument that the Aggies are one of the hottest teams in the country and could find their way into a top-4 spot. Here’s how they could do it.
For starters, the only ranking system that actually matters in the College Football Playoff rankings, which won’t be released until after Week 8. That said, they generally mirror the AP Poll — at least to an extent.
So if the Aggies are a top-15 team right now, they could easily continue to win and move up. For starters, there are eight teams who should drop below the Aggies with a loss. That list includes Alabama, Ohio State, Oregon, Iowa, Ole Miss, Notre Dame, Kentucky, and Wake Forest.
A&M appearing in the SEC title game isn’t out of reach. I won’t go into detail right now, but our Brady Connelly detailed it pretty well in this post. If the Aggies do manage to reach this game and win it against an unbeatable-looking Georgia team, why shouldn’t they be considered to be the first two-loss playoff team?
That said, there are a lot of “ifs” involved in this. As things stand, this is simply an improbable storyline to keep an eye on.
Implication No. 3: The Texas A&M football team is the best two-loss squad in college football
Despite two early-season losses, the Aggies have a lot going in their favor. For starters, Texas A&M had a lot of shuffling pieces early in the year — with two starting offensive linemen out on a unit that already had four new starters, Texas A&M couldn’t block a JV high school team early in the year.
Zach Calzada, despite being in the running for the starting quarterback spot this offseason, didn’t look ready to be this team’s quarterback. He has transformed into an entirely different quarterback in the past few weeks.
Heck, the Texas A&M football team as a whole looks like an entirely different squad than they did at the beginning of the year. This has resulted in Jimbo Fisher’s team being the highest-ranked two-loss team in the country, trailed by No. 18 Auburn and No. 20 Penn State.
Could the door still be open for the Texas A&M football team to reach the College Football Playoff with two losses?
After Texas A&M looked the part last season, the committee snubbed the Aggies. As a result, the College Football Playoff for the 2020-21 season was arguably the worst we’ve ever seen. Every single game, including the National Championship game, was a blowout. It was not fun to watch.
This year, the committee may be more willing to take chances, which opens the door for a two-loss team to potentially gain entrance. If the stars align, the Aggies could still be in the conversation this season.