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Why the 2023 Schedule Might Be The Key to Texas A&M Football Winning the West

By Graham Harmon

Sep 30, 2017; College Station, TX, USA; A view of the fans and the 12th man logo during the game between the Texas A&M Aggies and the South Carolina Gamecocks at Kyle Field. The Aggies defeat the Gamecocks 24-17. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports
Sep 30, 2017; College Station, TX, USA; A view of the fans and the 12th man logo during the game between the Texas A&M Aggies and the South Carolina Gamecocks at Kyle Field. The Aggies defeat the Gamecocks 24-17. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports /
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There’s a lot of reasons that Texas A&M football has a shot. They have elite coaching. They have elite players. They have elite investment and an elite home field advantage. So what’s the deciding factor here?

They say to control what you can control and you will get the results you want. But there are certain very important things out of your control. One of these things is the schedule. It is no secret that the SEC is a brutal gauntlet for any program. But Power Hour SEC on YouTube has shown that this one overlooked feature of a team’s conference schedule in the SEC can be decisive when it comes to wins and losses.

He calls it B2BRG—or, simply, “Back to back road games.” Since 2018, he says, only three teams have won back to back road games in the SEC. Those teams were 2018 Florida, 2019 LSU, and 2022 UGA. Obviously, of those three, 2018 UF is the outlier—nowhere near as elite as the other two. But, as he says in the video, that UF team barely eked out a win over Mississippi State in Dan Mullen’s first return to Starkville since taking the Florida job, winning 13-6 on a trick play. Lower-scoring games are obviously much higher-variance in outcome when it comes to each team’s quality, so this adds up.

This upcoming season, only Ole Miss and Texas A&M football have no back to back road games in the SEC. The Ags still have a tough slate, to be sure, but this scheduling feature will doubtless help the Aggies. The biggest game of the year—Alabama visiting Kyle Field—will come on the second half of a back-to-back road trip for the Tide, who have not recorded a 2-0 road trip in this timeframe. If the Aggies can slip past Alabama, only LSU looms as a potential challenger. Ole Miss, the other team in this equation, has a lot of question marks after a disappointing end to their season and upheaval vis-à-vis the transfer portal.

So, can the Aggies take advantage? Can Texas A&M football take the division crown for the first time since joining the SEC? Maybe it is too much to hope for that this year.

Then again, maybe it isn’t.

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