FULL PREVIEW: Texas A&M Football vs. Miami Hurricanes

Texas A&M Football vs. Miami: Statistical Profiles

It’s tough to glean too much from advanced stats this early in the season, but here’s how each team matches up in SP+ and FEI. If you don’t know, SP+ is an advanced metric that measures team quality based chiefly on success rate and explosiveness, and FEI is built on points per drive scored/allowed. Both are opponent-adjusted metrics, which means they usually get more accurate as the season progresses.

Texas A&M Football

SP+ Ratings (Ranks)

• Overall: 20.7 (15th)
• Offense: 32.8 (36th)
• Defense: 12.2 (4th)

FEI Ratings (Ranks):

• Overall: 0.46 (22nd)
• Offense: 0.14 (39th)
• Defense: 0.68 (23rd)

Miami

SP+ Ratings (Ranks)

• Overall: 15.9 (24th)
• Offense: 31.3 (40th)
• Defense: 15.5 (13th)

FEI Ratings (Ranks):

• Overall: 0.06 (60th)
• Offense: -0.33 (78th)
• Defense: 0.44 (35th)

As I’m sure you can see, SP+ envisions this as a much closer matchup with regard to each team’s quality than does FEI. In both rankings, however, the Aggies hold the advantage in offensive and defensive ratings, and thus overall ratings as well.

Bill Connelly and Brian Fremau (the architects of each respective ranking) will release their score predictions later this week, but based on what I’ve seen from both teams (as well as taking instruction from these ratings), I’m ready to make my own. I’ll stick with what I said in our betting preview; I think the Aggies can be effectively shut down the Hurricane’s attack. It may look like a bend-don’t-break approach, but I don’t have faith in the Miami offense to move up and down the field consistently against the Aggie D. Conversely, I think the Aggie offense will show some breakout potential in the running game early, thus opening things up for Weigman, Stewart, Thomas, and company to air things out in the late second and early third quarters, putting this game out of reach for Cristobal’s crew.

I earlier predicted a score around 34-16 in favor of Texas A&M football, and that’s a number I feel comfortable sticking with. I could see it as high as 38 or 41 for the Aggies—though if they reach that mark, worrying levels of optimism might begin to be seen on this blog—and as high as 17 or 20 for the Hurricanes. My pick for Miami’s number is based on the fact that I see them struggling to convert production into touchdowns and thus settling for field goals when they cross the Aggie 40, but leaving room for a big play here or there that nets them 6.

So that’s my prediction. 34-16 Aggies. We’ll see what the Ags are made of this weekend. BTHOMiami!