10 Notable Numbers from Texas A&M Football vs. Auburn
I think a lot of Texas A&M football fans were very ready to be dissatisfied with that game—win or no—come halftime. What we saw out of the Aggies in the second half seemed to quiet a lot of those concerns (though, of course, several people went ahead and acted upset all the same). It really was quite the turnaround from first half to second half, though; almost shockingly so. When you take the game as a whole, however, the numbers tell a story that should make most of the Maroon and White faithful happy. Let’s take a look at the 10 biggest numbers from this game.
3 – points allowed by the Aggie defense. That is now two games in a row where the Aggies have not allowed an opposing offense to even crack the double digits in scoring. Even if you are of the opinion that it is only because the Auburn offense is so bad that the A&M defense was able to look so good, this is a hard thing to do.
7 – sacks by this Aggie defense. I said before the game that I expected the defensive front for Texas A&M football to have success getting home against the Tigers, and they did that in a big way. It really should have been more, but one by Bryce Anderson was marked only a TFL as (I suppose) scorers had designated Payton Thorne as a runner when Anderson made the tackle.
2.4 – YPA allowed to the Tigers by A&M. That’s about 35% of what Auburn usually averages. A lockdown performance the likes of which I have not really seen in some time. That’s the lowest single-game number allowed by any defense in the conference this year, both by raw number and by percentage of opponent average allowed. The fact that such a performance came in a conference and division matchup is extremely impressive.
4 – games this year over 400 total yards, matching the total through 12 games last year. If you count the 2022 LSU game, the streak is 5. The last time the Aggies had 5 straight games with 400+ yards was from Auburn in 2018 through the opener against Texas State in 2019, where they did it in 6 straight games.
20% – Auburn’s passing success rate against the Aggies. That makes the Aggies responsible for 2 of the 4 lowest single-game opponent passing success rates this year (LSU and Tennessee allowed 18% passing success rates to Mississippi State and Virginia, respectively) after allowing only an 11% passing success rate to ULM last week. The Aggies are starting to really make teams inefficient through the air.
0.36 – points per drive allowed to Auburn. The Aggies have only allowed one opponent more than one point per drive so far this year, while averaging 3.31 themselves. Going by this metric, each drive for Texas A&M football, on average, has been 153% more valuable than their opponent’s drives. I’m sure there are some that think this is only due to the schedule thus far for this Texas A&M football team, but adjusting for opponent actually increases that number to 253%.
6.3 – YPC for the Aggies. One of my bold predictions for this game was that the Aggies would be the first Tiger opponent to average more than 5 yards per carry, as I thought one of the RBs for the Maroon and White would bust one open at some point, and Amari Daniels did just that.
0 – the number of games this year where an opponent has exceeded their season-long rushing average against Texas A&M football. Auburn gained only 3.51 YPC when they’ve averaged 4.77 YPC for the season (including this game). The turnaround of the rush defense for Texas A&M football has been remarkable so far.
20% – Third down conversion rate for the Tigers in this game. The Aggies remain elite at getting off the field in late-down situations—another mark of an effective defense. Texas A&M football has only allowed 10 total third down conversions this year out of 49 attempts faced. That mark of 20.41% allowed is good for second in the nation behind Utah.
0 – red zone trips allowed by the Aggies. There were times that the Tigers were driving the field, but the Aggie defense didn’t wait until getting inside the 20 to bow up—they didn’t even let Auburn get that far.