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FULL PREVIEW – Texas A&M Football vs. Alabama

By Graham Harmon

Sep 30, 2023; Starkville, Mississippi, USA; Alabama Crimson Tide quarterback Jalen Milroe (4) rolls over in the end zone after scoring on a long run in Davis Wade Stadium at Mississippi State University. Mandatory Credit: Gary Cosby Jr.-Tuscaloosa News
Sep 30, 2023; Starkville, Mississippi, USA; Alabama Crimson Tide quarterback Jalen Milroe (4) rolls over in the end zone after scoring on a long run in Davis Wade Stadium at Mississippi State University. Mandatory Credit: Gary Cosby Jr.-Tuscaloosa News /
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Jalen Milroe rolls over ahead of his game against Texas A&M football
Sep 30, 2023; Starkville, Mississippi, USA; Alabama Crimson Tide quarterback Jalen Milroe (4) rolls over in the end zone after scoring on a long run in Davis Wade Stadium at Mississippi State University. Mandatory Credit: Gary Cosby Jr.-Tuscaloosa News /

Full Preview of Upcoming Opponent for Texas A&M Football

This Alabama game, as always, will be the biggest measuring stick of the year for Texas A&M football. True, they are not the reigning champs of the division, but they are still perennial favorites until they’re not—and the actual reigning champs in LSU not only look to have regressed quite a bit since last year, but lost to Texas A&M football in their last meeting.

Let’s call a spade a spade, too: Texas A&M football is about two yards away from this weekend being a contest with a third straight win against Alabama on the line. Jimbo knows this, but so does Saban. Now, the “Alabama will have this game circled!” effect is clearly much less of a factor than many make it out to be; after the offseason kerfuffle of 2021-2022, don’t you think Saban had this matchup marked as one in which the Tide needed to make a statement? Yet they barely won. And after the close call in Austin in 2022, don’t you think Saban would have that early-season game against sip circled in a similar fashion? Yet they lost by 10.

The upshot is this: this is not the Alabama of old. Once their dominance on the defensive line started to regress, they began to make up for it by nabbing, I don’t know, every top receiver and quarterback available: Tua Tagovailoa, Mac Jones, and Bryce Young paired with Jerry Jeudy, Devonta Smith, Jaylen Waddle, Jameson Williams, John Metchie, and others. Now, though, they have Jalen Milroe, Isaiah Bond, and Kobe Prentice. Saban’s grip on the sport is weakening, and now they are staring down the barrel of two losses before the season is halfway done, with games against Tennessee and LSU still looming.

This is also the second half of a back-to-back conference road trip, with the Tide having traveled to Starkville last week. I wrote about this in the offseason, but only three SEC teams since 2018 have won back-to-back road games, and Bama has not done it in that timeframe—a timeframe in which they have had much better teams than this current edition of the Tide. In short, this is a daunting task for Bama; perhaps the first time since 2013 that that has been the narrative in this game. Let’s dive in and look closely at this matchup.