Positional Preview: Texas A&M Football vs. Alabama

Position by Position Preview of Texas A&M Football vs. Alabama

When I was thinking about this column in the offseason, I didn’t consider that it might end up playing out the way I’m going to write it today for Texas A&M football. I thought there may be one or two matchups for which I would pick the Aggies, but in no world did I consider that things would be this close across the board. With that small prologue out of the way, let’s talk about how this game might go.

As a reminder, I consider each positional matchup and then assign an “advantage score” to one team or the other for that matchup. The score goes from 1 to 5, with 5 being the biggest possible advantage, and 1 being the slightest.

Texas A&M Football vs. Alabama: Tide Pass Game vs Aggie Pass Defense

This is what we might call a “weak-on-maybe-weak” matchup. The one area where Milroe is really, truly good is his deep ball; the problem is that he does not throw those passes unless they are absolutely wide open (one main reason his YPA is so high). He cannot operate consistently in the underneath pass game up and down the field—he’s just not comfortable in that yet, especially against such an aggressive defensive front and playing on the road.

The pass defense for the Aggies, conversely, has had one glaringly awful game and been pretty much nails from that point on. In the past three games, the Aggies have allowed an average passing success rate of 18% and an average yards per attempt of 4.96. They’ve been beaten over the top only twice since that day down in Coral Gables—once against ULM and once against Arkansas—despite numerous teams trying to replicate what the Hurricanes were able to do against Texas A&M football.

If Milroe consistently has time—a dubious prospect, for reasons we will discuss here soon—the Tide can certainly find opportunities to push the ball downfield. That said, I think this matchup favors the defense when all is said and done.

Advantage Score: Texas A&M football by 3