Three Reasons Texas A&M Football Wins At Tennessee
The contest tomorrow for Texas A&M football against the Volunteers is no small challenge. As has been passed around recently, Jimbo Fisher does not exactly have a stellar record when on the road as the head coach of Texas A&M football, especially against ranked opponents—in fact, he has ostensibly never beaten a ranked opponent on the road as the Aggie head man.
If you exclude the 2020 season with COVID-reduced crowds, Jimbo Fisher is 3-13 in true road games at A&M, with 7 consecutive true road losses.
— Connor O'Gara (@cjogara) October 12, 2023
It is no surprise then, that many Texas A&M football fans are not exactly bullish on the outcome of this game, especially when you consider that Tennessee is coming into this one off of a bye and the Aggies are coming off of a close and emotional loss to Alabama. Combine that with the facts that Tennessee runs an offensive system that seems tailor-made to stress the Aggie defense and that their defensive front is one of the most prolific the Ags will have seen thus far this year when it comes to getting to the QB? It seems like just the type of malign cocktail of circumstances that would lead to a poor outcome for the Maroon and White.
So what reasons could there be for optimism in the outcome for Texas A&M football this weekend? What justification could there be for Maroon-tinted glasses at this point in the season? Why might we think it possible for the Aggies to be 5-2 at this point on Sunday rather than 4-3?
Let me suggest that if the Aggies are as overmatched as they seem by the analysis I’ve just given—an analysis not all that dissimilar to that which you will have seen all week by a certain section of the Texas A&M football fanbase—that it would seem incongruent for so many advanced statistical models to see this game to be a toss-up.
Even those models that look at specific matchups—say, between the Volunteer passing game and the deficient downfield defense for A&M—still see this as basically decided by the margin granted for home field advantage. How can this be? What possible reasons could the Aggies have to think they have a chance here?
Let’s talk about it.