Advanced Statistical Previews: Texas A&M Football vs Mississippi State

Previewing Texas A&M Football vs MSU with Advanced Stats

Most Texas A&M football fans feel like this is a game that their beloved Aggies should win without much issue. The Bulldogs are a very down team, and run an offensive scheme that plays right into the hands of the Aggie defense. Questions surrounding quarterback availability for each team, however, have some of the Texas A&M football faithful feeling somewhat wary about this matchup. Let’s jump into the numbers and see what they have to say about this one.

SP+ Has Texas A&M Football Winning Comfortably

Bill Connelly’s success rate and explosiveness-based metric, SP+, has Texas A&M football taking home the win here by a nice margin. He doesn’t foresee them covering the 18 point spread, but it’s still a two score game—the number his metrics foresee is a score of about 33-17. Personally, I don’t see the Bulldogs being able to move the ball that well (especially if Will Rogers is unable to go), but that’s more of a feel thing than a numbers-based one.

FEI Sees Big Win for Texas A&M Football

Brian Fremeau’s FEI system, based on net points per drive, also has the Aggies as a comfortable favorite. His metrics have the Aggies with a roughly 87% chance to win the game, and sees it as a margin of near 17 points. The numbers show A&M as winning by a score of roughly 30-13, so a little less scoring output than what SP+ saw, but very near the same number. Again, I have trouble thinking that the Bulldogs can crack double digits against this defense without Will Rogers—their offense is similarly constructed to but worse than Auburn’s, and the Tigers only scored 3 points on the Aggies.

CFB Graphs Has Texas A&M Football as 80% Favorite

Parker Fleming of CFB Graphs also has the Aggies winning without much trouble, though his model is the most bullish on the offensive ability of the Bulldogs. The score prediction for him is around 29-19, though that specific number is less important than the matchups he outlines. If Max Johnson plays, this could be a big game through the air, as this is the worst pass defense the Aggies have seen in some time—definitely since Max has been starting.