Texas A&M fans are on pins and needles awaiting this weekend's matchup with the LSU Tigers in Death Valley. The Aggies have a chance to announce themselves as national title contenders if they come away with a win this weekend, but that's a daunting prospect.
This will be a challenge, despite the rancid vibes currently surrounding LSU's program. They may be missing a top player on defense against the Aggies, which is a good sign for A&M, but nothing will come easy as the Ags attempt to break a long losing streak in Baton Rouge.
Given that this is one of the premier games of the weekend, a lot of statistical models are featuring their previews of this one. Here's how some of the best advanced stat profiles see this one playing out.
Advanced stats give Texas A&M very slight advantage in Death Valley vs. LSU
Bill Connelly's SP+ system, built on success rate and explosiveness as the primary metrics it measures, sees the Aggies winning an extremely narrow game. The actual margin that it put out wsa literally less than one point, but Bill rounded it up to project the Aggies winning 26-25.
Brian Fremeau's FEI ratings are a little kinder to the Aggies. FEI is mainly built off of possession efficiency rather than per-play statistics like SP+. His projections see the Aggies as 3.2 points better than LSU in Death Valley, predicting a final score of roughly 27-24.
Parker Fleming (not the Ohio State Special Teams coordinator, but the online stathead) heads up CFB-Graphs, which is built on Expected Points Added (EPA), a different per-play system. His numbers see a little more emphatic win for the Aggies, projecting a 27-21 win for Texas A&M.
This one in particular has a bit more detail to it, showing specific matchups in the game. Texas A&M's offense vs. LSU's defense is shown to be the strength on strength that we've all anticipated, but the Aggies should be able to all but entirely stifle the Tigers for most of the game. Texas A&M's biggest offensive advantage is in the run game, according to Fleming's numbers, as well as doing well on early downs (which makes a lot of sense).