Texas A&M football will continue their homestand this weekend against the Mississippi State Bulldogs in what will most likely be the only night game of the three. The Bulldogs, despite coming off of a loss to Tennessee, are currently flying pretty high right now, as they look to be a far better team than anyone anticipated.
Of course, that's mostly on the strength (right now) of beating Arizona State on a Hail Mary play, as well as beating up on teams like Northern Illinois and Southern Mississippi. Taking Tennessee to overtime was obviously an eye-catching result, but there was definitely some Starkville voodoo at play there.
The Bulldogs were pretty well outgained by the Volunteers, but the turnover battle favored the home team. Lebby's team had touchdown drives of 17, 26, and 20 yards thanks to extremely short fields they got off of takeaways; in other words, they only actually drove the field once for a touchdown— so this result could be a little bit of fool's gold.
First look: Texas A&M could face tougher challenge than anticipated with Mississippi State
The fact remains, though, that if one play goes differently in that game, the Bulldogs are coming into Kyle Field undefeated and ranked within the top 25 at the very least. Given what they lost in the transfer portal, that's a pretty admirable turnaround.
It's definitely fortunate for the Aggies that they won't be facing off with the Bulldogs in Starkville, given their perennial struggles before the cowbell. With this set to be the blackout game in Kyle Field, this should be a raucous home environment propelling the Ags on to move to 5-0.
Blake Shapen, Anthony Evans, and Brenen Thompson make up a passing attack that can be intimidating given the speed of the latter two, but the Aggies will also have to watch out for running backs Fluff Bothwell and Davon Booth. This is a scheme that can be difficult to deal with if you're not disciplined up front, and they'll test your one-on-one coverage downfield, but the Aggies have significantly more talent than the Bulldogs at those two position groups.
Early lines from Vegas have the Aggies favored by nearly two touchdowns, though. That has a lot of people hammering the Bulldogs, but I'm not so sure the Aggies don't cover in this one. It's State's first true road test of the year, and the Aggies played far better against Auburn than the final score showed.
With all that in mind, I'm going to take Texas A&M winning this one 41-17. This will be an emphatic victory for the Aggies— one where their entire offensive cadre is on full display— sending State home with a resounding loss.