Texas A&M football, sitting at 7-0 and ranked third in the country, has everything they want still in front of them at the moment— a SEC championship, a playoff berth, and even a national title. But there's one thing still standing between them and those goals— the huge elephant in the room that they'll have to address this very weekend.
The elephant, of course, is the way the Aggies have played down in Baton Rouge since joining the conference. Texas A&M has yet to win a game on the road at LSU since that 2012 season, despite playing there every other year in that timeframe.
Part of that has been the luck of the draw— Texas A&M's best team since Johnny Manziel left, the 2020 Aggies, got LSU at home, and the Tigers have been a complete wagon in several years when A&M has visited. Manziel himself was injured when playing there in 2013, and so he was unable to make his normal magic down on the Bayou.
Texas A&M can announce themselves as true contenders with win this weekend vs. LSU
But now, for the first time in quite a while, things look like they're lining up. The Tigers have all but completely lost their shine that they had gained from beating Clemson in the first game of the year, sustaining losses to both Ole Miss and Vanderbilt since that point.
With an injured right tackle and an apparently-hobbled quarterback, the Tigers look very much the part of the sitting ducks for a Texas A&M defense that is due for a huge bounce back. Even so, the Bayou Bengals will bring a challenge, not just because of where and when they play, but their heretofore-ferocious defense.
The turnaround that Blake Baker has accomplished there has been universally lauded, but some cracks are beginning to show. The issues that the Tigers had defending mobile quarterbacks last season are nowhere better understood than in College Station, as we saw when Marcel took over for Weigman last year.
They haven't been excellent against the run overall, but their pass defense has been nothing short of stellar. As a result, I'm expecting the Tigers to come out with a single safety look and spend a lot of time playing man-to-man coverage against the A&M receivers, so Collin Klein will have a lot on his plate to scheme the Aggie pass-catchers open.
The corners in Baton Rouge— DJ Pickett and Mansoor Delane— are both excellent and can hold their own in man coverage, but Concepcion and Craver are two of the most elusive players in the country, so that will be a matchup to watch closely.
When Texas A&M is on defense, if they do indeed execute like they did in the previous two weeks before Arkansas, they are essentially the matchup that this LSU offense would dread most. The Tigers have struggled to run the ball all year, and A&M should be able to make them extremely one-dimensional. Nussmeier is sack-prone, and with a backup left tackle slated to start, Cashius Howell and company will absolutely feast.
LSU is going to be without a starting tackle versus Texas A&M on Saturday.. https://t.co/OGPxujIHrU
— Jaxson Callaway (AT) (@AggiesToday) October 20, 2025
LSU has had trouble scoring this entire season, and even though they're at home, I don't see that changing. It took five takeaways for them to manage 20 points against Florida, and this vaunted Tigers defense was a lucky penalty away from surrendering the same amount to the Gators as the Aggies did— and that's with DJ Lagway playing one of the worst games of his career down in Baton Rouge.
It's hard to shake the feeling, though, that this won't be as easy of a game as it looks like on paper. Texas A&M seems made in a lab to take down the Tigers, but there are two things that are hard to get past.
The first is what has already been said: that Texas A&M has not won in Baton Rouge at all during their time in the SEC. The second is that winning back to back road SEC games (outside of one of the legs being Nashville) is a feat that is hardly ever accomplished by any team outside of uber-dominant championship contending types— much less when that second leg is in Baton Rouge.
For that reason, I can't help but hedge my bets a little bit here. I think some wacky turnover luck or controversial call will help the Tigers out in this one, leading to the first loss of the year for the Aggies— as improbable as it may seem, matchup-wise. Give me LSU winning 24-23— but if Texas A&M does pull this game out, they are officially on watch as national title contenders.