Texas A&M's status relative to the Alabama Crimson Tide has come into question over the last few weeks, thanks to a series of ranked wins that the Tide achieved in the middle of this season. The Aggies faced some lower-level SEC competition at home while the Tide were on the road against Missouri and Georgia, and home against Tennessee.
Alabama squeaked out wins over each of those teams (Tennessee was the most emphatic, of course) as they put together a pretty solid resume— one that has them all the way up to no. 4 in the nation, just behind the Aggies. They are now the highest-ranked one-loss team in the country.
Because of the big games that the Tide were playing in, there began to be a lot of chirping from the Tide faithful and others about their resume being better. Aside from the clear elephant in the room— Alabama has a bad loss against Florida State, whereas the Aggies are unblemished— this was always a bit of a poor argument, and today's results showed just how bad it actually was.
Texas A&M is clearly the best team in the SEC, even better than Alabama
Advanced metrics like SP+ have acknowledged this for a while, but today's results made it very obvious. The Aggies blew out the Missouri Tigers in Columbia— where the Tide struggled mightily— and Alabama eked out a home victory over LSU, who Texas A&M just patently dominated on the road.
These are simply two different classes of team right now. The Aggies are firing on all cylinders, while the Tide— who are winning important games, it has to be said— have less going for them. The Aggie offense has all the answers, while Alabama is still somewhat limited.
There are clear holes on Alabama's team; for Texas A&M, it's less obvious. When they fail, they simply get in their own way; when Alabama fails, there are more concerning trends (like their inability to run the ball and concerning rush defense).
If we're lucky, we'll get to see these teams in the conference championship, where a determination can finally be made. Right now, though, I think we're starting to see some separation as we go down the stretch of the season.