Breaking down the numbers: How Texas A&M football can beat projections vs. Notre Dame

Why Texas A&M football can defy projections and pull out a win against Notre Dame

Saturday's game between Texas A&M football and Notre Dame will be one of the most consequential of the year. Both teams come into this one with playoff aspirations, and the winner will exit the evening with far better chances than the loser—though Notre Dame is far more apt to go undefeated down the stretch than the Aggies, given their schedule.

This is also projected to be one of the most even matchups of the weekend. Florida-Miami will be a good contest as well, but I think the Aggies and Irish could be even more of a barn-burner.

With that in mind, let's take a look at what some of the advanced statistical profiles that are breaking this game down have to say about these two teams.

Advanced stats leaning towards Notre Dame ahead of game vs. Texas A&M football

As you might expect, given the lofty goals of this Notre Dame team, they project to be a formidable opponent. Many advanced systems have them as a top-10 team in the preseason.

Combine that with the fact that these profiles—going off of the last year (or more) of data—see this still as a Jimbo offense and Durkin defense, and it only makes sense that the Aggies are not necessarily favored in the opener.

Most of these systems have their own methods of accounting for transfers, though the portal being the factor that it has become is still a relatively new phenomenon. I do think, though, that the presence of Conner Weigman and the juiced-up defense for the Aggies significantly shift things here.

Bill Connelly of ESPN has this game going to the Irish by an unconvincing two points.

That's well within a margin of error that improved coaching could help make up, if you ask me.

Brian Fremeau, architect of the F+ projections—which are based on points per drive data—has the Irish triumphing by just over four points. Again, this is a relatively small margin, all things considered.

Parker Fleming of CFB-Graphs sees this one differently. His system, based on Expected Points Added (EPA for short), has the Aggies with a more convincing win, roughly 32-26.

I'm not sure the addition of Mike Denbrock can inflate the Irish's chances to the same degree that Klein, Elko, and Bateman will help the Ags. For this reason even though two of the three systems I've listed here have the Ags as underdogs, I feel confident that the numbers are "underrating" them.