New metric suggests Texas A&M football could finish with huge win total in 2024

Texas A&M football could finish with huge number in win column if all goes right

I've spilled a lot of ink (digital ink, I guess) on Texas A&M football's chances to exceed expectation here for the upcoming season. For a lot of reasons, it's a big year for the Aggies. Elko needs to hit the ground running on the field in just the same way that he has done off the field.

In the SEC, though, you have to earn everything you get. Though the Aggies don't face Alabama or Georgia this year, they still have a considerably tough schedule to face at home, hosting Notre Dame, Texas, LSU, and Missouri.

Or... do they?

There's no doubt that these four games will be the toughest on the Aggies' schedule, but will it end up, in the final analysis, being all that tough for the Aggies to notch wins against these teams? Dave Bartoo (@CFBMatrix on Twitter) has released a new statistic that has me rethinking things.

EOS, or "ease of schedule," as explained by Bartoo later on in the tweet thread, is a metric that he developed that measures strength of schedule relative to the strength of the team playing that schedule. As he explains, in a hypothetical scenario where Oregon and Kansas play the exact same schedule, Oregon has a far better EOS since they are a better team.

This means that teams can be high on this list due to their own quality, a relatively easy schedule, or (most likely) a combination of these two factors. Probably the toughest game that either Texas A&M or Georgia face according to preseason projections, for example, is Texas; these two, in turn, are two of the toughest teams that the Longhorns will face as well.

If this is accurate—and it is, after all, just one metric—then it's not unreasonable to think the Aggies have a great shot at double-digit regular season wins. All they have to do is beat the teams that they outclass on the road and split the four big home games. Easier said than done, but this number has me more optimistic about that outcome than I was previously.