Texas A&M football heads down to the Swamp this weekend for a big early-season matchup with the Florida Gators. Both squads have had this one circled for a while as one of the most important games on the schedule early on, so both fan bases are anxious to see how things play out.
The Gators are spiraling at this point, while the Ags are still trying to get their feet underneath them. A&M looks like the better team, but we’ve seen less talented teams come out in a desperate way to take down goliaths.
There’s an underlying storyline here with the Aggies, though, that this matchup with Florida symbolizes. It won’t be getting a lot of coverage, but the diehard fans are well-aware of what’s going on.
Texas A&M football’s matchup vs. Florida is frustrating reminder of SEC’s scheduling malpractice
When the Aggies and Gators take the field this weekend, it will be the fifth time that these programs have met since Texas A&M football joined the conference back in 2012. In fact, the game against UF was Texas A&M’s first as a part of the conference; they met again in 2017, and then in both 2020 and 2022.
The problem is that UF—a team that was at no point a permanent opponent for the Aggies—has had this many games against them, while other teams have only met the Ags once since they joined the SEC.
Obviously, Texas A&M met every team that makes up what used to be the West division every year. Due to previous scheduling models, though, they rarely saw several East division teams. Here’s the breakdown of how often the Ags have played each East division team:
- South Carolina: 10 times
- Missouri: 4 times
- Florida: 4 times
- Vanderbilt: 3 times
- Tennessee: 3 times
- Georgia: 1 time
- Kentucky: 1 time
That’s quite an uneven spread. By the end of the season, too, the Aggies will play SC, Mizzou, and Florida once more each—making this distribution that much more uneven.
Obviously, South Carolina being the permanent opponent for this amount of time has a lot to do with why it looks the way it does, but the worst part is the UGA and Kentucky numbers.
UK made their way to Kyle Field in 2018, but the Ags still have yet to go to Lexington in more than 12 years of sharing a conference with the Wildcats. Similarly, UGA has never been to Kyle Field even once since 2012.
With the currently announced schedules for 2025, the Aggies will play each of their conference opponents for this year again next fall, thus adding to the current imbalance. There has to be a better way to do this kind of scheduling. The SEC, with their practices thus far, has failed its fans in this regard.