Texas A&M football's final margins in their first two games have been a reason for complaining among a certain section of the fanbase.
This segment of fans are contending that the Aggies are not truly a great team, given that they— at times— give up too much on the ground, or aren't going out and scoring on every single drive against these Group of Five opponents. One one level, it's understandable, to be honest: the logic is simply that if A&M is having trouble in one area or another with these lower-quality opponents, then it means they will struggle massively with higher-quality opponents.
There are problems with this line of reasoning— for one thing, it assumes that the coaches are game planning the exact same way against these teams that they do against the higher-quality teams, which I don't think Elko does— which commend drawing different or less broad-reaching conclusions.
But if these Aggie fans are upset with how A&M played this week, they need to take a look around at other teams and realize that A&M, all things considered, is doing okay.
Texas A&M fans complaining about Aggies' performance in first two games are missing key factor
There's a bit of box-score watching that's happening with some of these fans, of course— they're only worried about the final score in certain cases. But let's take a look around the conference and nation to see how A&M stacks up.
LSU beat Louisiana Tech by a score of 23-7. The Tigers, coming off of a win up at Clemson, were only up 10-0 at the half. If that was A&M, you would hear Aggie fans saying all week that they don't nearly deserve the no. 3 ranking that they have.
Speaking of Clemson, those Tigers, ranked in the top 10 last week, were down 16-3 to Troy at home. They eventually won, 27-16, but imagine if what these Aggie fans would be saying if this happened to Mike Elko's squad.
Clemson's in-state rival, the South Carolina Gamecocks, couldn't get anything going on offense, despite their top-10 ranking, against South Carolina State. It took two punt return touchdowns from Vicari Swain to separate from an FCS opponent after SC trailed 3-0 for most of the first half.
Down the road, Georgia triumphed over lowly Austin Peay by the dominant score of... 28-6. That's the mighty Bulldogs beating an FCS team by only 22 points, and being up only 14-3 at halftime.
Penn State shut out FIU, but didn't look extremely convincing on offense. It was 20-0 for most of the game before the Nittany Lions pulled away to make the final 34-0.
Texas beat San Jose State 38-7, but their game was marred with far too much pressure on Arch Manning, missed passes left and right, turnovers, and silly penalties. The Spartans were tearing up their vaunted defense with their passing game, too, despite Sark attempting and failing to put his boot on their throat.
These are just a few examples of teams around the nation actually struggling with lower-quality competition. It's to say nothing of Florida's loss to USF, even, nor Arizona State falling to Mississippi State (though they are an SEC team).
Aggie fans need to recalibrate what they think of when they picture struggling with lower-quality competition. Mike Elko could have ground these opponents into the dust if he sent the team out and had them play like they were facing off against Notre Dame, but he chose to experiment with different lineups and play calls.
We'll get our first real picture of what this Aggie team is truly capable of when they head to Notre Dame this week. Right now, though, the Ags have done what they need to through two weeks. We've seen glimpses of greatness as well as flashes of worry. But through it all, A&M's victory has never really been in question— which you can't say about every team in the nation.