Texas A&M is coming off of a bye this past weekend to travel to Columbia for their penultimate road game of the year, taking on the South Carolina Gamecocks. The Aggies haven't won in Williams Brice Stadium since the 2020 season, when they defeated Carolina 48-3— since then, they've lost two very disappointing night games in 2022 and 2024.
Though this game will be earlier in the afternoon, there's still quite a few reasons to worry about the prospective result. The first and most obvious thing is the momentum each team is entering with: the Gamecocks are riding high in the midst of a win streak that has seen them climb back into the rankings, while the Aggies have lost their last three road contests and are currently 2-4 against Power 4 competition.
But sometimes momentum can be deceptive, right? Unfortunately, a closer look at the numbers for this matchup does not instill any more confidence in the Aggies' chances— Carolina is a team that definitely has some vulnerabilities, but they do not appear to be vulnerabilities that the Aggies will be able to exploit. Meanwhile, the Gamecocks look like they've fully unlocked LaNorris Sellers on offense, and he may just make this team unstoppable against the A&M defense.
Texas A&M is facing a statistical nightmare matchup against South Carolina
The Aggies have been pretty solid down to down against the run overall, but they've given up some big ones late in games. Unfortunately, it may not take until the end of the game for them to crack against this Gamecock rushing attack; this is one of the most proficient running teams in the nation. Their adjusted EPA/rush is good for 7th in the country, while the Aggies' adjusted EPA/rush on defense is 21st in the country— that's good on good, but the worry is the frequency with which the Gamecocks bust big runs.
Carolina's adjusted explosive rush rate— how often they are able to generate big gains on the ground, adjusted for opponent— is 17th in the country. The Aggies, on defense, are middle-of-the-pack in this statistic, good for 57th in the nation.
Texas A&M simply has not faced very many mobile quarterbacks so far this year, and none with the chops that LaNorris Sellers has. Keelon Russell is the closest thing that the Aggies have seen, and they did an okay job in containing him, but he still doesn't approach the same kind of challenge that Sellers poses.
On offense, the way to get yards against this Carolina defense is through the air— they're 116th in the nation in adjusted defensive EPA/pass. Unfortunately, the Aggies are 109th in adjusted offensive EPA/pass, which means they will likely be completely unable to take advantage of this aspect of the game.
If there's a bright spot, it's that this Carolina rush defense, while the strength of that unit, is still not as good as that of Alabama or Missouri, so it won't be quite as tough sledding up front. The path to victory here for the Aggies is pretty narrow— they're going to have to run the ball extremely effectively, get a couple of key, early stops, and play a time of possession game.
That's not a style of ball they've played a lot, and it's going to be a challenge no matter what. But if they can't execute in those facets, this could get pretty ugly pretty quickly for Texas A&M.
Add us as a preferred source on Google