Previewing the Aggies and Tigers with Advanced Stats

Hello and welcome back to Fun With Numbers, where we dig into what advanced stats tell us about Aggie football and their upcoming opponents. Last week, the Aggies went on the road and came home with a win. It felt harder than it should have been, the Aggies finished with a higher success rate than the Bulldogs, but a struggling run game, some turnovers, and some explosiveness from the Mississippi State offense made it feel a lot closer than it was. So now, the Aggies sit atop the SEC standings and welcome the LSU Tigers back to Kyle Field in a battle to remain there.

What Do We Know?

Since dropping the season opener against USC, the Tigers have been on a tear of odd wins, scoring 14 in the 4th Quarter to beat South Carolina in a game the Cocks should have been able to close out, looking sloppy against UCLA for about 3 quarters of football, snatching another victory from Ole Miss in an OT game they never led until the end, before beating Arkansas by 24 points last week in Fayetteville. This is a big matchup, maybe the first time it’s had such major implications for both teams since 2012. Vegas has the Aggies as a 2.5 point favorite, the SP+ projects the Ags to win by 1 point, and the FEI predicts an LSU win by about 4 points. Let’s take a closer look.

Aggie Offense vs Tiger Defense

Following a couple of really impressive seasons at Missouri, Blake Baker took the LSU job over the offseason with some uneven results. The Tigers have been very boom or bust in 2024, top 5 in the country in Havoc created and near the bottom in overall explosiveness allowed. Very similar to the Aggies, they do a good job of stopping the run but if opposing teams get to the second level, they tend to go far (Harold Perkins going down was extremely hard on this already thin defense). They absolutely get AFTER the QB, but if they don’t get home… the secondary rarely holds up. I think the biggest challenge for the Aggie Offense this weekend will be generating a solid rushing attack, protecting Weigman, and finishing drives.

Aggie Defense vs Tiger Offense

Despite its high rankings in the OSP+ and OFEI, the Tiger offense doesn’t look totally dissimilar from A&M’s. They don’t run the ball as well, but they make up for that with an efficient passing attack led by Nussmeier and some hard to cover receivers like Kyren Lacy and guys like Aaron Anderson who routinely break tackles in space. They protect the QB really well, thanks to a stout OL and Nussmeier’s ability to throw the ball quickly (2.62 seconds/drop back). Like the Aggies, the Tigers are not very consistent at generating big plays but they do just enough on Passing Downs to keep things moving (10th in the country in Passing Down Success Rate). More than any offense the Aggie secondary has faced this season, this LSU group will test how much they’ve improved since last season, throwing the ball more than just about any in the country (8th in Passing Play Rate). But if the corners and safeties can play as well as they did against Missouri, they stand a great chance of slowing down the Tigers.

So What’s the Verdict?

In terms of quality and closeness of game… I imagine this is going to be what everyone assumed the Missouri game would be like. I don’t think their defense is great, but they’re incredibly opportunistic and that could be a problem if Conner plays as loosely with the ball as he did last week. The Tiger offense concerns me in how it attacks the secondary and does it quickly, potentially neutralizing the ability of this DL to disrupt things. It’s a strange game in that it’s a lot of strength on strength and weakness on weakness, and there is obviously so much riding on it. I’m excited for the energy and to see what happens.

My Prediction: I go back and forth but I think the Aggies find a way to keep the Tiger offense out of rhythm by controlling the clock and the Aggies win 31-27.

Final Notes

As always, thanks for reading along. Let’s hope we continue to have fun, see you next week for South Carolina.

• Bcftoys.com for Brian Fremeau’s FEI data and other fun projects from him.
• ESPN.com is the home for all of Bill Connelly’s SP+ info, including the Returning Production data. You’ll need to subscribe to ESPN+ for most of his stuff these days.
• CollegeFootballData.com is a great site for data and charts that you can download and play with on your own time, in case Fun With Numbers isn’t filling that statistical void in your life. Most of my data comes from here.

Questions? Comments? Criticisms? You know where to leave ‘em.