SPOILER: It’s been a while
No. 14 Texas A&M has a massive showdown against No. 8 LSU on Saturday night at Kyle Field in what is the biggest game for each team to date in 2024. The Aggies and Tigers are the two remaining SEC teams who are undefeated in conference play, which means the winner of this game will be the ONLY remaining SEC team who is undefeated in conference play. That obviously gives the victor an inside track at getting to the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta, but just as importantly, it will give them a marquee win as they build their resume for the College Football Playoff.
But let’s look beyond this season. When was the last time A&M had a home game of this magnitude? We’ve seen A&M host a late-season matchup of top 15 teams as recently as 2021 (No. 14 A&M vs. No. 13 Auburn). We’ve seen them host top 10 games in October (No. 8 A&M vs. No. 9 Tennessee) and in 2012 (No. 6 A&M vs. No. 1 Bama).
But this matchup has an aspect those games do not. Because if the Aggies can come away with a win on Saturday, they will be 5-0 in conference play and enter the final month of the regular season controlling their own destiny in the conference race. To find the last time that happened, you have to go all the way back to…1998. That season included several huge home wins, including beating No. 2 Nebraska in the first ever Maroon Out game, beating No. 25 Texas Tech in the final week of October and beating No. 13 Mizzou on Nov. 14 to clinch the Big 12 South title. Much like what we could see this season, every game the Aggies won made the next big one that much bigger, and that game against Mizzou, for my money, was the last time A&M had a regular season game with this much on the line. Oh, and that 1998 season also just happens to be the last time the Aggies won a conference title.
In this week’s episode of “The Pulse,” Mike Elko talks about how the guys on this team didn’t come here just to play in big games. They came here to win them. And while I don’t think anybody would categorize the game against LSU as a “must-win” game in year one of the new head coach’s tenure, it certainly feels like a monumental pivot point. If the Aggies lose, they aren’t out of the title race or the Playoff race. But it does mean they’d need to win out and maybe get some help, and and another loss or two begins to give a similar feel to previous A&M late-season failures (the late-season collapse of 2016 most notably still lives rent-free in my head).
But if you can find a way to win this game, it could be the beginning of a narrative shift when it comes to Texas A&M football, because this is very much the kind of game that past A&M teams have found a way to lose. In fact, it’s the kind of game past Aggie teams haven’t even been in position to play in, because earlier failures usually cost them the opportunity. So perhaps the very fact that this team has put themselves into position for a game with such high stakes is a hint that this team, and this program, could be something different than what we have gotten used to seeing.
The fact that a game of this magnitude is the first of it’s kind this century is a sad statement about the underachievement of the A&M program over the past 25 years. Now let’s hope we see a very different kind of statement made on Saturday night at Kyle Field.