After back-to-back losses to teams from the Magnolia State, Texas A&M looks to right the ship with another top-10 matchup this weekend as the Aggies attempt to avoid their first three-game losing streak since 2011 and their first under head coach Kevin Sumlin.
“An old coach told me, ‘You start listening to everybody else, you ain’t never been that good and you ain’t never been that bad.’ You try and keep an even keel and be honest with where you are,” Sumlin said. “Coming into this thing, nobody said this would be easy. This is a difficult league. There’s no doubt based on the last two weeks that we have to coach better and we have to play better. That’s our expectation within the building — to win games. Confidence, I think, is something that you don’t gather overnight and I don’t think you lose it overnight. It’s something you build and that’s who you are. And I don’t see that waning.”
No. 21 A&M (5-2, 2-2 SEC) travels to Tuscaloosa, Ala., to face Nick Saban’s Alabama squad. The Aggies have not played at Bryant-Denny Stadium since 2012, when they upset the then-No. 1 ranked Crimson Tide 29-24.
Senior wide receiver Malcome Kennedy is second on the team with 33 catches for 378 yards, but has sat out the last two of A&M’s contests. However, Kennedy said his shoulder (which he injured against Arkansas) is feeling better and he is ready to play Saturday.
“I’m feeling good now,” Kennedy said. “After two games being rested, getting my shoulder recovered, I’m ready to go. Legs feel fresh, body feels fresh — I’m just excited to get back out there.”
Kennedy, who made the game-winning touchdown reception against Alabama as a sophomore two years ago, said he still thinks back to the play as one that helped him mature as a player.
“It’s one of the touchdown catches that I had that really set me forward in my career,” Kennedy said. “It set me up for some big things — to be a leader on this team. It just showed that I could play too. It’s really been one of those catches that has made me sure about myself. When I think about it, I just look back on it and it always gives me confidence in myself.”
No. 7 Alabama (5-1, 2-1 SEC) faced Arkansas on the road last weekend, escaping Fayetteville with a 14-13 win over the Razorbacks. The week prior, the Tide fell 23-17 to Ole Miss in Oxford.
Alabama is surrendering an SEC-best 277.2 yards per game, and after the Aggies scored a season-low 20 points against Ole Miss last weekend, A&M will have its hands full trying to reboot its offense.
“We’ve just got to get back to fundamentals and keep trying to build that confidence back up,” said offensive coordinator Jake Spavital. “We played two good opponents, they got after us pretty well and we’ve got another tough task ahead of us right now, so we need to just get back to the fundamentals and start blocking better, catching better, running routes better, throwing better — we’ve got to get better at everything.”
A&M and Alabama kick off at 2:30 p.m. Saturday in front of a national audience on CBS.