No. 15 Texas A&M football controls its own destiny heading into the final stretch of the season.
Coming off a decisive victory against New Mexico State, the Maroon and White will head to Alabama to face the Auburn Tigers and try to earn their last road win of the season. The Aggies are tied with the Texas Longhorns for top of the SEC, and a win versus Auburn would raise the stakes for the Lone Star Showdown.
“Obviously [this is] a game with a lot on the line,” coach Mike Elko said during his Monday press conference. “We’re excited for this opportunity. Excited to get out there and put our best foot forward.”
The Aggies have historically played well in front of the fans at Jordan-Hare Stadium. The Fightin’ Farmers hold a 4-2 record when on the road against Auburn and are 7-6 against the squad all-time.
The Tigers have struggled in conference play on their way to a 4-6 overall record. Auburn has one SEC victory on the season, coming over Kentucky on the road, but find themselves among the bottom four teams in the conference.
“We understand that people are going to play really well against us right now,” Elko said on Monday. “We’re first place in the SEC. We’re top 15 in the country. We’re in the playoff hunt. That creates something when you go into another team’s stadium that we haven’t dealt with in a while. And so kind of understanding what all that means and what all that entails, I think is as important as paying attention to them and what they’re playing for.”
On its way to first place in the SEC, A&M dropped its last away game in a 44-20 loss to No. 19 South Carolina. The Aggies went into halftime tied at 20, but the Gamecocks’ ground game took advantage of the stagnant A&M offense and ran away with the game.
The difference maker in that game was the injury to junior running back Le’Veon Moss, who had 765 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns on the season before going down. But in its matchup with New Mexico State, junior RB Amari Daniels reassured A&M that the ground game was still alive and well, recording five carries for 84 yards and a touchdown.
The Tigers have allowed 104.5 rushing yards per game and three yards per attempt in 2024. Through 10 games, the Aggies average 212.5 yards on the ground per game and 5.2 yards per carry. Redshirt freshman quarterback Marcel Reed accounts for 46.9 of those yards per game.
“They’re very balanced,” Auburn coach Hugh Freeze said during his Monday press conference. “Great running attack and obviously passing. And then the mobility of Marcel makes it even more difficult. But we’ve faced some like that, so we’ll certainly draw upon those experiences.”
Freeze is on track to have his worst season as a head coach. The former Ole Miss and Liberty coach has won less than six games only once in his career: when Ole Miss went 5-7 in 2016. Unless Auburn upsets A&M or Alabama, Freeze’s job could be on ice.
Despite the implications of the next week, Elko said the Aggies are taking things one game at a time as they look to cap off their best start in SEC play.
“I think when you’re in the situation we’re in, it’s easy to focus on the task at hand,” Elko, who was added to the Paul “Bear” Bryant College Football Coach of the Year Award watch list in October, said. “ … I think our focus is single-handedly on Auburn right now and locked in on what we’ve got to get done.”
Saturday’s kickoff is set for 6:30 p.m. at Jordan-Hare Stadium on ESPN.
