Texas A&M heads into Tuscaloosa carrying the kind of momentum that can vanish fast in the SEC.
The Aggies rolled past The Citadel last weekend, which offered a welcome breather after a stretch of uneven play early in the season. But there’s no easing into what comes next.
On Saturday, Texas A&M visits No. 13 Alabama in a matchup that looks far tougher than the one it just handled.
For the Aggies, this has all the makings of a swing game. They’ll go in as the underdog, and one road win won’t erase the issues that have piled up so far. Still, beating Alabama would change the mood in College Station in a hurry.
The biggest question is which Alabama team shows up.
Keelon Russell gives the Crimson Tide a different kind of ceiling when he’s on. The redshirt freshman has the arm strength and mobility to turn a routine snap into a problem for the defense, and Alabama has seen that version of him in wins over Kentucky, Florida State and Mississippi State. In those games, he kept plays alive and made defenses chase him well after the original action had broken down.
But the other version has shown up too.
Russell is still a redshirt freshman, and the learning curve at quarterback for Alabama is steep. Along with the flashes, he has gone through stretches where the mistakes have hurt the Tide directly.
That was especially true in the back-to-back losses to Georgia and Tennessee. He was quiet in both, and the Tennessee game was the worst of the two: two interceptions and a lost fumble.
Neyland Stadium seemed to get to Alabama that day, and Russell couldn’t rescue the offense with the kind of improvisation that has made him dangerous elsewhere.
That makes Saturday a major test for Texas A&M’s defense. Alabama gets to be at home, and the Aggies have not consistently brought the level of defense that troubled Russell against Georgia and Tennessee.
Texas A&M probably needs him to have one of those off days. Getting there is the hard part.
The series history also tilts heavily toward Alabama.
The Crimson Tide lead the all-time matchup 13-3 and are 6-1 against Texas A&M in Tuscaloosa. Alabama also won the last meeting, 26-20 in 2023.
The Aggies’ victories in the series, though, have stuck around. Texas A&M shocked Alabama 20-16 in the 1968 Cotton Bowl, one of the program’s landmark wins.
In 2012, Johnny Manziel helped announce himself nationally by leading the Aggies to a 29-24 victory in Tuscaloosa during Texas A&M’s first SEC season. Nine years later, A&M pulled off another memorable upset, winning 41-38 in College Station on a field goal as time expired.
That’s the thing about beating Alabama for Texas A&M: it doesn’t happen often, so when it does, it lingers.
Both teams enter this one with something to prove. Texas A&M is trying to steady its season. Alabama is trying to keep its from slipping away.
The Crimson Tide have dropped consecutive conference games to Georgia and Tennessee, and another SEC loss would leave little room to chase the conference championship, unless the league gets unusually chaotic. It could also damage Alabama’s College Football Playoff hopes.
That kind of pressure means something different in Tuscaloosa. Alabama is expected to chase championships every year, and anything short of that invites scrutiny. The same goes for head coach Kalen DeBoer, who is still shaping the program after taking over for Nick Saban following the 2023 season.
A loss to Texas A&M would do more than count as another bad Saturday. It would shift the conversation around Alabama’s season, and possibly around DeBoer’s program, in a much bigger way.
Texas A&M and Alabama kick off at 2:30 p.m. CT Saturday at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The game will air nationally on ABC.
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In the middle of that backdrop, it is hard not to be reminded of what Mike Evans once meant to College Station and how long his footprint has lasted well beyond it. The former Aggies wideout is now deep into a decorated NFL career with the San Francisco 49ers, where this could be his final season, and his continued presence is another sharp reminder of the kind of high-end talent Texas A&M has been trying to replace ever since. [Read more 🡒]