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Last week the stats failed us. More aptly, LSU failed us. The stats seemed to be proven right in terms of yards and how the game played out. LSU dominated on defense and rang up a bunch of yards against Florida, but couldn’t finish. Either way, S&P had LSU as a very solid favorite and they lost. Now we turn our focus to Texas A&M and see what the fancy stats have to say about the Aggies.
This Season: A note on these stats: The offensive and defensive S&P+ marks are calculated as adjusted scoring averages and for the situational ratings, above 100 is good and below 100 is bad. Links to an explanation on the various stats here: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaa
http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/fei
http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/fplus
- S&P+ (Percentile): 85.6% (18th in FBS)
- Offensive S&P+: 35.7 (28th in FBS)
- Offensive Run S&P+: 112.4 (29th in FBS)
- Offensive Pass S&P+: 110.7 (41st in FBS)
- Defensive S&P+: 23.0 (27th in FBS)
- Defensive Run S&P+: 102.1 (62nd in FBS)
- Defensive Pass S&P+: 111.0 (38th in FBS)
- FEI: .151 (20th in FBS)
- F/+: 32.3% (17th in FBS)
The Aggies have been a good team for the most part this year, but they don’t particularly excel in any one place and have a few significant deficiencies. The first being run defense, where the Tigers have dominated A&M in recent years and gotten their victories. They’re able to dominate the line of scrimmage and run for huge success. It’s been what’s plagued the Aggies in all of their losses for years under Kevin Sumlin. The other big deficiency is the passing attack, which was pretty lackluster with Trevor Knight at quarterback. They have a solid - albeit not great - ground game and with LSU missing Kendell Beckwith that could be a spot for the Aggies to exploit. S&P+ has LSU as a five point favorite and that seems about right. LSU is the better team, but down one of their best defensive players and Leonard Fournette. Plus they just lost a trip to the Sugar Bowl and potentially the head coaching job for the beloved Ed Orgeron. It’ll be a weird one.