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<\/p>\nTexas A&M is 11-0, ranked No. 3 and on a glide path to the College Football Playoff. In the modern era, only the 1992 season \u2014 when the Aggies finished the regular season 12-0 \u2014 comes close to matching what they\u2019ve accomplished so far.<\/p>\n
These are the best of times in College Station.<\/p>\n
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And yet, as the Aggies approach the final week of the regular season, their standing among the national championship contenders feels fragile. They\u2019ve had to grind out close games, even against teams like Auburn and Arkansas that shouldn\u2019t be in their stratosphere. They fell behind South Carolina by 27 points before storming back in the second half for an improbable victory. And in the SEC, they drew a schedule this year that allowed them to dodge heavy hitters like Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma and Ole Miss.<\/p>\n
That all changes Friday night in Austin, when Texas A&M and Texas play for just the second time since the Aggies left the Big 12 in 2011, temporarily ending a rivalry that had been played uninterrupted since 1915.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you watch the speed of the game relative to the speed of other games,\u201d Aggies coach Mike Elko told reporters this week, \u201ceverybody seems to be running a step or two faster in this game because of how much it means.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an interesting question where this one ranks in significance among their 119 previous meetings. Only eight times have they met when both teams were ranked in the top 20, which automatically makes this among the best matchups in the rivalry\u2019s history. At the same time, how can you define the stakes when Texas A&M is playoff-bound regardless of result while Texas \u2014 currently 8-3 and ranked No. 16 by the CFP committee \u2014 is probably too far back to get into the bracket even if they win?<\/p>\n
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\u201cI like that we get an opportunity to stand alone on the Friday after Thanksgiving,\u201d Texas coach Steve Sarkisian told reporters this week. \u201cThe fact that we’re playing on Friday night with all the eyes of college football on it, and really the football world on this game, I think this game deserves that.\u201d<\/p>\n
But this time, the eyes of the football world are only partly going to be on the Longhorns.<\/p>\n
Friday night is mostly about Texas A&M. How good are the Aggies really? We\u2019re about to find out.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re 11-0; that shows maturity,\u201d Elko said. \u201cWe found a way to be successful each week; that shows maturity. We’ll see how it plays out Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Texas got the better of Texas A&M in last year’s rivalry game as the Longhorns won 17-7 and Arch Manning had a rushing TD. (Tim Warner\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
(Tim Warner via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to say an 11-0 SEC team is still a bit of a mystery box, but if you stripped the logos off their uniforms, critics might detect a whiff of fraudulence. Are the Aggies just extremely good at winning close games, or have they gotten to 11-0 by playing like an 8-3 team that\u2019s due for a regression at the business end of the season?<\/p>\n
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Just consider:<\/p>\n
– In their 41-40 win at Notre Dame back on Sept. 13, Texas A&M needed an 11-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Marcel Reed on fourth-and-goal with just 13 seconds left.<\/p>\n
– Texas A&M held Auburn to just 177 yards but was on a knife\u2019s edge for the entire fourth quarter, unable to put the game away until the final minute.<\/p>\n
– The Aggies basically traded Arkansas score-for-score before holding on for a 45-42 win.<\/p>\n
– And in the South Carolina game, Texas A&M needed the biggest comeback in school history to avoid a loss at home against a 4-7 team.<\/p>\n
While every championship team is going to have some moments of uncertainty, the Aggies are truly just a few plays away from having three or four losses. Should we interpret that as a credit or a red flag?<\/p>\n
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None of this is a criticism of what the Aggies have accomplished. They won the games. They put themselves in a remarkable position. Ranked No. 19 in the preseason, nobody could have expected them to get this far.<\/p>\n
But without having matched up against the SEC\u2019s elite this season, it\u2019s impossible to say whether they\u2019re really the best team in the league.<\/p>\n
Now they come to Austin, playing an underperforming Texas team ranked preseason No. 1 that would love nothing more than to ruin the Aggies\u2019 perfect season and almost certainly knock them out of the SEC championship game.<\/p>\n
Will the Aggies keep breaking new ground, or will a loss foreshadow a postseason unraveling?<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe biggest challenge in this game, and rivalry games in general, the emotions are going to be high,\u201d Elko said. \u201cThe energy is going to be high. Through all of that, you’ve got to find a laser-focus to do the things that you have to do to go out and be successful play-in and play-out. Sometimes you can want something so bad, it almost blinds you. You have to be really careful of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
As much as Texas A&M wants to win this game, it doesn\u2019t have to. You could even argue their national championship chances would be better served by losing, missing the SEC title game and potentially knocking them out of a first-round playoff bye and instead hosting a first-round game in College Station.<\/p>\n
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But that\u2019s only true if they\u2019re good enough. Right now, we just don\u2019t know enough about Texas A&M to say how they\u2019d stack up against an Ohio State or even an Indiana.<\/p>\n
The good news? It isn\u2019t 1992 anymore. That season, the Aggies ran through a weak Southwest Conference to get to 12-0. Their only win over a ranked opponent was Week 1 against Stanford, which went on to win the Pac-12.<\/p>\n
As a result, the Aggies were stuck at No. 4 in the polls behind unbeaten Alabama and Miami as well as Florida State, which suffered their only loss to the Hurricanes by a field goal. On New Year\u2019s Day, it really didn\u2019t matter what happened in the Cotton Bowl against Notre Dame because, with Alabama and Miami facing off in the Sugar Bowl, there was no path to a national title. The Aggies weren\u2019t competitive against Notre Dame in a 28-3 loss, so there was no real talk of a snub.<\/p>\n
Now, thanks to the CFP, we\u2019ll find out whether Texas A&M is a schedule-fueled mirage or the realest of deals.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s going to be a month-long process of discovery for the Aggies. Friday night\u2019s rivalry game in Austin is just the beginning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas A&M is 11-0, ranked No. 3 and on a glide path to the College Football Playoff. In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9551,3230,3127,4055,3129,2926,9910,9915,8734,27,3042,29,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-67678","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-aggies","9":"tag-arch-manning","10":"tag-arkansas","11":"tag-marcel-reed","12":"tag-ohio-state","13":"tag-oklahoma","14":"tag-ole-miss","15":"tag-south-carolina","16":"tag-stanford","17":"tag-texas","18":"tag-texas-am","19":"tag-texas-headlines","20":"tag-texas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}