After making the College Football Playoff last season, the Texas A&M Aggies are simply fighting for bowl eligibility at this point. The Aggies were off a bye and in a prime spot to knock off a hot South Carolina team last week. They did 90% of the work, gaining 450+ yards, but they were only able to tally three field goals. Further, they couldn’t take advantage of South Carolina’s defense having only ten men on the field on the final possession. Now, they return home to host a Tennessee team that is starting to smell the postseason, so long as the Vols take care of business for the next three weeks. Win out, and the Vols will punch their ticket to the CFP. Lose this one, or even next week against LSU, and it starts to get seedy.
This line opened Tennessee -3 and was quickly bought down to -2.5 by perceived sharp money early in the week. I see the vision, especially with Tennessee being in somewhat of a sandwich spot between impactful home games against Kentucky and LSU. But at the same time, I also really struggle to trust Texas A&M after last week’s loss in Columbia. With only four wins and three games remaining against Tennessee, Oklahoma and Texas, the Aggies are likely staring at a missed postseason all together. Imagine telling Mario Craver and Marcel Reed they wouldn’t even make a bowl game after last season’s playoff berth, would Craver have returned to College Station?
Speaking of Reed, can you trust him against a good defense? The Vols lead the country in sacks and are top-10 in tackles for loss (CFBStats), while they average more than two takeaways per game (TeamRankings). They’re a step up in class defensively from the previous five opponents the Aggies have played, which is noteworthy considering Texas A&M is 122nd in yards per play and 86th in scoring despite playing just one top-20 scoring defense to this point (LSU). They scored six points in that game.
From a pure power ratings perspective, this number may actually be short. That said, it's not often Texas A&M is a home underdog. In fact, they’ve only been in this role at Kyle Field two times in the last three years, so I get why oddsmakers have the number where it is, and I won’t complain because it gives us an affordable money-line price on the Vols. That’s the way I’m going in this one, as I trust Tennessee’s overall product more in this particular matchup. The Vols have every preseason goal ahead of them still, whereas Texas A&M’s motivation may be a bit harder to pinpoint. With a top-10 defense and a very strong rushing attack, I’m expecting the Vols to control time of possession and win what could be a very ugly game.
Tennessee vs Texas A&M prediction: Tennessee Volunteers ML (-135) at the time of publishing. Playable to -150 or -3 (-110).
