It's ok. We earned our right to get a shot in the playoffs. From here on out critics don't matter. We will get a chance to prove it on the field.

Ole Miss gets 1 game against Georgia and no one chirps about their schedule. It is very similar to A&Ms (common: Arkansas, LSU, Florida, South Carolina, Miss State). The difference this year is they play @Georgia and @Oklahoma. While A&M plays @ND and @Texas.

A&M also had Auburn and @Missouri on the schedule while Ole Miss' next best game was @Kentucky. They didn't challenge themselves out of conference. All of the chirping about A&Ms schedule is because they didn't play Bama or Georgia and Texas didn't have the year everyone expected.

Who cares.
It'll all play out, regardless.

The Aggie SEC opponents were 16-42 in league play. Three were so bad their coach was fired mid season. These are facts. Another fact, A&M has a great defense, and Texas will not be able to stop their offense.

There are two camps that do this.
1. Other teams' fans do it to rationalize why they are behind A&M.
2. "Influencers" that do nothing but create online arguments that drive clicks and get you to make this post

BTHOtu

There are too many talking heads and social media outlets to litter the airways with opinion and conjecture.

Until a game is played, no one really knows. Why preseason rankings are a farce each year as no one knows and only base it on blue bloods, what a team did the prior season and who's paying behind the scenes.

Unfortunately, although we took care of biz and beat teams home and away and several were 'preseason ranked' above us, we have a facade moniker being driven by many non-Ags (1st half of USCe pushed that narrative, not stopping piggies defensively pushed that narrative as ND destroyed them, not hanging a lot more points on Aub to win that game convincingly, etc). There are all the same type arguments we'd make vs. any of our foes as they are spec and eye test subjectiveness.

We have to win on Friday...or all the naysayers get to thump their chests with I told you so and CFP gets to slap us down as we aren't blue boods.

BTHO tu!

Last year the same group of SEC opponents were 31-33

Win Friday and you have the talking heads in a spot.

They can't call sip a poor win without taking away media darling Ohio States only quality OOC win

I checked Sagarin yesterday. The Big10 and Big 12 both have 8 teams with power ratings below 75. The SEC has one. OSU and Indiana have schedule strength around 40 and ours is about 15. The argument is invalid.

RoadkillBBQ said:

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Ignore them. The Ags played and beat every SEC conference opponent put in front of them and the conference front office dictated the schedule. The Ags did not cherry pick them. That's on the other teams to get better. I welcome anyone to play any SEC full season schedule and remain unbeaten if they think it's so easy. The playoffs are quickly approaching and the best of the best will soon be matched up.

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only problem with that theory is last year everyone on here believed Texas had a weak SEC schedule and wouldn't say anything remotely close to that.

Fact is no, we have not played or beat anyone in the top half of the SEC standings.
That's also why I fear if we do lose on Friday, the committee would drop us significantly in the rankings

Just Tired said:

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...rationalize that #1 strength of record? your cheap shots do not compute.

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By understanding what SOR measures.

They're throwing everything they can at A&M to downplay our record. They would not be treating Alabama, tu, Georgia or LSU the same way if they had done the exact same thing, with the exact same teams, same exact wins/scores and plays.

It pisses me off too, but we just have to keep winning. And shut them all the **** up.

When looking at the bracket, #3 is precisely where I want to be currently.

If A&M wins a playoff game, non of the talk matters. If A&M doesn't win a playoff game, everything they said all of a sudden matters

Aggie Dad 26 said:

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If A&M wins a playoff game, non of the talk matters. If A&M doesn't win a playoff game, everything they said all of a sudden matters

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If we don't win a playoff game, we are who they say we are. If we win the NC, we are who are record says we are.

Barnacle said:

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When looking at the bracket, #3 is precisely where I want to be currently.

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But we probably won't finish at 3

If we win out and win the sec we'll go to 2

If we lose the seccg we'll probably fall to 4 or 5

If we lose to tu we'll probably fall between 5-7

The reality is that our SEC schedule was easier than others. None of that matters if we win in the playoffs. If we don't, then it probably means something.

Luigi Vampa said:

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See, what they meant was that SOR was going to start being factored in NEXT year.

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Correct. I mean, nobody could have foretold that this year there would be a cinderella story out of the Big 10 and that the SOR would lower their ranking & the big #1 vs #2 CCG advertisement windfall of the century.

****'em!!! Show them our schedule for the first 12 years in the conference.

If you beat a team, it hurts your SOR because that team has one more loss than it would have otherwise.
If you lose to a team, it helps your SOR because it gives that team one more win.
Kind of a Catch22.

A&M being ranked 2 is important once we beat tu. If we lost to gerogia and indiana loses to ohio state in the championships it will make the difference of ranked 4th or 5th.

This argument is really important.

Mega Lops said:

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You don't need to argue with anyone. Arguing is the most unproductive use of time in the world. It's a tool for women.

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College football "my team is tougher than your team" arguments are the worst.

AWP 97 said:

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The reality is that our SEC schedule was easier than others. None of that matters if we win in the playoffs. If we don't, then it probably means something.

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Alabama beat Missouri by 3. We demolished Missouri. And it had nothing to do with Missouri's QB being out. They had no chance against our offense.

Alabama needed a Sellers meltdown in the 4th Q to win against SC. That game was all but wrapped up with the only chance for Alabama being a low probability turnover. They are lucky to have beat SC.

Alabama needed the entire game to beat LSU by all in a low scoring affair, AT HOME. We demolished LSU.

Judging us and Alabama against similar opponents, one can't make the case Alabama would have been better with our schedule. One can easily make the case we would be similar and likely better with Alabama's.

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Georgia needed all 4 quarters to beat Auburn after going into halftime losing. They did the same with Florida, barely squeaking out a win. They handled Miss St similar to how we did. Again, judging against similar opponents, at best Georgia and us could be considered equal. More likely, Georgia would not be undefeated with our schedule.

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Ole Miss won against Arkansas by a similar margin to us, except they were at home. They squeeked a win over an LSU team we demolished. They did handle SC fairly easily. Florida gave them all they could handle. Same as Georgia.. at best, you could consider us equal.


Saying we played an easy schedule because we didn't play Alabama, Georgia, and Ole Miss.. all teams who AT BEST compare equally to us against similar opponents, is just very very poor reasoning. I wish we could have played Alabama. THEY are the ones who were lucky they didn't have to play us.