Jarrett Stidham (8) and Auburn are fresh off a bye and searching for a big road win in College Station. Photo Credit: John Reed-USA TODAY Sports
Neither Auburn nor Texas A&M has been able to win on its home turf since the schools began playing each other as members of the SEC West in 2012.
Before that, the Tigers and Aggies never met in either program’s home stadium. They played in Dallas in a 1911 regular-season game and in the 1986 Cotton Bowl.
Conventional wisdom suggests the trend will continue this week as No. 16 Auburn travels to play Texas A&M at Kyle Field on Saturday. The Tigers (6-2, 4-1 SEC) are a two-touchdown favorite and it’s easy to see why.
Auburn has been consistently good this season despite close losses to Clemson and LSU. The Tigers have a stable presence at quarterback, now that Jarrett Stidham has settled in, and a quality running game.
Auburn also had two weeks to prepare following a 52-20 throttling of Arkansas. Head coach Gus Malzahn is 6-0 record after open dates in his tenure at Auburn.
“The thing that I like right now is we’re healthier and we had an off week to get a little fresher,” Malzahn said during his Tuesday press conference. “(During an open date you) look at your team and either break tendencies or build around strengths. The bottom line is the players and the players respond and do what they’re asked to do.”
Meanwhile, Texas A&M (5-3, 3-2) has vacillated between looking like a team on the rise and a program struggling to keep from falling apart.
The Aggies’ season-opening flop against UCLA, when they blew a 34-point lead in the second half and lost to the Bruins, has hung over them for a while. From there, Texas A&M righted itself and appeared to be gaining momentum after winning at Florida for the first time.
But all of that flew out the window last weekend when then-unranked Mississippi State controlled the game and handed the Aggies a 35-14 loss at home.
It’s unclear whether Texas A&M will bring back head coach Kevin Sumlin next season. But Sumlin is staying positive.
“I care about what these guys in this building think first,” Sumlin said at his Tuesday press conference.
“I think they’ve shown a resiliency before. I think they’ve shown toughness before. I think they’ve shown the ability to finish before. Nobody in that locker room Saturday night was happy. As we got back to work (Monday), the attitude and how these guys have approached things this whole year lead me to believe that’s still who we are. There’s a bigger body of work for doing that than there was for Saturday night.”
On Saturday night, Texas A&M needs to make it a rough return to Texas for Stidham.
He began his career at Baylor, starting three games as a true freshman. But Stidham, a native of Stephenville, Texas, bolted from the Bears during their sexual assault scandal and ended up at Auburn.
Stidham has completed 66 percent of his passes for 1,728 yards, with eight touchdowns and three interceptions. Those numbers aren’t quite as good as his stats during his brief stint at Baylor in 2015, but they’re good enough to make the Tigers’ offense click in the SEC.
Sumlin bristled on Tuesday when asked why the Aggies backed off recruiting Stidham when he left Baylor. Instead, the Texas A&M coach had praise for the Texas QB product.
“Jarrett is a fabulous player and I’m sure he’s looking forward to coming back to Texas to play,” Sumlin said.
Auburn’s top priority likely will be keeping Stidham on his feet; he has been sacked 21 times. The Aggies’ defense boasts the second-highest sacks total in the nation with 30.
But the Tigers have the running game to keep Texas A&M from going all out after the QB. Auburn running back Kerryon Johnson is second in the SEC with 723 rushing yards, leading the conference with 14 rushing touchdowns. The Tigers will be without second-leading rusher Kamryn Pettway, out for an extended period of time because of a shoulder injury, so Kam Martin likely will pick up the slack.
Last week, Mississippi State controlled the game against Texas A&M by steadily moving the chains with its rushing offense. That could be the blueprint for Auburn as well.
But Malzahn doesn’t see anything coming easy, whatever the trends are in this matchup.
“You’ve got to expect each week you’re going to get that team’s best effort,” Malzahn said. “That’s what we expect out of A&M. You’re talking about a very talented team overall. You turn the film on, you can see that within the first five minutes.”
