Football 2010 Forecasts

It's nearly August, meaning another college football season begins in about six weeks. I've been reading a few of the 2010 preview magazines to see how Texas A&M is expected to fare. Athlon has the Aggies rated 35th and Lindy has them 30th. Both magazines have four Aggie opponents ranked in their top twenties: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Texas. If TAMU wins any of those games, it would be a major upset. There are two games that should be toss-ups: Missouri (21, 34) and Texas Tech (37, 32) are ranked in the same ballpark as the Aggies in both magazines.

That leaves Stephen F. Austin, Louisiana Tech (84, 83), Florida International (118, 114), Oklahoma State (46, 39), Kansas (50,52), and Baylor (63, 67). Based strictly on preseason rankings, those six teams are the ones the Aggies would be expected to beat. Typically though, TAMU finds a way to blow at least one 'should-win' game per season. If I were predicting, I'd choose Oklahoma State as the likeliest to upset the Aggies.

If TAMU stays true to recent patterns, they'll be upset once, win one game in an upset, and split the toss-up matches. In that case, they should finish at 7-5. The final five games are brutal (Texas Tech, OU, at Baylor, Nebraska, at Texas), but three are at home. Of course, that doesn't carry as much weight as it once did.

My biggest beef with the Aggies since the last few years of Slocum's tenure has been their predictability. In most years since 1999, only one or two games each year had a surprising outcome -- the upset of Oklahoma in Slocum's last year, Franchione's loss to Baylor in the 2004 overtime game, his two wins over Texas, and Sherman's lopsided win over Texas Tech last year are good examples. I don't expect to live long enough to see TAMU consistently dominating their conference, but with luck they'll get good enough that their losses can't be predicted in July. For now, I'm calling it 7-5 with a minor bowl game. An 8-4 record or better will be a reason for dancing in the streets, but 6-6 is unfortunately also within the realm of possibility.