It seems like the national media and pundits have the attention span of a gnat. Style points, quick strike offenses and gaudy stats are great but they have lost the ability to evaluate teams that are ball control and win by controlling the line of scrimmage and tempo of the game. If you take the time and slow down what is happening at the line of scrimmage you can see an offensive line that is gashing the defense and a defensive front seven that blows up play after play. This is similar to the way Alabama and LSU used to win games for decades and it still works today. People who say that we would get blown out by OSU, ND and Clemson (and even Alabama to an extent) need to look at the film of these teams. If you do, I think you will see that A&M would be much more competitive than they are given credit for.

Better than not winning. ND has ugly wins too, while we are at it!

Notre Dame beat a TERRIBLE Duke team, 27-13 at home...game was 17-13 with 11:00 to go in the game.

Notre Dame also beat a TERRIBLE Louisville team, 12-7 at home...Louisville had a chance to take the lead with 8:00 to go in the game.

Clemson somehow only beat Boston College by 6 points, 34-28...with 3:00 to go in the game, BC was in Clemson territory with an opportunity to take the lead.

Ohio State's wins are over Nebraska, Penn State, Rutgers, and Michigan State (who are all terrible), and Indiana (who is pretty good.) Even at that, they only beat PSU by 13 and Indiana by 7. It's not like they've gone out an run all over every team they've played.

Alabama looks unstoppable.

And Florida, outside of their game with us, has pretty much curb-stomped everyone they've played on their weak-ish schedule.

TLDR - Every contender has their hickeys and the race is for 2nd place behind 'Bama.

Nobody is saying we would get demolished.

Any statistician will say that margin of victory and how early the game was decided have high predictive value.

Now, the difference between beating a bad opponent by 21 vs 31 is far less significant than beating a good opponent by 3 as opposed to 7 or 10 or 14.

Good thing national media doesn't select the CFP

The thing that gets me is the discussion from the media that Florida should be in front of A&M. This week, I've heard many of the talking heads note that Florida is playing better than us and they play with style. Not sure what that means but Florida just beat a 2-5 team that had previously lost five straight. They won 31-19. The Ags beat a 5-3 team by the score of 31-20. Additionally, these folks will overlook head-to-head but will mention the fact that Florida can't run the ball and doesn't play exceptional defense yet still claim they play with style.

I get the feeling that if God himself offered that he would ensure the Ags would win every game going forward, but each win would be ugly and by no more than 8 points; then some of y'all would say 'no deal'.

Canyon99 said:

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The thing that gets me is the discussion from the media that Florida should be in front of A&M. This week, I've heard many of the talking heads note that Florida is playing better than us and they play with style. Not sure what that means but Florida just beat a 2-5 team that had previously lost five straight. They won 31-19. The Ags beat a 5-3 team by the score of 31-20. Additionally, these folks will overlook head-to-head but will mention the fact that Florida can't run the ball and doesn't play exceptional defense yet still claim they play with style.

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It's because they LOOK better, don't you know that??!

My Name Is Judge said:

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Good thing national media doesn't select the CFP

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But game control (margin of victory) is a key metric for the CFP committee. Our lose to Bama was a major negative in GC and we should have curb stomped Vandy but we didnt.