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Will Miami Start 5-0 If It Defeats Texas A&M?
College football schedules can be hard to project and that’s no different with the Miami Hurricanes.
Miami’s first five games of the 2023 slate will be fairly pedestrian, however. Here’s now the Canes start out.
Sep. 2 Miami of Ohio (H)
Sep. 9 Texas A&M (H)
Sep. 16 Bethune Cookman (H)
Sep. 23 Temple (A)
Sep. 30 Georgia Tech (H)
After those five games, the Miami schedule heats up with a road trip to North Carolina and a home date against Clemson. Certainly much more difficult than four of the first five contests.
The only team that possesses similar talent to Miami – from the first five games – will be Texas A&M. That’s also a team that went 8-4 in 2021 and dropped down to 5-7 in 2022. The Aggies have been wildly inconsistent.
But with the amount of talent Jimbo Fisher signed from recruiting classes in 2021 and 2022 among others, will it finally start to bolster the win-loss record for the Aggies? Possibly, but there have been some pitfalls (see below).
Here are a few of the primary points about when Miami hosts Texas A&M during the early season matchup.
When: Sep. 9
Where: Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, Fla.
Recent Meeting: Aggies defeated the Canes 17-9 on Sep 17, 2022
Neither team had the kind of 2022 season it wanted. Like A&M, Miami went 5-7 and just about anything that could go wrong did go wrong. The Aggies had the tougher off season though. That’s why this matchup has some interesting subplots, especially with the offense for the Aggies.
A&M had over 30 players at least enter the Transfer Portal. Yes, it was that bad. That’s why there should still be some expected problems in College Station. Check out these 2022 Texas A&M offensive numbers:
Number inside () indicates national ranking
Scoring: 22.8 (101)
Passing Yards: 219.4 (84)
Third down conversion rate: 35.95% (99)
Red zone conversion percentage: 89.47% (22)
Red zone touchdown percentage: 60.53% (72)
Even with a quality red zone scoring percentage, much of that ended up being field goals.
How a team with an ultra-talented Evan Stewart at wide receiver and Devon Achane at running back scored only 22.8 points per game, as well as be bad in the red zone, can be hard to define.
That’s still what A&M did. Now, Miami has a chance to place them back on that track.
Miami’s pass rush should be really good again this next season, as it piled up 37 sacks in 2022 and several talented players return to the front seven. That was good for No. 19 in the land. Going against A&M’s seemingly perpetual bad passing attack should give Miami a bit of an edge.
There’s also Miami’s backend of the defense with Kamren Kinchens and James Williams, two of the more dynamic defenders in college football at safety.
Here’s a podcast hitting a few more of the key points to this year’s big game between Miami and Texas A&M. Again, if Miami comes out victorious, it should be sitting at 5-0 at that time.
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