2015 Pre-season Rankings: #16 Texas A&M Aggies

SportsRatings 2015 College Football Pre-season Top 128

Texas A&M Aggies  (SEC #9; West #7)

#16	2014 Results	AP #35 USA #35	Strength:#23  Success:#26  Overall:#32
		Record: 8-5	Bowl: Beat West Virginia 45-37 (Liberty)
	2015 Outlook	Picks: AP #27 | USA #27 | Lindy's #23 | Athlon #20 | Steele #32 | ESPN #8
		Record: 8-4	Bowl odds: 94%   Playoff odds: 1%

The Aggies only play three road games this year, which should probably be against the law.

Offense 6 ret. starters	2014 Scoring Offense: #29 (raw) #11 (adjusted for opposition)
	2015 Projected Scoring Offense: #19 (adjusted)

Is Kyle Allen really better than Kenny Hill was? We'll find out as Allen will be full-time starter—as long as he holds off the true freshman breathing down his neck.

Passing Game	2014 Passing Rank: #12 (raw) #9 (adjusted)	2014 Sacks Allowed (raw): #64
	2015 Projected Passing Rank: #17 (adjusted)	2015 Sacks Allowed (proj.): #81

Kenny Hill (2,649 yards, 23 TDs, 8 int) started with a bang against South Carolina and the "Kenny Trill" hype was born. Ultimately, however, he was replaced by Kyle Allen (1,322 yards, 16:7) and Hill transferred. Most of last year's top targets are back other than #2 Malcome Kennedy (611 yards). #1 Josh Reynolds (842 yards, 13 TDs) returns with #3 Speedy Noil (583), and Ricky Seals-Jones and Edward Pope who both topped 450 yards. The offensive line looks a bit weaker so pass protection may be more of an issue. Despite replacing him, Allen wasn't significantly better than Hill who had a better completion rate (67% to 61%) and yards-per-attempt. We look for good numbers but maybe not quite as good as the two had combined. Allen had to battle true freshman Kyler Murray before being named starter; if he ever stumbles against the killer SEC schedule, he'd better watch his back, too.

Rushing

2014 Rushing Rank: #84 (raw) #62 (adjusted)

2015 Projected Rushing Rank: #87 (adj.)

The Aggies had two top rushers in 2014. Tra Carson (581 yards) is back while Tray Williams (560) is not. Meanwhile #3 Brandon Williams (379) is moving to the defense, and #4 was Kenny Hill (156 yards). The offensive line had six main starters and three are back: Senior center Mike Matthews, Joseph Cheek, and Germain Ifedi. Losing 1st round draft pick Cedric Ogbuehi is what makes the line weaker, and along with the losses at running back rushing yardage may drop. Kyle Allen isn't the runner than Hill was, either.

2014 Adjusted Stats:	Rush Defense: #105    Pass Defense  per-game: #48   Per-attempt: #46
Defense 6 ret. starters	'14 Scoring Defense: #80 (raw) #46 (adjusted)	'14 sacks: #28	'14 picks: #123
	'15 Projected Scoring Defense: #40 (adjusted)	'15 sacks: #13	'15 picks: #115

Rush defense is where the Aggies need help, and at least in the front four things should get better. Myles Garrett (11.5 sacks) is among those back and the team's pass rush should be even stronger than last year (36 sacks). At linebacker they lose pretty much every starter including Justin Bass, but reserve Shaan Washington had the stats of a starter, and he is the team's leading returning tackler. The secondary loses the team's two top tacklers, Howard Matthews and Deshazor Everett. Despite this, we think the defense will be a little better this year, and the secondary has to have more than last year's 5 interceptions. Kevin Sumlin hired away LSU defensive coordinator John Chavis and that should help, too.

Special Teams/Situations

• Kicking Game:  Punter Drew Kaser (44.1 average) is back but kicker Josh Lambo (13 of 15 FG) departs.
• Return Game:  Speedy Noil is the team's main return man; he averaged 23.9 yards per kickoff return and 12.0 per punt return as a freshman.
• Turnovers projection:  We don't see a lot of difference here.

Coaching      Hot Seat Ranking: #47 (WARM)
Kevin Sumlin started his tenure here with an 11-2 record, slipped to 9-4 in '13, then to 8-5 last year, which just barely edges him into 'warm' territory. If he'd had those seasons in the opposite order he'd probably be inside the 'cool' quadrant by now.
Recruiting    2015 Recruiting Rank: #6          2014 Recruiting Rank: #7
Sumlin's latest class is fantastic, as was the previous one. In SEC, you need to sprint just to stay up with everyone else when it comes to recruiting; the class ranks 5th in the conference. The top recruits this year are defensive lineman Daylon Mack, wide receiver Christian Kirk from Arizona, and dual-threat quarterback Kyler Murray, who turned down the MLB to battle for the starting position in fall camp.

2014 Recap
Texas A&M's season started off like gangbusters with a 52-28 road upset of South Carolina, followed by a 73-3 beatdown of Lamar. The next three wins were impressive, too. During the 5-0 run Kenny "Trill" Hill was a Heisman hopeful and heir to Johnny Football's mantle. But then they faced three teams in a row that finished in the top 10 in the Committee's final rankings. The Aggies lost to Mississippi State by 18 and to Ole Miss by 15 and were bombed 59-0 at Alabama. Suddenly Kenny Hill was out of favor as quarterback and replaced by freshman Kyle Allen; Hill was suspended for 2 games and never got his job back or even took another snap. Allen was pretty awful against Louisiana-Monroe in a tight 21-16 game but led them to a huge 41-38 upset of Auburn. They lost to Missouri and LSU by about a touchdown each. In the Liberty Bowl they won a 45-37 shootout win over West Virginia.

Last year's prediction: We ranked the Aggies #26, and you can argue as to whether that was too high or too low but we got their 7-5 record correct. On the schedule chart we picked them as favorites in 6 games; we didn't have them beating South Carolina or Auburn, but gave them Missouri instead. We predicted a drop in the passing game for losing Johnny Manziel and Mike Adams, but it was the running game that suffered instead.

2015 Outlook

aTm 2015 schedule & forecast
9/5	Sat	vs.	Arizona State	67%	W
9/12	Sat	vs.	Ball State	97%	W
9/19	Sat	vs.	Nevada	96%	W
9/26	Sat	N	*Arkansas	41%	L
10/3	Sat	vs.	*Mississippi State	54%	W
10/17	Sat	vs.	*Alabama	39%	L
10/24	Sat	@	*Mississippi	27%	L
10/31	Sat	vs.	*South Carolina	78%	W
11/7	Sat	vs.	*Auburn	57%	W
11/14	Sat	vs.	Western Carolina	100%	W
11/21	Sat	@	*Vanderbilt	81%	W
11/28	Sat	@	*LSU	27%	L
Straight up: 8-4  Cume: 8-4  Bowl eligible: 94%

The Aggie schedule starts with a high-profile Power Five matchup with Arizona State in Houston, Texas where we give A&M the home field advantage. They should prevail there and of course in the next two vs. Ball State and Nevada.

The Arkansas game in Arlington, Texas is one of those that is "traditionally recognized" as a neutral field game (like Oklahoma-Texas in Dallas, or Georgia-Florida in Jacksonville) so we classify it as such. It's a tough game, as is the next one (Mississippi State at home) and the one after that (Alabama at home).

The numbers on those games aren't that bad, and the reason is that A&M is not playing any of them on the road. In fact, they don't play a real road game until half the season is over.

The Aggies finally leave the state of Texas to play Mississippi on October 24th. It's their toughest game along with the trip to LSU at the end of the season. They also travel to Vanderbilt for a grand total of three road games in 2015. But they still have a 3-game home stand in November where they face South Carolina, Auburn, and Western Carolina.

Getting to six wins should be easy, but beyond that it's hard to say; there are a lot of questionable outcomes. The cumulative estimate of 8-4 seems to be about right, though they're definitely not counted out of any of these contests. At the high end of their range of potential they could end up in the SEC title game, but there they'd probably have to face Georgia in Atlanta; that would be called a 'neutral field' too.

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