Fun With Numbers: Auburn

Howdy and welcome back to Fun With Numbers, where we dive into what advanced stats say about Texas A&M and their upcoming opponent. We were a little delayed this season with the Aggies playing a couple of tune-up games first, but now both the good guys and their opponents have played at least 3 games, so we can start trusting a little more in the stats we’re seeing. As a reminder, if you have no idea what advanced stats are, or what any of this stuff means, you may want to check out a glossary like the one here to familiarize yourself with some of the basics. Things like the SP+ and FEI are opponent adjusted, and while the other basic stats are not, they do exclude garbage time. Let’s get to it.

What Do We Know?

The Aggies enter the game 3-0 following a bye week and face an Auburn team that’s coming off their first loss of the season, a 24-17 battle in Norman. This is the first of a 3-game home stretch for the Ags, who have a shiny Top 10 ranking and a lot of expectations mounting after their last second win against Notre Dame in South Bend. Vegas has A&M as a 6.5 point favorite, with Bill Connelly’s SP+ predicting a 5 point Aggie win and the FEI predicting a 6 point Aggie win. So everyone expects a tight one at Kyle Field this Saturday, let’s dive in a little deeper.

Aggie Offense vs Tiger Defense

Few things in the last decade of Aggie Football have been as heartwarming as the early returns on this offense. A revamped receiving corps, a veteran OL, a confident QB, and Year 2 of Collin Klein calling plays have made a real difference. It’s not perfect yet, the stable of quality backs hasn’t proven to be AS dangerous as you might expect early in the season, and Reed’s ability to get the ball to his guys out in space quickly is sometimes overshadowed by his inaccuracy. But the explosive potential they’ve shown so far, paired with Reed’s ability to avoid pressure, makes this group so much more exciting to watch than anything since the early Sumlin days.

They face a stout defense this week though, led mostly by a really strong DL that controls the line of scrimmage and brings pressure on opposing QBs. The back end of this Tiger Defense is a lot less stable though, they’re prone to giving up big plays both on the ground and through the air and despite a fairly experienced secondary, opponents are having an easy enough time throwing the ball.

Aggie Defense vs Tiger Offense

Through 3 games in 2025, the Aggie defense has been a pretty mixed bag. They’ve been very good at forcing teams into Passing Downs (7th in the country), but have obviously had issues with opposing teams getting loose on the ground for big yardage. They’ve been fairly efficient, and also good at creating havoc in the Front 7 (despite replacing a lot of production on the DL), but when teams do make it down the field, they tend to score on this group (Aggies rank 120th in Points/Opportunity and 92nd in Red Zone Scoring Percentage).

It’s Year 3 for Coach Freeze, and the Auburn Offense has yet to really find its footing. It’s improved every year in the SP+, and there are a lot of pieces to like, but I think their showing last week against OU proves they still have a ways to go. A receiving corps of Coleman, Simmons, and Singleton feels like it should be far more explosive than what they’ve been so far, and Arnold is far more to blame for last week’s insane sack count than the offensive line. That said, Arnold’s legs are going to continue to be a problem for defenses that struggle with containment (hello, Aggies) and the running back play has been pretty good so far. The potential is there, they just haven’t quite been able to put it together yet.

So What’s the Verdict?

Another week, another round of “This is the real test” posts on the apps and message boards. And I get it. It’s possible that this Auburn defense ends up being better than the 2025 version of the Fighting Irish defense, and a mobile QB with athletic WRs should scare any defense, especially one like the Aggies where they’ve shown some vulnerability on the back end. And on the one hand, I’m a little concerned about the A&M offense stalling for essentially the first time all season the same way Oklahoma’s did (and not being able to rely on some questionably legal trick play to get points on the board) while the defense can’t get off the field against an efficient rushing attack. 

My prediction: For me though, I trust these receivers and Reed to make plays happen against a secondary that has been extremely soft all season and even though getting double-digit sacks is probably a pipe dream… I think Arnold’s timing is still off. If Elko can properly gameplan to keep him in the pocket like Venables did, I don’t think he will suddenly start hitting big plays down the field. I also think there is a chance special teams plays a big part in this one, the Aggie return team is dangerous and Auburn has had issues. 

I like the Aggies to win 30-23. 

Final Notes

Glad to be back here at GBH, and hope to keep posting as the season goes on. Please see the below sites where my stats come from.

• Bcftoys.com for Brian Fremeau’s FEI data and other fun projects from him.
• ESPN.com is the home for all of Bill Connelly’s SP+ info (as well as the FPI rankings). You’ll need to subscribe to ESPN+ for most of his stuff these days.
• CollegeFootballData.com is a great site for data and charts that you can download and play with on your own time, in case Fun With Numbers isn’t filling that statistical void in your life. Most of my data comes from here.
• And finally my blog can be found here, in case you’re not getting enough of my writing.

Questions? Comments? Criticisms? You know where to leave ‘em.