Week 11 SEC Primer: It’s time for Texas A&M to put the November blues to bed

Everything you need to know about the Week 11 SEC slate, all in one place. (A bold • represents Matt Hinton’s pick ATS.)

Game of the Week: Texas A&M (-6.5) at Missouri

It’s November. Texas A&M is one of the hottest teams in America. The weather has not quite turned in Texas, but for Aggie fans there is a chill in the air.

Historically, this has been the cruelest point on the calendar for A&M, especially when the team is good — or thinks it is. In 13 years in the SEC, the Aggies are a sobering 15-23 in November conference games, with losing records under all 3 head coaches in that span. As a ranked team, the track record is even worse: 7-13 in November conference games, with 6 of those 7 wins coming either with Johnny Manziel as the starting quarterback (2012-13) or amid the weekly chaos of the 2020 pandemic season. Aside from a 7-overtime thriller against LSU in 2018 (an all-time classic of a game in which there was nothing in particular at stake), almost nothing that has happened after setting the clocks back has been worth remembering.

No team has reinforced the trend more dramatically than the 2024 edition, which was in a similar position on Nov. 1 as the ’25 team finds itself a year later. At that point, A&M had just cracked the AP top 10 on the strength of a 7-game winning streak, including an emphatic, 38-23 beatdown of LSU on the last Saturday of October. From that point on, they dropped all 3 of their November SEC dates against South Carolina, Auburn and Texas, and went on to lose to USC in the Las Vegas Bowl, for good measure. The most promising season in nearly a decade ended indistinguishably from the kind of bog-standard 8-win campaign the Aggies have spent umpteen millions to put behind them.

All of which is to say, if there’s any team or fan base that does not need to be reminded just how dangerous it is to take anything for granted this time of year, it’s Texas A&M.

But this year is not last year, and there are plenty of reasons to believe the current edition is operating well beyond the gravitational pull of any lingering curse. The Aggies are 1 of only 4 remaining unbeaten teams in the country, off to the best start in College Station since 1992. They debuted at No. 3 in the CFP committee’s first weekly rankings, A&M’s highest position ever. They own the widest point differential in SEC play (+72) by a mile. Their 2 best wins to date, a 41-40 comeback at Notre Dame in Week 3 and a 49-25 humiliation of LSU in Week 9, have both come on the road. Quarterback Marcel Reed, a wild card during last year’s slide, now qualifies as a steady vet with 16 career starts. (Not for nothing, he’s also the first opening-day starter at A&M to make it this far into the season without being injured or benched since Kellen Mond in 2020.) The starting o-line boasts at least 4 future pros and a combined 155 career starts. The defense has allowed a grand total of 8 3rd-down conversions in 5 conference games. They’re healthy, balanced and on a roll.

Are they championship material, at last? That’s what we’re about to find out. As much as A&M has looked the part so far, road trips to Missouri and Texas — both aspiring CFP contenders, however distant their chances with 2 losses apiece — are hardly speed bumps in the home stretch. If this has the makings of the best team to come through College Station in a while, well, the locals have heard that one before. Since 2010, the A&M has risen into the top 10 10 times and finished unranked in 7 of them. These Aggies can’t really claim anything until they go where their underachieving predecessors haven’t been.

When Mizzou has the ball: Can the Tigers protect Matt Zollers?

Ideally, Zollers would be on the redshirt track. Instead, he’s going straight into the deep end following an ankle injury to starting QB Beau Pribula in the Tigers’ 17-10 loss at Vanderbilt in Week 9. (Eli Drinkwitz indicated this week that he’s cautiously optimistic about Pribula’s recovery despite initial fears the injury was season-ending. If he does play again in 2025, though, it won’t be on Saturday.) Mizzou’s original QB2, redshirt junior Sam Horn, was already on the shelf after fracturing his leg in the opener.

That left Zollers, a 4-star freshman who had yet to take a meaningful snap before coming on in the 3rd quarter against Vandy. He finished a respectable 14-for-24 passing for 138 yards with 1 touchdown against the ‘Dores, and nearly pulled off the comeback on a Hail Mary that came up a half-yard short of the end zone as time expired. His lone turnover, a fumble caused by a blitzing Vandy defender who arrived in the backfield so quickly he literally took the handoff from Zollers on a botched zone read, was a costly one, setting up the go-ahead (ultimately winning) touchdown; it also wasn’t really the young quarterback’s fault.

At any rate, Missouri obviously does not want to put its fledgling QB in the crosshairs of a ferocious Texas A&M pass rush any more than it absolutely has to. That should mean an extra-large serving of the SEC’s leading rusher, Ahmad Hardy, who has logged 20+ carries in 6 of 7 games vs. FBS opponents. Hardy needs 63 yards to become Mizzou’s latest 1,000-yard rusher. Between Hardy and Jamal Roberts, the Tigers have the horses for a 4-quarter grind, or for as long as the down-and-distance and the scoreboard are in their favor. The question mark is whether the lanky Zollers has enough mobility to contribute on the ground himself. If not, Pribula’s legs may be missed as much as his arm.

When A&M has the ball: Can Missouri heat up Marcel Reed?

Reed is not untouchable, but he has been arguably the best-protected quarterback in the SEC, facing pressure on just 24.8% of his total drop-backs for the season, per Pro Football Focus; that includes a league-low 5 sacks, 3 of them coming in the Aggies’ Week 5 win over Auburn. His starting left tackle, 5th-year senior Trey Zuhn III, boasts the best PFF pass-blocking grade in the nation (94.3).

On the other hand, Missouri’s pass rush has been a strength. Georgia transfer Damon Wilson II, a former 5-star, has been significantly more productive off the edge than any of his former teammates in Athens; he and fellow bookend Zion Young have combined for more QB pressures (63) than any other pass-rushing combo in the SEC, including 10 sacks. They memorably harassed Alabama’s Heisman favorite Ty Simpson in Week 7, a performance that led to Bama right tackle Wilkin Formby getting (briefly) benched as a result.

Of course, getting a shot at Reed is one thing; actually finishing him off is another, as LSU learned the hard way.

X-factor: Texas A&M WR Mario Craver

Craver, a sophomore transfer from Mississippi State, was big-play machine in the nonconference schedule, accounting for 443 yards and 4 touchdowns in the Aggies’ first 3 games. His electric, 207-yard performance at Notre Dame set off the breakout siren, and remains the only 200-yard receiving game by an SEC player this season.

It’s been a little quiet since. Not that Craver is a forgotten man, by any means: He has 20 receptions in SEC play on 28 targets, including gains of 42 yards against Mississippi State and 67 yards against Florida. Still, after setting an All-America pace in September his production has been more in line with what you’d expect from “the other guy” opposite NC State transfer KC Concepcion. He hasn’t scored since the Notre Dame game, and has just 1 reception on attempts of 20+ air yards (the big gain against the Gators); his average depth of target over the past 2 games is less than 5 yards. For a diminutive slot type who does most of his damage after the catch, “depth of target” is not the most relevant stat. But as the Aggies begin to think bigger than one week to the next, the version of the offense that makes them a real threat in the postseason is the one that features Craver going off.

The verdict …

Beau Pribula’s absence tips Mizzou’s chances from intriguing upset bid to long shot. A&M is not dominant in any single facet, but it is solid across the board and more than capable of adjusting to any type of game it finds itself in. This week, that’s likely to be a slugfest as the Tigers emphasize controlling the clock and keeping their freshman quarterback out of must-pass situations for as long as possible. Fine with the Aggies. They’re not going to get pushed around on defense, and they’ve yet to be made one-dimensional on offense. They might run a punt back, given half a chance. And if they do manage to force Zollers to stand and deliver from the pocket, it could get ugly fast.

Prediction: • Texas A&M 26 | Missouri 16

LSU at Alabama (-10.0)

The good news for LSU: Jalen Milroe is in the NFL. Milroe dominated both the 2023 and ’24 entries in the rivalry, running wild in 2 of the most memorable performances of his career. He accounted for 8 rushing touchdowns across both games, in which Bama outscored LSU by a combined 84-41 and slammed the door on the Tigers’ Playoff chances both seasons.

The bad news for LSU: Literally everything else happening right now. Losers in 3 of their past 4, the Tigers are finished as CFP contenders, just fired head coach Brian Kelly, and spent their week off descending into a cajun-fried reality-TV soap opera from the governor on down. Between a newly installed university president, a hastily promoted athletic director whose job title changed multiple times in 48 hours, and partisan politics spilling into full public view, the chaos in Baton Rouge is inescapable. There’s no clear chain of command when it comes to hiring the next coach, and, at this point, even less apparent interest in anything that happens on the field between now and then. The team still has a season to finish; the rest of the state seems pretty much over it.

The state of the locker room under interim head coach Frank Wilson is anyone’s guess, but those are hardly the vibes you want to carry into Tuscaloosa, where Alabama has been its usual domineering self. On the road, the Tide have merely survived; including the 31-17 debacle at Florida State in the opener, they’ve actually been outscored on the road for the season, 98-97. At home, on the other hand, they’ve won with plenty of room to spare, putting away Wisconsin, Vanderbilt and Tennessee by 16+ points apiece. As far as LSU is concerned, playing anywhere other than Tiger Stadium after the toxic ending to their wipeout Week 9 loss at the hands of Texas A&M might qualify as a blessing in disguise. But there is no venue in America right now where the stench of dysfunction would not follow them in. The Tide roll to their 3rd consecutive win in the series.

Prediction: • Alabama 35 | LSU 17

Georgia (-8.5) at Mississippi State

Eight games in, Georgia’s pass rush remains shockingly MIA. The Bulldogs rank dead last in the SEC and 132nd nationally (!) in sacks, averaging a single sack per game. (The previous low in Kirby Smart‘s tenure: 1.71 sacks per game in 2018.) And what little pressure they have managed to generate, they’ve had to get creative to do it: All but 1 of those 7 sacks have been credited to inside linebackers CJ Allen, Chris Cole and Raylen Wilson, all of whom spend more time in coverage than rushing the passer. As for the full-time edge rushers, as a rotation they’ve somehow yet to record a single sack; the most disruptive of the bunch, junior Gabe Harris Jr., has just 10 QB pressures, per PFF, which is tied for 58th in the conference. You have to click on “next page” in the database before you find his name.

Mississippi State QB Blake Shapen is one of the league’s more gettable quarterbacks, having gone down 26 times in six games vs. Power 4 opponents. Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith aren’t walking through that door, but come on, somebody on that front has got to have some juice.

Prediction: • Georgia 34 | Mississippi State 22

Auburn at Vanderbilt (-6.5)

Vanderbilt’s offense is plodding by design, averaging just 58.2 plays per game in SEC play; what they lack in volume, the Commodores make up for in efficiency. But a little urgency suited Diego Pavia just fine in last week’s 34-31 loss at Texas, which was 34-10 at the end of the 3rd quarter. Back against the wall, Pavia led 3 4th-quarter touchdown drives in comeback mode — one of which consisted of a single play vs. busted coverage — finishing with career highs for drop-backs (49), attempts (38), completions (27) and passing yards (365) while salvaging just enough respectability in defeat to keep the ‘Dores from being laughed out of the Playoff race. If they’d managed to pounce on a fateful onside kick before the ball skittered out of bounds, there was very little doubt by that point that Pavia would have put the kicker in position to send the game to overtime and kept on going from there.

Maybe they should open the throttle a little bit before falling behind by 24 points? Just a thought – a thought for another week, frankly, because Auburn’s offense is not going to put them in any position to push any harder than they want to.

Prediction: Vanderbilt 24 | • Auburn 19

Florida (-3.5) at Kentucky

Ugly as it was, Kentucky’s upset win at Auburn salvaged at least a faint glimmer of hope for Mark Stoops‘ future – not necessarily a welcome development across a fan base beyond ready to turn the page. The Wildcats are still stagnant on offense, still 2-12 in SEC play over the past 2 years, and still riding a 10-game conference losing streak in Lexington. (Their last SEC win at home: A 33-14 romp over Florida in September 2023.) On the other hand, buying out Stoops’ contract this year would still cost $38 million, which might be affordable only if boosters are willing to deep.

Whether the locals like it or not, a narrow path to bowl eligibility for the 3-5 ‘Cats remains open. Step one: Slug out another low-scoring win over the lame-duck, injury-plagued Gators on Saturday. Good news: Stoops has had plenty of success against Florida. Step two: Even the record next week against Tennessee Tech. Step three: Spring an ambush on the road against either Vanderbilt or (even better) Louisville to finish at the Mendoza line. Not that anyone who was getting bored with Kentucky eking out bowl eligibility 2 years ago is going to feel any differently about this nondescript team punching a ticket to the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl. But if it feels enough like “progress” to give the people with the checkbooks the option of investing a fraction of Stoops’ buyout in the transfer portal instead, they just might take it.

Prediction: • Kentucky 20 | Florida 17

The Citadel at Ole Miss (n/a)

A strictly “get out with all ligaments intact” outing for the Rebels, who should embrace the opportunity to empty the bench ASAP against a triple-option outfit that will struggle to complete a forward pass. The 2 best teams The Citadel has faced this season, North Dakota State and Mercer, beat the Bulldogs by a combined score of 76-0.

Prediction: Ole Miss 48 | The Citadel 3

OFF THIS WEEK: Arkansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas

Scoreboard

Week 10 record: 3-3 straight-up | 3-3 vs. spread
Season Record: 77-17 straight-up | 40-49 vs. spread

Matt Hinton

Matt Hinton, author of 'Monday Down South' and our resident QB guru, has previously written for Dr. Saturday, CBS and Grantland.