SEC 2015: Texas A&M's Two Most Important Games

The Texas A&M Aggies' 2015 campaign is predicated on competing for the SEC West championship even if achieving that lofty goal will be extremely difficult. The schedule is loaded with home games, but as always, winning a SEC West crown requires road wins. It just so happens that two of the Aggies' road games are against two preseason top ten teams. Why are these road games so important? Texas A&M will be a strong enough team this season that their level of play, and the rowdy presence of The 12th Man, should be enough to protect the home turf. The Aggies' fortunes largely rest outside of College Station in 2015, and winning these two road games makes it very likely they'll achieve their goals.

Saturday October 24th, @ Ole Miss

The Aggies will face the Ole Miss Rebels for their first true road game after consecutively playing Arkansas at a neutral site in Texas, followed by hosting Mississippi State, and Alabama. Mental and physical fatigue will likely be present despite a bye week sandwiched in the middle of that gambit. Playing in Oxford is difficult these days with the Rebels only losing three home games in the last two seasons by a combined 21 points. Also, if games are won in the trenches, then the Rebels are sitting pretty by returning 9 starters along the offensive and defensive lines to include potential Heisman candidate Robert Nkemdiche. If the Rebels find someone adequate to throw to Laquon Treadwell and Evan Engram, then it's an even more dangerous matchup.

The Rebels stand a chance to compete for the SEC West themselves this season. The road to the division championship likely runs through Oxford, and A&M could distinguish themselves by getting this road win because most teams won't do so.

Saturday November 28th, @ LSU

Like Ole Miss, LSU is another candidate to win the SEC West and is a team the Aggies must defeat on the road to become divisional champs. Any game in Death Valley is a difficult one, even if your new defensive coordinator brings a treasure trove of inside information from his old team. LSU will likely be better than last year when they defeated the Aggies for the fourth time in a row, and they got that 23-17 victory largely on the back of Leonard Fournette rushing for 146 yards. Fournette will return, LSU's quarterbacks presumably will be better, and few teams in the country can match the Tigers' talent and depth in the secondary or receiver corps.

In short, LSU is probably poised to have a 9-10 win regular season. This is a big game for Texas A&M, and a lesser program would probably cede this game as a loss. If Texas A&M wins this game, it's probably a safe assumption the season has gone extremely well and they will have at least 10 wins.