First Glance: Alabama

Get to Know Alabama:

Texas A&M is 4-3 (1-3) and coming off of a (pretty meaningless) 41-0 win over The Citadel
Alabama is 5-2 (3-2), coming off of two straight losses vs Georgia and at Tennessee.
There aren’t may reasons to expect the Aggies to be competitive in this game. But then again, competing against Bama when nobody expected us to has kinda been our thing in recent seasons.

Alabama leads the all-time series 13-3, and leads 10-2 since the Aggies joined the SEC.
This is the first time the Aggies have played Alabama since the retirement of Nick Saban
Famous Alabama alumni include To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper Lee, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, actors Sela Ward and Jim Nabors, Lady Bird Johnson, Dabo Swinney, Paul “Bear” Bryant, golfer Justin Thomas and College Gameday host Rece Davis.

Defensive improvement. Don’t look now, but Texas A&M’s pass defense is ranked No. 10 nationally. There’s some context to that, to be sure (giving up a lot on the ground and also some really subpar opponents), but the defense has looked like it’s been rounding into form after some pretty obvious early-season struggles. They’ll need to continue that upward trajectory and then some if they hope to pull out a victory this Saturday.
Any offense at all. Against LSU and Missouri, the A&M offense looked simply abysmal, failing to even score a touchdown. It may seem silly to expect significant improvement at this point (it is), but it’s what it will take for A&M to have a shot in this game.
Health? Texas A&M rested a number of players last week, with starters like WR Mario Craver, OG Trovon Baugh, DE Anto Saka and DT DJ Hicks not even suiting up. Will that rest prove fruitful against a Crimson Tide team coming off of games against Georgia and Tennessee? It’s a stretch, but hey, it could happen (flaps arms in a forced Angels in the Outfield reference).