Diamond Tester: Why Aggies' Home Bout vs. LSU is Toughest Challenge of Season

The Texas A&M Aggies have control of their own destiny in the SEC, but with an extremely tough LSU Tigers squad up next, things could get real. Really quickly.

Oct 19, 2024; Starkville, Mississippi, USA; Texas A&M Aggies players react after defeating the Mississippi State Bulldogs at Davis Wade Stadium at Scott Field. / Matt Bush-Imagn Images

Put the Texas A&M Aggies into a diamond tester, and who knows what'll happen.

Depending on what aspect you look at, the results will widely vary. 4-0 in the SEC and six straight victories? Beep. Narrowly defeating Mississippi State on the road behind a Conner Weigman performance that featured more interceptions than passing touchdowns? Silence.

Blowing out a top-10 team in the last outing at Kyle Field? Beep beep beep.

Nobody quite knows how legitimate Mike Elko and company are midway through the season. On paper, the Aggies look strong and poised for playoff contention in just one year of new management. Taking a closer look, however, might reveal some underlying concerns about their durability.

The Mississippi State bout was certainly an example of the latter.

"Sometimes you don't have your best stuff, and you got to find a way to win," Elko explained during his weekly media availability, "and we did."

Not before a laundry list of blunders that could have led to an unfortunate upset for the Bulldogs, though.

"We lost the turnover battle, which is not a good recipe on the road," Elko continued. "We didn't win the fourth quarter, which is not a good recipe for success. We had a bad two-minute drive at the end of the half on defense (and) we had a bad four-minute drive at the end of the game on offense."

Heading to halftime, the Aggies went from holding a solid lead to being on the verge of an upset just four points in front of their conference-winless hosts. Elko preached to his players that such a thing was extremely palpable, and claimed they didn't believe him.

Luckily, it didn't come back to bite them.

"(We) still found a way," the coach said. "I think that's a testament to the grit and the toughness of the group that in that environment, you could not be playing your best football and still find a way to win."

One could argue that no team hoping to make a playoff bid should have been in danger of an upset in Starkville, but such a predicament becomes more moot with every passing upset.

The Aggies are one of two undefeated teams in SEC play, as not even the formerly-ranked No. 1 Texas Longhorns remain unpierced, which is where things get interesting. Why?

The other is coming to Kyle Field Saturday night.

"It's going to be a huge challenge," Elko said. "It's going to be an opportunity for us to go out there and show we belong on this stage and have taken this program where we all thought we wanted it to go."

The key to doing that? The players kept it simple.

"Being able to find the small things," Aggies defensive back Bryce Anderson said. "We've been able to find the small things that we couldn't last year."

At the beginning of the season, Texas A&M had hopes of rebounding after the final year of the Jimbo Fisher came and went with no improvement. Mike Elko wasn't a household name — save for the Aggie fans who knew him during his stint as the defensive coordinator — but he was the guy for the job.

Still, there wasn't any telling of the Aggies' ceiling. And with more leeway stemming from an expanded Playoff field, the little things weren't going to matter as much. Elko's squad could afford to lose a game or two and still have a case for the postseason.

The thing is, it already burned its free loss card — right from the start.

That makes winning against LSU more imperative.

"When it was a four-team playoff, you basically went into the season prepared on how you were going to get knocked out of the race early," Elko said. "Now that you're 12 ... it becomes a little bit more like you lose a game early, you can still keep your goals. Our playoff hopes are still in front."

If the Aggies were to lose their second game of the season to LSU, their hopes would still be intact, though much slimmer. They'd drop their first conference game and join the ranks of the other no-longer-unbeaten teams in the conference.

Not the end of the world, but considering they control their own destiny in the conference at the moment — and would likely walk into their season finale against Texas 7-0 in the SEC if they did pull off a win over the Tigers — it's not a scenario they'd like to test.

"We're trying to expedite this process for ourselves," Elko said. "We're in a really good spot. We want to take advantage of where we are ... (by spending) the week doing the best we can to go play our best football."

So, bring out the diamond tester. When the lights come on at Kyle Field and both teams — vying for control over the conference — get to playing, only one will emerge victorious and remain atop the conference standings.

If it's Texas A&M, expect beeps. No question about it. But if it's LSU?

The Aggies might not like the concerning silence that follows.

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