Just a week ago, Saturday’s matchup between LSU and Texas A&M looked poised to be a top-10 showdown in Tiger Stadium. The Tigers were off to a solid start after throttling Clemson in the season opener and the Aggies were coming off of their first College Football Playoff season and a 10-2 season. Unfortunately, Ole Miss and Kentucky had other plans. The Rebels took down Lane Kiffin in his return to Oxford, albeit by surviving a furious comeback by the Tigers. As for Texas A&M, they suffered a 10-point loss at home to the Wildcats. That’s right, University of Kentucky went in to Kyle Field in College Station as 17 point underdogs and beat the Aggies by double digits. Both teams fell to 2-1 and some, not all, of the mystique that was surrounding this game had faded away. I said “some”, because this is still a massive game. LSU only dropped to #10 and that’s understandable, considering that their loss came on the road to another top-10 team in a hostile environment and with the best quarterback in the country. As for Texas A&M, it’s hard to justify them staying in the top-25 at all, but, alas, they remain at #23. The loser of this game is in big trouble. Suffering a second loss before the calendar flips to October is essentially a death sentence for playoff hopes. It wouldn’t be possible, but it would be highly unlikely. The winner can get back on track and regroup. Losing a game in the first month of the season isn’t ideal, but you can survive it. There are a lot of parallels between these two teams. They each have quarterbacks that have struggled with accuracy, missing throws that they shouldn’t miss. Those quarterbacks are both playing behind questionable offensive lines that have each seen mid-game replacements. They’ll both likely send out a different starting-five than they have for the first three games of the season. Their highly talented defensive lines were negated in losses. Finally, both put a lot of resources in to making the CFP this season. For LSU, patience is key. It’s year 1 under Kiffin and while the program invested a lot of money in to this roster to compete, expecting them to make the playoff immediately is a tall task. Is it possible? Absolutely. It’s not an indictment on the new staff’s potential if they don’t, though. As for Texas A&M, they are coming off of a season in which they started 11-0, before losing to their bitter rival, Texas, in the season finale. They earned the #7 seed and hosted what was their first ever playoff game. After being tied 3-3 for 58 minutes of that game, Miami scored a touchdown with 1:44 left in the game and pulled off the upset before making a run to the national championship. A season, that was becoming historic for the Aggie program, suddenly crashed in to a wall with back-to-back losses. Still, it was a remarkable campaign for Mike Elko in only his second season, but that led to high hopes for 2026. Marcel Reed is now a senior with over a full season of experience as an SEC starter, which is why Texas A&M was ranked #8 coming in to the year. They hope that the Kentucky game was the outlier, but unfortunately for them, a Saturday night in Death Valley is a one of the last follow-ups that they’d want to see on their schedule, despite Reed’s success against LSU the past few years. LSU offense vs. Texas A&M defense Passing game The Tigers come in with three major questions. First, and most importantly is, can Sam Leavitt settle down and find his accuracy? We talked about his shortcomings against Ole Miss last week. He was frantic early and that led to most of his night being erratic. The main reason for his jitteriness leads to our second question. Can the offensive line protect better? Against the Rebels, the pass protection, as a unit, graded out with a 41.8 PFF grade. That’s unacceptable. Kiffin has mentioned potential shakeups could be coming. The first two spots to look will be at left guard for Bo Bordelon and right tackle for Weston Davis. While I don’t expect Aliou Bah to be replaced this week, he needs to be better, as well. Finally, the last question is who steps up in Trey’Dez Green’s absence. No one needs a written explanation of how important he is. He will be out, likely for a few weeks, so someone has to step up. Winnie Watkins and Eugene Wilson III have been Leavitt’s two other most targeted receivers, but someone else needs to step up. They’ve tried to get Jackson Harris involved, so could it be him? Does Jayce Brown finally get more opportunities? Maybe Malik Elzy gets back on the field consistently. Regardless of who it is, someone has to step up. Mike Elko’s defense has been far from their dominant self that we watched in 2025. While ranked 7 th in the SEC with 281.3 yards allowed per game, it’s been their struggles at times against the better competition that they’ve seen. We spoke with Billy Liucci on Wednesday’s episode of Geaux Deep Dive and he told us that the most surprising things have been the lack of physicality up front and the miscommunication in the secondary. As a team, the Aggies only have 3 sacks this season. That’s last in the SEC. The guys to watch are defensive ends TJ Searcy and Marco Jones, each having 1.0 sacks. Anto Saka is another name to watch out for. The secondary has guys like Dez Ricks, which is a name LSU fans should be familiar with. He was a 5-star coming out of high school and younger brother to Eli Ricks, who became a Freshman All-American and Second-Team All-SEC in his one season with the Tigers. He transferred to Alabama the next year and Dez followed him, before transferring to Texas A&M following his freshman season. Julian Humphrey and Dalton Brooks are both former 4-stars, but for whatever reason, it’s been a struggle this season. They are suffering busted coverage far too often, which led to Kentucky receivers running wide open last week. Running game Dilin Jones has had two really good games with a mediocre one in-between. He broke 100 yards rushing against Clemson and Ole Miss, but had a much slower performance against Louisiana Tech. The Bulldogs did a phenomenal job of bottling him up in the first half of LSU’s offensive struggles with 10 carries for just 3 yards. Last week against the Rebels, it was Jones who started finding holes, which led to the entire offense getting going. Texas A&M has been fairly pedestrian against the run this season. Coming in ranked #8 in rush defense, the Aggies are allowing 102.7 yards per game. Last week, Kentucky gashed them over and over. CJ Baxter finished with 19 carries for 87 yards and 2 touchdowns. All together, the Wildcat running backs combined for 27 carries for 159 yards and a 5.9 yards per carry average. The three backs that took a carry each had long runs of 16, 22, and 14 yards. Texas A&M’s defensive line has been getting pushed around and that’s extremely surprising for an Elko defense. There’s no doubt about it, the best way to help Sam Leavitt settle down is by establishing the run earlier in the game. In the first three games, LSU has called only two running plays combined on each of their opening drives. I would fully expect that to change on Saturday night. Look for Charlie Weis Jr. to get Jones involved early, taking some of the pressure off of the now limited passing attack that’s missing Trey’Dez Green. LSU defense vs. Texas A&M offense Passing game After shutting down Chris Vizzina, Tait Reynolds, and LA Tech’s Blake Baker through the first two weeks, Trinidad Chambliss brought the Tiger pass defense back down to earth. They come in ranked 8 th in the SEC, allowing 203.7 yards per game. After two solid performances in coverage, PJ Woodland was picked on against Ole Miss. He was targeted 7 times, the most of anyone on the defense, and allowed 4 catches for 47 yards and a touchdown. DJ Pickett, on the other side, allowed just one less catch and the same yardage. To be fair, some of those receptions allowed came in soft zone coverage, which is not what either cornerback is best at. While the Aggie offense has been highly disappointing as a whole, Marcel Reed’s throwing ability is a cause for concern for Texas A&M fans. They’re only averaging 222.7 yards per game through the air, which is 14 th in the SEC. That’s just slightly more than LSU’s defense has allowed per game and they had to face the top quarterback in the country on his home field. Reed’s 59.6% completion percentage is far too low, especially when you watch him miss wide open throws. It’s not like he doesn’t have the ability to make the throws, considering we saw him do it against teams like Notre Dame in South Bend against a Marcus Freeman defense. It’s a big night for Woodland and Pickett. They’ll face off with two good receivers in Mario Craver and Isaiah Horton. Craver’s 19 receptions are 2 nd in the SEC. Neither have been able to find the big play, though. Their longest catches of the season are 33 and 36 yards, respectively, along with yards per catch averages of 10.2 and 14.2 yards per catch. It appears as if the Aggies could get back Ashton Bethel-Roman, who has been battling an injury through the first three games. Although he only has 2 receptions for 13 yards in limited time this year, he caught 5 touchdowns and over 500 yards in 2025. The biggest difference in this year’s LSU defense compared to last season is the pass rush. The Tigers are ranked #1 in the SEC with 16 sacks and that could disrupt Reed. He’s been able to glide around and take off the past two years, so the pressure from guys like Princewill Umanmielen and Jordan Ross off the edge will present a new challenge. True freshman, Deuce Geralds, is second on the team with 2.0 sacks behind Umanmielen’s 6.0. Pressure up the middle can disrupt the best of the best quarterbacks, so his impact could be felt, as well. Running game There isn’t a better run defense in the country than LSU. That’s not hyperbole, either. Blake Baker’s unit is ranked #1 in the entire country, allowing just 33.0 yards per game. Although he exited the game halfway through the 3 rd quarter, Kewan Lacy was being shut down. He had 9 carries for 43 yards with a 4.8 yards per carry average, but 22 of those came on one run. Ole Miss ran for only 63 yards. Even Reed’s running ability has been less effective than a year ago. His 117 yards through three games feels low, especially considering that he has the potential to get that in one game. Rueben Owens is their primary running back, coming in to the game with 186 yards rushing and a 4.1 yards per carry average. He’s only found the end zone once. As a whole, the Aggies rank #10 in the conference with an average of 171.7 yards per game. This is probably the most important part of the game on Saturday night. Can LSU keep Marcel Reed contained. They’ve failed the past two seasons, leading to Reed publicly expressing his confidence in playing the Tigers. He ran for 108 yards and 2 touchdowns last year, following up his 62 yards and 3 rushing touchdowns in 2024 in a game in which he only played the second half. Mobile quarterbacks have been the bugaboo for Blake Baker, despite how elite of a defensive coordinator he is. It has to change on Saturday night. The biggest difference in this year’s game is having Whit Weeks and TJ Dottery. Weeks missed the game last year with his ankle injury, having to watch his defense chase the back of Reed’s #10 jersey all night. With those two on the field, this could be the chance to turn the tide. Prediction LSU is favored by 8.5 points and I honestly believe that is too much. I understand that Texas A&M just lost to Kentucky at home by 10, but the core of the team that made the playoff a year ago is still there. Will it come together on Saturday night? Who knows, because it’s not guaranteed that it will ever happen. It could happen, though, and that’s what makes these early season games so tough to predict in the first month of the season. With that being said, I believe the Tigers win this game. I believe that the additions of TJ Dottery and Princewill Umanmielen, along with Whit Weeks being on the field, will be the difference in limiting Marcel Reed. I have faith that Sam Leavitt will show more composure, as he’s put in good positions by Lane Kiffin and Charlie Weis Jr. LSU – 31 Texas A&M - 24