No. 4 Texas A&M faces tough road stretch to maintain undefeated season

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — No. 4 Texas A&M has played only one game away from home in its undefeated start to the season.

This week the Aggies will travel to Arkansas for the first of three straight road games where a win will give them their first 7-0 start since 1994.

It will be a stark change for Texas A&M, which had a crowd of 105,086 for it’s 34-17 win over Florida on Saturday for its 10th straight game with at least 100,000 fans at home dating back to last season.

“It’s a big-time challenge when you leave Kyle Field,” linebacker Taurean York said. “We know it’s a matchup nightmare for opposing quarterbacks (at home). But it’s all good, though. We’re going to take our talents on the road.”

The matchup with the Razorbacks, who have lost four in row, is Texas A&M’s first road game since a last-minute 41-40 victory against then-No. 8 Notre Dame on Sept. 13. The schedule only gets more challenging after this week with games at 10th-ranked LSU and No. 16 Missouri coming up next.

“We’ve got to become road warriors and go on the road for three straight, starting with a really talented Arkansas team,” coach Mike Elko said. “And I’m sure they’ll be fired up for the return of coach (Bobby) Petrino back into Fayetteville. That’s a tough place to play. So, we have to get ready and go out and try to be 1-0 again.”

Arkansas lost to Tennessee on the road last week and Saturday will be Petrino’s first game at home since he was named interim coach after the firing of Sam Pittman late last month.

Elko knows better than to underestimate the Razorbacks (2-4, 0-2 Southeastern Conference) despite their struggles this season.

“There’s no easy environments,” he said. “There’s no easy team. There are no ‘good’ opportunities ... you’re going to face adversity, so you better be ready for it.”

It will be Texas A&M’s first visit to Fayetteville since 2013, when Johnny Manziel led the team to a 45-33 win. These teams have played 10 of their 11 matchups since then at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, with the lone exception coming in a 42-31 Texas A&M win at home in 2020.

Marcel Reed, who has 12 touchdown passes and has run for three more scores this season, said the key to road success will be staying consistent.

“Just sticking to our character as a football team, not really letting anything change us,” he said. “Obviously, the environment is going to be different, but when the ball is spotted, we play football. That’s what it is, and it doesn’t matter where it is.”

But the second-year starter knows that the longer they stay undefeated and rise in the AP Top 25 poll, the more that teams will be gunning for them. The Aggies ended the 2020 season ranked No. 4 in the final poll after a win in the Orange Bowl over North Carolina, but this is their highest in-season ranking since they were third for the first five weeks of the 1995 season.

“The target on our back is definitely getting bigger,” Reed said. “We’re just focused on going 1-0 each and every week. So, whatever it is next week, we’ve got to try to prepare for the best type of game on Saturday again.”

Texas A&M, which is 3-0 in conference play, and fifth-ranked Mississippi are the only remaining undefeated SEC teams and two of only 11 teams in the country who remain undefeated.

Elko, who is in his second year at A&M after leaving Duke to take over following Jimbo Fisher’s firing, believes that seasons are defined by how teams play in the middle of their schedules. It’s something he’s preached to his team since he arrived in College Station.

“The teams that can handle the six-game stretch through the middle, those are the teams that separate themselves,” he said. “And so we’re halfway there. We’ve done the things that we were supposed to do for half of that. There’s still another three games. And obviously, they’re going to step (up) in difficulty with us having to go on the road now and play some really quality opponents.”

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