Tim Tebow, Roman Harper explain why Texas A&M is a ‘scary game’ for Alabama

Alabama faces Texas A&M on the road on Saturday night in a pivotal matchup in the race for the SEC West title. And though the Crimson Tide have been the standard bearer for the conference, the Aggies present a real threat on Saturday night.

At least, that is the opinion of Tim Tebow and Roman Harper, who discussed the matchup with Paul Finebaum on the latter’s SEC Network show on Friday. For Tebow, the worry starts with the fact that Texas A&M seems to have the players to go toe-to-toe with Alabama, finally.

“I think we also need to give a lot of respect to this A&M team. This defense has gotten so much better from Miami. The defensive line, front seven is dominating. Max Johnson has come in and done a really good job. And if it’s not for about eight to 10 plays that A&M has had this year, two or three against Miami, a couple against Arkansas and a few scattered throughout — this team would be undefeated, and they would’ve been one of the more dominant teams in college football. So it’s a very scary game for Alabama,” Tebow said.

He continued: “This Texas A&M team is the closest in our time of doing this that can actually matchup body for body, athlete to athlete, with Bama. There’s a lot of good teams that they’ve had, but even some of their best teams, the one that should’ve probably been in the College Football Playoff, you could tell they couldn’t matchup with the receivers that Alabama had and Tua [Tagovailoa] and all of those guys. This team is the closest that they’ve had to actually matching up player for player,”

Harper tended to concur with Tebow.

He laid out Alabama’s path to victory, and it involves keeping it simple schematically while starting hot. Harper doesn’t think this Alabama offense can afford to get down or play sluggish to start on the road in a raucous environment.

“I think the early lead for the west is on the line, but at the end of the day Alabama has to continue to do what they do. And this offense has to continue to revolve around this kid right here, Jalen Milroe. he is a special athlete. He has all types of ability. But we know how good this Texas A&M defensive line is playing right now. They’re wrecking everything that they see. I think it’s going to be challenging early, I think Alabama has to come into this game with the mindset of being the underdog. They gotta come in ready to go early. And you’ve gotta come out aggressive. You can’t sit up here and think you’re going to survive this game and just win it late. I don’t think you’re going to be able to do that. I think Kyle Field, it’s going to be rowdy. You need to come out early and try to set or establish your dominance or some kind of way that, ‘No, no, no, we’re here to play,’” Harper said.

In that guise, Tebow also agreed with his fellow analyst. He harkened to a recent Alabama performance as a potential blueprint.

“I think it’s the mindset that they had against Ole Miss. With their backs against the wall and you see a team play angry, play with so much pride,” Tebow said.

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