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11 signs Texas A&M and Arkansas are stuck in ‘Groundhog Day’ together, after the Aggies’ latest OT win

Seriously, these two teams play the exact same game every year. Also, here’s Saturday’s stuff to know.

NCAA Football: Southwest Classic-Arkansas vs Texas A&M Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports

Kevin Sumlin's on an eternally raging hot seat, while Bret Bielema's just short of floating around .500 forever, and yet the former is now 5-0 against the latter after a 50-43 overtime win. Buyouts are funny things, and Bielema's is about $4 million higher.

Both of these teams fall into patterns, with Sumlin's Aggies typically starting hot before fading. Bielema's Hogs briefly had a reputation for lumbering to life and becoming invincible ... before also fading. Also, neither is all that great with a big lead, as UCLA and Virginia Tech can attest.

Their shared embrace of ritual has never been more evident than when they play each other. After 2017's very silly edition of A&M-Arkansas, here's what their last five years together have looked like:

  1. It's gonna be in JERRY WORLD. Four years in a row.
  2. It's gonna be high-scoring. These teams have averaged 35.2 points against each other in this span.
  3. It's gonna be especially wild! 2015's had four lead changes, while 2017's had seven.
  4. It's going to overtime. That's happened three times in the last four years alone.
  5. Arkansas will lose or, at best, tie the turnover battle.
  6. Arkansas will put up tons of rushing yards, having hit 200-plus four straight years.
  7. Arkansas will give up at least 500 total yards (four of five years now).
  8. A&M's gonna win.
  9. A&M's gonna win with a new QB each time (Johnny Manziel, Kenny Hill, Kyle Allen, Trevor Knight, Kellen Mond). Arkansas' QB, meanwhile, will be an Allen brother, but that's not really unique to the A&M game.
  10. Arkansas is probably going to blow a lead. 28-14 in the fourth quarter in 2014, 21-13 in the fourth quarter in 2015, 7-0 in the second quarter in 2016, and both 21-7 in the first and 43-40 in the final seconds of regulation in 2017.
  11. That'll get Arkansas off to an 0-1 start in the SEC. Only once in the last five years have the Razorbacks played an SEC opponent before A&M.

It's the same damn game every year, just like how every damn year is the same for both of these programs. Sumlin's hot seat talk has briefly stilled, while annual Hog frustrations just seem to remain at the same simmer until the random blowout of an SEC West opponent lets off some steam.

Anyway, let's do this again next year!

More college football

With those two things out of the way, we can move on to important results business:

Elsewhere: