Alabama Showdown Is Biggest Game of Kevin Sumlin's Texas A&M Career

In November of 2012, when head coach Kevin Sumlin took his Texas A&M Aggies to Tuscaloosa to face No. 1 Alabama, it was a chance for his program to step up to the big boy table.

It did, thanks to the heroics of eventual Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Johnny Manziel.

The following September, the two met in College Station in a battle to see who eats first. Alabama did, after quite a fight from Manziel and the Aggies.

Last year, Alabama kicked Texas A&M out of the dining room and locked the door when it shut out the Aggies 59-0 in Tuscaloosa in a game that wasn't even as close as the score indicated.

"We better improve; otherwise the same thing [as last year] will happen," Sumlin said.

Redemption is on Sumlin's mind this week when the Tide roll in to town in what amounts to the biggest game of his Texas A&M coaching career.

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Unlike the 2012 or 2013 games, this is a chance for Texas A&M (5-0, 2-0 SEC) to not only make a statement, but virtually eliminate Alabama (5-1, 2-1 SEC) from the division title race.

This isn't the same Aggies team that was run out of Bryant-Denny Stadium a year ago.

They made the switch from quarterback Kenny Hill to Kyle Allen following the loss, hired defensive coordinator John Chavis away from LSU in January, brought in former Utah offensive coordinator Dave Christensen to coach the offensive line and coordinate a more power-based running game, and have become much more than a one-trick pony.

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"We want to run the ball when we need to, not just when we want to," Sumlin told me in Destin, Florida, at SEC spring meetings this offseason.

So far, they have.

Tra Carson has rushed for 430 yards and four touchdowns, is averaging 19 carries per game, has earned six first downs on third downs between one and three yards, and has moved the chains 21 times overall.

As Mark Passwaters of Rivals.com pointed out during the win over Mississippi State two weeks ago, this is a team that has an old-school flavor:

That new-school twist, though, is still present thanks to the tempo Sumlin employs and the ability of Allen and those stud wide receivers like Christian Kirk, Josh Reynolds and Ricky Seals-Jones to stretch the field deep.

That's important against Alabama, because Ole Miss has been the only team on the schedule thus far that can exploit the Crimson Tide's biggest weakness—its secondary. The Ole Miss Rebels lit up the Tide with 341 yards and three passing touchdowns in a 43-37 win in Tuscaloosa back in Week 3. Like Texas A&M, the Rebels pressed the Tide secondary and used tempo to keep head coach Nick Saban's defense as vanilla as possible.

While Alabama has rebounded nicely from that loss to the Rebels with an emphatic road win over Georgia and an old-school home win over Arkansas, Texas A&M is the kind of team that can get the Tide out of their comfort zone and force Alabama into a shootout.

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If that happens, it plays perfectly into A&M's strength defensively—Chavis' fearsome pass rush with defensive ends Myles Garrett and Daeshon Hall.

A win for A&M would greatly alter the entire SEC West race. It would seemingly eliminate the Crimson Tide and announce for the first time since joining the SEC dinner party that the Aggies are no longer more sizzle than steak.

Texas A&M should be considered one of the best teams in the country up to this point, thanks to its resurgence on the ground and a defense that, while average, is still much better than horrendous—which was the best way to describe it over the previous two seasons.

If you aren't a believer yet, Saturday's showdown with the Tide is Sumlin's chance to make you one and turn his program into an SEC West front-runner—something it has never been before.

Quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Recruiting information is courtesy of 247Sports. Statistics are courtesy of CFBStats.com.

Barrett Sallee is the lead SEC college football writer and national college football video analyst for Bleacher Report as well as a host on Bleacher Report Radio on SiriusXM 83. Follow Barrett on Twitter @BarrettSallee.