Numbers Never Lie: Missouri State/NM State Edition

Interesting Stories To Tell In Wednesday Night's Matchup

Thank you so much for reading my column. More than 4,000 of you have subscribed, and I’m incredibly grateful to talk about the thing we all love — New Mexico State Athletics.

Football, of course, is front and center. The Aggies are 3–3 on the season, heading into an absolute must-win game at home against Missouri State on Wednesday. I’ll be diving deeper into that matchup soon, but here’s a quick breakdown of what’s ahead.

The press conferences for Tony Sanchez and Ryan Beard already wrapped up as of Friday, but since we’ve got a full college football Saturday and an NFL Sunday, I don’t want you wasting time reading dry transcripts — and let’s be honest, most pressers are boring. So I’ve already handled it for you. That story posts Monday, two days before the game.

Then, on Saturday and Sunday, paid subscribers will get fresh content:

• 🧮 Numbers Never Lie returns with key stat breakdowns. (Late Saturday)

• 🕹️ Aggie Simulator 1888 will project where the Aggies’ bowl odds stand after the Liberty loss. There will be elements for free subscribers! (Late Sunday)

Finally, on Tuesday, you’ll get the final preview ahead of Wednesday night at Aggie Memorial.

I’m looking forward to it — and I hope you are too. Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss a thing coming to your inbox.

I also want to remind you that AGGREGATOR is a reader-supported publication. I can’t thank you enough for all the incredible feedback I’ve heard from readers over the past two years — and speaking of that, our two-year anniversary is coming up next week.

Nothing would please me more than to have more of you join the subscriber community — for as little as $5 a month or $50 a year.

Aggie fans first off, let me preemptively apologize. The stat updates for the NCAA, Conference USA, and for both schools — New Mexico State and Missouri State have been pretty limited since their last games a few days ago.

That meant I had to dig in and do a lot of the research manually myself, which honestly isn’t new for me, but usually, I’ve got a nice big stack of PDFs to sort through so I can tell you stories.

Well, I’m still going to tell you stories. They just might be a little more trimmed down this week. Let’s just say some of the usual info roads were a little overgrown this time around.

But I promise, what I’ve got for you today is still entertaining, still interesting, and still very Aggie.

And before we get rolling, I just want to say — thank you for subscribing to AGGREGATOR.

“Numbers Never Lie” is a column I love to write — because numbers tell the truth.

Working in banking for fifteen years, you can’t just tell your boss, ‘Well, I did a bunch of things today,’ because your sales numbers will say otherwise. You can’t fake sales numbers because they show up on someone’s computer. Stats are everywhere. Numbers are everywhere.

Note: I know some of you are thinking, “Well Wells Fargo had fake accounts.”
No, they had “unauthorized” accounts that were real and were pushed by bosses to their bankers. Who got in trouble? Those poor bankers making peanuts.

The reason I lasted in banking so long was because it was like playing fantasy football. There were stats. There were numbers. There were comparisons. It was the kind of thing a sports fan would love… and hate… at the same time.

So I love gathering all these numbers, and I love telling stories with them — because guess what? That’s been my life for the last twenty years. So here goes.

We’re Number 133! We’re Number 133!

Sounds almost as good as “We’re Number 1!” What am I saying? The Aggies are NEXT to Last in rushing now. No longer in the cellar, which was number 134. I want to add that FBS has 136 teams, but this week’s opponent Missouri State and Delaware, both new to FBS aren’t in the NCAA Stat Sheets because they are “transitioning.” So I had to do manual labor…What is this, the Flintstones?

This is where free subscriptions gets off. If you’d like to have access to all my work, $5 a month will get you there. Support Independent Journalism and be much more informed as a result of it. Thank you!

For paid subscribers…it continues below