You are about to read the ramblings and musings of an Aggie Football fan who has no clue what to expect for the 2024 season. I’m not putting on maroon-colored glasses or drinking that delicious maroon Kool-Aid. At least not yet.

I’ve been let down too many times by Aggie coaches and teams. I’m going into this season with open eyes and cautious optimism. I’m trying to be objective in terms of expectations.

Mainly because I don’t want to get hurt again. I’m tired of being hurt. Being hurt sucks.

I want to finally be lifted up by a coaching staff instead of dropped off a cliff. I want 2012 and 2020 Aggie Football. Not any of the other seasons between 2012 and now. Those seasons hurt me. Hurt me bad.

You may want to stop reading if you’re a fan of proper English-structured sentences and paragraphs. This is merely a stream of consciousness. If an eighth-grade English teacher was grading this, it would be graded an F.

I’m aware of that. I’m a Fightin’ Texas Aggie Football fan who doesn’t want to get hurt again.

I’m rambling and musing. Nothing more. Nothing less. I’m not structuring.

I’ll structure when this Aggie Football team proves to me it’s worth structuring.

Many people want to predict how things will go for the 2024 Fightin’ Texas Aggies.

I’m not one of them. I have NO CLUE what’s going to happen for the 2024 season. There’s just way too many variables.

I think the Aggies will be better than in 2023, but we have no clue. Nobody does. Any “analyst” who says they do is just guessing.

THEY’RE TAKING YOUR MONEY AND GUESSING! They’re like bandits on a train, taking your hard-earned cash and giving you a false sense of hope in return. Be careful with those analysts. They don’t really care about how you feel.

I, on the other hand, actually do.

Texas A&M Football has been a disappointment for the past three seasons. We had the blip in 2020, when we won the Orange Bowl, but then we have to go back to 2012 for the last great season.

So, for the past 12 seasons, 10 have been disappointments, and 2 have been pleasant surprises. Hope springs eternal, but history has a way of repeating itself.

Because of that, I don’t know what 2024 will bring.

The bones of this team are the team that lost to Oklahoma State in the Houston Bowl or whatever it’s called. Sorry. But that’s the honest baseline of where we’re starting from. That’s not the ideal situation. That game was a damn embarrassment despite an interim coaching staff and massive roster defections.

I know we’ve got an entirely new coaching staff. Half of our roster is also brand new, which we think is better than last year. But we have no real clue.

Here’s why: Short of maybe five players, we don’t have anyone who’s actually proven in the SEC for a full season. That includes Conner Weigman.

I absolutely LOVE Conner’s potential, but did you know he’s only started five games against Power 5 opponents? Did you know that in those five games, he’s only thrown for more than 300 yards twice?

To be fair, one of those starts was last year’s Auburn game, in which he was knocked out in the second quarter.

So, he’s only started four full games against Power 5 opponents, and he’s thrown for more than 300 yards in half of them.

Ironically, both were losses, but they were much more defensive than offensive losses. I’m talking about the 2022 Ole Miss game where Lane Kiffin ran Quinshon Judkins down D.J. Durkin’s throat. Meanwhile, Jimbo stood on the sideline with his finger in his nose, looking at his play sheet, clueless as to what was happening in the game. If only Jimbo had told Durkin to shut down the run.

Or at least put four down lineman and try.

Conner’s other loss with a 300-yard passing game was last year, where Miami exposed our weak secondary and lack of special teams preparation.

I don’t pin either of those losses on Conner.

He threw for 122 yards in the 2022 Auburn game and 155 yards in the 2022 LSU upset. Bet that LSU number surprised you. Nothing against Conner, as he made some great passes to Moose Muhammed, but that LSU game was won by Devon Achane and a key scoop and score by Demani Richardson.

Jimbo smartly put the ball in Achane’s hands to win that game. If only he’d done it in the last play against Bama that same year…

I do like the potential of Conner. The small sample set of his starts indicates if the Aggies can get some semblance of a defensive effort when he’s on his passing game, the Aggies can win football games.

I will skip the rest of the offense for now and talk about the defense.

That’s because everyone seems to know the 2024 Aggie offense is a massive question mark. Even the people with the thickest maroon-colored glasses and maroon Kool-Aid-stained upper lips know this offense is a massive question mark.

However, for some reason, everyone seems to think this Aggie defense will be some dominant unit.

I suppose that’s the Elko Effect, and it can’t be any worse than it was last year. I’m not totally sure about that last part.

We’re replacing three MASSIVE players on defense. McKinnley Jackson, Walter Nolen, and Edgerrin Cooper.

We all hate Walter Nolen because we think he’s a mercenary. The reality is he’s a damn good football player. He got paid by Ole Miss because he’s one of the top defensive tackles in the country. Sorry. It’s true. His loss creates an unknown hole at one of the most critical positions on the defense.

He and Jackson were quite the force in the middle of that defensive line. We lost a third-round NFL draft pick in Jackson and a potential first-round draft pick in Nolen. There’s no way to spin that. That’s a significant loss in the middle of our defensive line.

Couple that with the loss of Edge Cooper, who was All-SEC last season and was selected in the NFL draft’s second round.

We don’t have a linebacker who is anywhere close to what Edge Cooper brought to the field. I love Taurean York, but he’s nowhere near the physical player Edge was.

2023 Edge Cooper was probably the most dominant linebacker since Dat in 1998. We’ve had some decent linebackers between Dat and Edge, but 2023 Edge Cooper was a linebacking force.

Beyond York, we have a bunch of guys who never materialized at another SEC school, started for a smaller program, or just don’t have any experience. While we have some potential at linebacker, we won’t be near the level we had last season.

There’s no way to spin that, and despite what anyone says, our linebacker play will drop off from last season. Maybe it’s not a massive drop, but we have no clue about the drop-off level.

Back to the defensive line: I know we added Nick Scourton, who led the Big 10 in sacks last season. I know he looks like a beast. I do think he’s a beast, but we haven’t seen him play a full SEC season.

He did get 2 sacks against Michigan and 1 sack against Ohio State, but those were both blowout losses. I’m not sure if they were garbage sacks against second stringers or early sacks against both teams’ starters.

I hope he can duplicate last season’s performance in the SEC, but I don’t know for certain. The Big 10 is not the SEC.

As for the rest of the defensive line, we have the Shermar Brothers. They’re not actually brothers, but if you can keep them straight 100% of the time, that’s really impressive. Lord knows I get confused from time to time.

They both have flashed at times. We just haven’t seen them flash for four quarters over 8 SEC games. The potential is certainly there. However, those 32 quarters of football ain’t easy. Can they play dominant football for 32 quarters in the SEC?

Let’s start with 4 quarters against a very questionable Notre Dame offensive line.

Albert Regis and D.J. Hicks will man the other defensive tackle spot next to Shermar Turner. Regis was great in limited opportunities last season, and Hicks was a five-star recruit considered to be the best defensive lineman in the country two years ago.

The defensive line has a TON of potential and could certainly be better than last year. However, we are losing a third-round draft pick and a potential first-round draft pick. That’s a lot of talent to replace.

As for the secondary, this is the ultimate, “It can’t be worse than last season. Can it?”

I don’t think it can, but I don’t know that. The Aggie secondary was ATROCIOUS at defending balls in the air last season. Miami exposed it, and Bama confirmed it.

At that point, this defense was cooked for anyone with any level of quarterback and receiver play.

Elko replaced all the corners except for Tyreek Chappell, who returns for what feels like his 10th season.

Will Lee comes in from Kansas State. Everyone thinks he will be a shutdown corner, but the dude was playing in the Big 12 last season. Sure, it’s a pass-happy conference, but it’s not the SEC, where you’re going up against some of the best receivers in college football. You have to live on an island as an SEC corner.

Can he do that? We don’t know.

Dezz Ricks comes in from Bama with a ton of talent, but he never had significant playing time, which is how we enticed him to transfer. He was buried in the Bama depth chart, which, in theory, means that Bama has better corners in their two-deep than we have starting.

BJ Mayes comes from UAB, and Donovan Saunders comes from Cal Poly. UAB plays in Conference USA, and Cal Poly plays in the Big Sky Conference, which is an FCS conference.

So we have a guy who started at KSU, a guy who wasn’t in the two deep at Bama, a guy who played in Conference USA, and a guy who played in the Big Sky Conference to go with Tyreek Chappell.

We’ll find out real quick how good of a talent evaluator and developer Mike Elko is.

I’m not saying these guys can’t be good. My issue is that they lack the experience likely needed for a top-tier defense. People can spin this however they want, but I’m just trying to look at it objectively.

It’s not like Elko went out and got proven cornerbacks at the highest level. He’s rolling the dice on these guys being able to play in the SEC.

At safety, I think we’re fine. Bryce Anderson is a stud and I think Dalton Brooks will prove to be a really good safety paired with him.

I think they’ll find someone serviceable to pay the nickel depending on how things shake out at corner. That will come down to if Chappell plays nickel or corner.

I do believe Elko is a defensive genius, but you have to have talent to be a defensive genius. You can’t disguise a lack of talent against the best teams in the SEC. Those teams will find that weakness, and they will exploit that weakness. Even if Nick Saban is no longer in the league.

I think our defensive line has a chance to be slightly better than last season simply because they should be able to apply more pressure. I don’t know how they will hold up against the run for four quarters.

Hopefully, the linebackers will not drop off too much from last season, but there will be a drop-off. York will be better, but I don’t see anyone coming close to what Edge Cooper brought on the field last year

In the secondary, it’s a wild guess at this point. It certainly doesn’t seem like it can be worse. However, if these corners aren’t any better than last season, it really doesn’t matter. This defense will be a middle-of-the-pack defense, just like last year.

Now, back to the offense.

Ugh.

This is where it gets really bad.

We all want Conner to be the second coming of Johnny Manziel. I actually think Conner can be an overall better quarterback than Johnny.

There’s one massive difference – Johnny won the Heisman behind arguably the best line ever in college football and had guys like Mike Evans and Ryan Swope to throw to.

Conner doesn’t have anything remotely close to what Johnny had.

His offensive line has one returning starter in the position they played last year. I love Trey Zuhn’s heart, but he’s a far cry from Luke Joeckel and Jake Matthews. Zuhn is the most proven commodity on our offensive line. Read that again.

One proven guy on the offensive line.

I know everyone likes to blame Addazio, but this offensive line lacks talent and, at best, SEC experience.

Cushing seems like a solid offensive line coach and will be an improvement over Addazio, but let’s not act like Addazio was screwing up the 2012 and even the 2020 Aggie offensive line. This unit has a massive talent and experience deficit from those teams.

Bisontis looks like he’ll start at left guard, which should be a much better position than right tackle. He still needs some experience at left guard.

The Utah transfer, or Mark Nabou, will start at center. I like Nabou, and the Utah guy started 8 games for Utah last season. At least he has some starting experience in what was a Power 5 conference, but we’ve never seen either of these guys have significant playing time in the SEC.

The Kansas transfer is starting at either right guard or right tackle. He should be fine, but once again, he hasn’t played in the SEC. We have no clue if his skill set transfers to taking on the best defensive linemen in college football week in and week out.

The Big 12 isn’t known for elite-level talent on their defensive lines.

I have no clue what happens at right tackle because it seems like there’s no obvious starter. Neither Crownover nor Fatheree grabbed the position, so I think they’re just going to get equal playing time to see if one takes it.

If not, Reed-Adams (the Kansas transfer) will move out to right tackle, which isn’t really his natural position. This means we have to backfill the starting right guard spot.

None of this is ideal.

Spin Addazio sucks, and Cushing is a better coach all you want. There are four big question marks heading into a season of SEC football on the offensive line.

You want positions set with guys that have experience on the offensive line. That’s not the 2024 Aggie offensive line. Not even close.

This is a MASSIVE red flag heading into the season.

Maybe this could be like the 2020 offensive line, but those guys were all seniors who played a lot of seasons together and finally gelled. The guy who wasn’t a senior was a future first-round draft pick in Kenyon Green.

One of these lines is not like the other.

I’m sorry. I’m not buying into any serviceable offensive line until I see them perform as a unit. We’ll find out a lot in Game 1 against Notre Dame.

The questions don’t get any better at wide receiver.

We don’t have a single receiver we can project out over an 8 game SEC season. They’re all unproven. Every one of them.

I will say next to Conner, Noah Thomas is the biggest variable to the success of the 2024 Aggies.

Noah needs to be the Robin to Conner’s Batman. The Cher to Conner’s Sonny. The honey cinnamon butter to Conner’s Texas Roadhouse rolls.

That’s right. Noah Thomas is THAT important to the success of the 2024 Fightin’ Texas Aggie offense. Outside of Conner playing all 12 games, I honestly think Noah is the swing guy between 6 wins and 10 wins.

He has game-changing talent but hasn’t been able to stay healthy over an entire season.

If he can stay healthy and play to his talent, we’ve got a legit downfield receiving threat defenses have to worry about. We haven’t had that since Josh Reynolds.

I love Ainias Smith, but he was a slot guy who needed the ball in space. I’m talking about a true down the field he’s got man coverage, so just throw it deep because he’s going to beat the defender for the ball receiver.

That’s been a missing piece in Aggie Football for a good six seasons.

I’ll go even further and say that Noah Thomas is the most critical player of the Elko Era. We’ve struggled to recruit true stud receivers since Jimbo got here. We had a couple of headcases in Demond Demas and Evan Stewart, but we haven’t had a true stud receiver that just went out and made plays since Josh Reynolds.

We certainly haven’t had a Christian Kirk and nothing near a Mike Evans. Our receiving corps has been really putrid for the last decade.

We need a receiver to show that A&M can develop wide receivers in college football and get them to the next level in the NFL. I don’t blame stud receivers for going elsewhere right now. They want to get to the next level, but A&M hasn’t produced those receivers in some time.

We need Noah Thomas to break that trend. He’s that important of a guy to the success of Aggie football this season and beyond.

Besides Noah, we have Jahdae Walker, who struggled with drops in the first half of last season but seemed to get better in the second half. Hopefully, he will continue on the uptrend and not revert back to dropping balls. At best, he’s a number two receiver, though.

We still have the great enigma in Moose Muhammad. All I want for Moose is to be a really good third receiver and make 5-10 big plays this season. I’d love for him to be a consistent game-in and game-out receiver, but I think that’s asking too much.

Cyrus Allen comes over as a big play threat from Louisiana Tech. I don’t know if he can elevate that to SEC play. I hope he can.

Micah Tease was a 4-star recruit but didn’t play much at receiver last year. He didn’t catch a single pass until the Texas Bowl. The talent is there. The experience and production is not.

Izaiah Williams is a true freshman and a four-star recruit out of Tampa. He’s basically Micah Tease without a year of exposure to big-time college football.

Holman Wiggins should be a massive upgrade at receiver coach over Dameyune Craig. Craig was a terrible wide receiver coach.

There’s undoubtedly some talent at receiver, but it’s SORELY lacking proof of production. I’m hoping Wiggins can leverage these guys’ talent into a legit wide receiving corps.

It won’t be like Ohio State or even Texas’ unit from last season, but I do hope it can be as good as Bama’s from last season.

I have big questions about running back, as well. Obviously, the loss of Reueben Owens is huge, but even with him, I’d have questions.

Our three best running backs over the last decade have been Trayveon Williams, Isiah Spiller, and Devon Achane.

There’s a massive difference between those three guys and the four running backs on our roster, including Owens. All three of those guys consistently produced as a true freshman.

You can’t say that about Owens, Moss, and Daniels. I know Owens is lost for the regular season, but just trying to point out the difference between our current roster and those that have produced in the past.

The best three guys over the last decade produced from day one. We can’t say that about the 2024 Aggie running back group, even with a healthy Owens.

With the loss of Owens, we’re woefully thin from a depth standpoint but also thin from a talent standpoint.

I think Moss, Daniels, and EJ Smith can be serviceable backs, but they won’t take over games. I don’t see any of these guys doing what Devon Achane did against LSU in 2022 or Isaiah Spiller in the 2020 Florida game.

Those two guys exerted their will in those games and carried the Aggies to victory.

Moss has the most talent of the three remaining guys. He’s certainly capable of having good games, but I don’t think he’s capable of flat-out putting the team on his back.

Collin Klein loves to use a tight end in multiple ways. Ben Sinnott was one of the best tight ends in the country at Kansas State last season. He had 49 catches for 676 yards and 6 touchdowns.

That’s good for a tight end. However, I don’t want that production leading our receiving unit. We had enough of tight ends leading our receiving unit under Jimbo.

Nobody loves a tight end more than Aggie fans, but tight ends should only complement the overall offense. We’re in massive trouble if a tight end is our leading receiver.

With all of this said this offensive can be very productive. However, I don’t see it being dominant. For it to be productive, all units will have to produce, to the best of their ability, game in and out.

There’s no margin for error with this offense.

If one of the units struggles against a defense, then this offense will be sunk for that game. We don’t have the talent for one unit to disappear in a game and still produce more points than the defense gives up.

At least not against the better teams on our schedule.

There’s just not enough talent and experience on the offensive side of the ball, except for Conner and Noah. At least from a talent standpoint with those two.

There is one more wild card on offense: true freshman Terry Bussey. Bussey was recruited as a corner, but his position is still in flux. We appear to have depth at corner, and it’s tough for a true freshman to play corner in the SEC.

Bussey was a dynamic offensive player in high school, so he’s been taking snaps on the offensive side of the ball. That’s a clear sign that we lack offensive playmakers.

If Bussey can have an Ainias Smith-type true freshman year or, even better, a Christian Kirk-type true freshman year, that will be a massive boost to the Aggie offense.

So what does all of this mean from a record standpoint, and can we beat Notre Dame?

Well, Vegas thinks we can beat Notre Dame, and I do, too. I have a feeling it’s going to be an ugly game.

I think it will come down to which field goal kickers make field goals, which punters keep the opponents deep in their own territory, and which offense scores a touchdown longer than 50 yards.

It won’t be exciting football if you like a lot of points.

I’ll take an ugly Aggie win over an exciting football game with lots of points any day of the week.

Because of the inexperience on both offensive lines, I think both head coaches are going to use their defense to try and make the other offense make mistakes.

I don’t know who has the better defense and the worst offensive line between these two teams. I hope it’s the Aggies on Saturday night who have the better defense and offensive line. I certainly think the Aggies can win.

As for the rest of the season, nobody can have any idea until that Notre Dame game is done. We need to see some real football first.

I feel like the floor is 6-6 and the ceiling is 10-2. That leads me to believe we’ll settle in around 8-4 if I had to bet right now.

I would love for us to be 10-2, but that’s going to require everyone staying healthy and the offensive unit playing to perfection for the 9 games against Power 5 teams. That seems like a tall task.

If we do go 8-4, I sure hope two wins are at Kyle with the four marquee games we have at Kyle. It would be super depressing to go 8-4 with all four losses being at Kyle. It’s a huge benefit to have our toughest four games at home but we have to win a couple of them for it to matter.

Losing at Kyle is the worst. It really hurts recruiting because that’s where you need to shine. Recruits need to experience what Kyle Field can be.

It’s a weird schedule that nobody can predict at this point. Let’s get through Notre Dame and go from there.

See y’all at Kyle Field on Saturday night.

BTHO Notre Dame!