Author: rcwouldhavegonefor2

Thoughts from the Arkansas Game

I absolutely love an Aggie win, especially when it’s over Arkansas. Love it or hate it, the Arkansas series in Jerry World, since we entered the SEC, has been WILD.

I mean WILD.

Somehow and someway, the Aggies have been on the winning side of 10 of the 11 Arkansas games played in JerryWorld. It’s been dicey at times, but we keep pulling out victories in this series. I can’t imagine being an Arkansas fan going into this game. Especially afterwards. Just totally deflating.

With all of that, I will sound like a wet blanket. Despite the win, none of my concerns for the rest of this season changed.

Arkansas isn’t a bad team, but they’re not very good. They didn’t really test the Aggies at all.

This game really reminds me of last year’s game. Arkansas took a few shots early on, but then our defensive line harassed their quarterback so much that he never got comfortable. With this loss, I don’t think Arkansas will go bowling this season.

I feel like we just beat a 5 win team. It’s hard to know if that translates to anything positive for the rest of the season.

I hope I’m wrong, but our next game is set up like Alabama last year. They came to Kyle after we beat Arkansas with a fantastic performance from our defensive line. Alabama slowed down our pass rush and exposed our secondary, walking out of Kyle with a win.

Luther Burden against our secondary frightens me. He’s not a superstar receiver, but as we saw with Isiah Bond last season, it doesn’t take a superstar receiver to have a great day against the Aggie secondary.

We’ll worry about that on Saturday, but let’s talk more about Arkansas.

I’m still not sure about Mike Elko. I wanted more out of this Aggie team against Arkansas, but we played just well enough to win. It was very Jimboesque in my mind. I keep waiting for something to happen that will differentiate Elko from Jimbo, but I haven’t seen it.

My two biggest issues were Arkansas’s fake punt execution and our walking off the field at the end of the first half.

The fake punt by Arkansas was simply wonderful coaching by Arkansas and TERRIBLE coaching by Texas A&M. It technically wasn’t a fake. Still, in their film, Arkansas picked up a tendency that our punt return team released to block downfield before the ball was kicked. That’s lazy coaching on A&M’s part. Incredibly lazy. You must ensure the ball is gone before turning your back and heading downfield.

Even worse, one of our guys stayed engaged with an Arkansas player while the punter with the ball ran right by him. Just lazy, lazy special teams. Remind you of anyone?

Don’t forget the blocked punt against Bowling Green last week. For the second week in a row, we had a special teams snafu that could have changed the outcome of the game. I’m not sure what’s going on with our special teams, but it’s pretty clear opponents have picked up weaknesses on film. That’s on our coaching staff.

At the end of the first half, Elko raised the white flag rather than take a chance on scoring. I get it was 3rd and 19 on our 43-yard line, but we could have easily run another play. You never know. Walking off the field in that moment is the sign of a coach who has little to no confidence in his offense.

It was tied 14-14. Elko felt there were more negatives than positives that could happen by snapping the ball. Remind you of anyone?

I’m not saying Elko is a defensive Jimbo, but after five games, things look more similar than different. I’m ready for things to be different than they used to be.

Offense:

I won’t spend much time on this offense because it’s not worth it. Five games in, Colin Klein looks like an absolutely horrible hire.

I’ll admit there are some flashes of excitement, like our third touchdown, but most of Klein’s play calls are unimaginative and becoming increasingly predictable.

We had 14 possessions in this game.

Three possessions resulted in touchdowns.
Two possessions ended the half and game.
NINE possessions resulted in punts.

Do you notice anything? We didn’t attempt a single field goal in this game. In ten possessions, we couldn’t even maneuver the ball into field goal range once. That’s a MASSIVE concern in my mind. I don’t like kicking field goals, but I like kicking field goals more than punting.

We could not consistently move the ball on a very average Arkansas defense.

Our first touchdown was an excellent move by Noah Thomas to juke his defender and then was able to outrun the other defenders to the end zone. The pass itself was less than 20 yards in the air.

Our second touchdown was thanks to an amazing play by our defense, which gave the offense the ball at the ten-yard line. It was a total gift from the defense. It was nice that the offense converted it, but they didn’t do anything to move it there.

Our third touchdown was a nice 75-yard drive, but 46 yards were gained on three straight carries by Le’Veon Moss. Moss basically carried the offense on his shoulders for three plays, running over and through the Arkansas defense. The touchdown pass to Tre Watson was a beautiful play but plays like that were few and far between.

Other than that drive, there was a lot of sputtering around by our offense. Just absolutely uninspiring offensive football. An average Arkansas defense shut us down.

I have ZERO confidence this offense can come back from a deficit of 14 points or more. A two touchdown deficit and we’re cooked I think.

The receivers aren’t getting consistent separation, running backs not named Moss aren’t cranking out yards, and Marcell Reed struggles to throw a pass longer than 10 yards. You really only have to defend this team in a 20-yard box.

Like his predecessor, Elko is running an offense that he hopes doesn’t make mistakes and can somehow put up one more point than his defense allows.

Maybe it turns out differently this time, but insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, hoping for a different result.

As for the quarterback situation, here is my take: Conner clearly isn’t healthy. He hasn’t suited up the last two games and, according to most reports, isn’t taking any practice snaps. Or if he is taking practice snaps, they’re minimal.

He’s clearly hurt.

Until he’s fully healthy and Reed struggles or stumbles, you won’t see Conner under center.

I believe that Reed will start against Missouri, and things will be reassessed during the bye week.

I don’t have a preference on who plays quarterback. At this point, I have no idea who the best quarterback is for this system. I’d say it doesn’t matter. The whole scheme is a MUCH more significant issue than who’s under center.

We focus on the quarterback because it’s the most obvious position, but Elko and Klein’s decisions are much bigger concerns than who’s under center.

Defense:

I can’t fault the defense for how they played on Saturday. The front four were completely disruptive and got Taylen Green out of rhythm. Green’s stat line doesn’t look bad; he completed 23 passes in 41 attempts for 279 yards. That’s not a bad day passing.

We’d certainly take that from a quarterback right now.

However, when it mattered, Green had to avoid pressure and never completed a big pass other than on the third play of the game, when he connected for the 75-yard touchdown. He was worried about avoiding pressure over finding open guys.

The defensive front four brought pressure the whole game. It was the main reason the Aggies walked out of JerryWorld for the final time with a win. Without their effort, I’m not sure the Aggies win.

The absolute play of the game was Shermar Stewart forcing the fumble on the 10-yard line. Somehow, Arkansas didn’t touch him, and he ran wide open to the backfield, where he took out the running back and quarterback—two guys at the same time. It was a beautiful play.

I don’t think we would have won without that play. It allowed us to tie the game, which swung the momentum from Arkansas to A&M. It was that big.

Nic Scourton only had two sacks, but he spent much of the game chasing Green out of the pocket. He was a force.

The unsung hero of the front four is Albert Regis. He doesn’t have the physical talent of the other three, but his motor and effort are unreal. He never slows down when he’s in.

Much like last year, my fear is that this Arkansas game is the most disruptive game of the year from our defensive front, and we won’t have the same results in another game. We’ll spend the rest of the season wondering where the pressure we saw in the Arkansas game went.

Beyond the defensive line, the rest of the defense played well enough. Our linebackers did fine, but I’m still slightly concerned about them against better teams. Scooby Williams can be quite disruptive at times, as he loves crashing the line of scrimmage.

Lee and Ricks seem like an upgrade over last year’s corners, but I’m still concerned about their ability to cover big-play receivers. We’ll find out this weekend when Luther Burden comes to town.

I liked what Elko and Bateman did as the game wore on. They seemed to adjust and bring additional pressure at the right time and in the right place. That did seem to be missing in the previous four games, where some of our blitzes weren’t getting there. They worked virtually every time against Arkansas after the first quarter.

Arkansas rushed 30 times for 100 yards, the longest for 25 yards. One run for 25 yards and an average of 2.6 yards on the other 29 carries. It’s a significant improvement over what we saw against Bowling Green and Notre Dame.

I still have questions about this defense, but I can’t fault anything they did on Saturday. They’re far and away the reason we won the game.

Looking Forward:

I’m excited about Missouri coming to town. We are essentially getting another shot at Notre Dame, a Top 10 ranked team that’s probably ranked a little higher than it should be. I do think Missouri is better than Notre Dame, but not by a large margin.

Missouri is the better team, but we’re completely capable of beating them.

I hate the 11 a.m. start time at Kyle Field, but it’s part of all the TV money we get.

If we’re going to be better than 8-4 this season, we must win this game. I think Missouri is the most likely win of the big games left at Kyle this season. I worry about LSU and Texas’ passing attacks. I don’t think our sputtering offense can win a shootout.

Elko needs to advise Klein to work up some wrinkles to win this game. The standard Run Pass Option or Zone Read that he’s running will not work. That Arkansas defense clearly knew the keys we were looking for and shut us down for the most part.

Something has to be different about our offense this Saturday.

If not, there will be a lot of disappointed Aggies around 3:00 on Saturday afternoon.

You know, just like it used to be.

Quarter Season Assessment

Not sure where to begin with that Bowling Green game. On one hand, we dominated Bowling Green from a defensive standpoint in the first half. Then, like in Gainesville, we came out in cruise control and got bit in the second half.

Three real games this season. We’ve given up two touchdowns in the second half while not giving up any touchdowns in the first half in each of them. Three games certainly feels like a trend.

This game felt a lot like the Notre Dame game to me. It was a night game at Kyle Field that wasn’t truly decided until the end. No team was ever really comfortable until their final possession.

The only real difference between Bowling Green and Notre Dame, other than the talent of the two teams, was the Aggie offense did just a little bit more than in the Notre Dame game to secure the win.

Still, by most accounts, the Aggie faithful felt highly disappointed after a night game at Kyle Field for the second time this season. Two games and two disappointments even if one resulted in a win. That’s not the way things are supposed to be for night games at Kyle Field.

Aggie fans want a change. They want to walk out of Kyle Field confident about the team they saw on the field. What a difference a week makes.

We’re a quarter of the way through this season and I’m still not sure what to think of this Aggie team. I wanted the hope that was found after the Florida game to continue building. The Bowling Green game simply reminded me of the concerns I had coming into the season.

The reality is this isn’t a truly talented football team. It doesn’t mean it’s a bad football team. It’s simply not an elite level college football team in 2024.

Talent Concerns:

Let’s take a look at each group compared to the 2023 squad:

Quarterback:
I honestly can’t grade this because there’s so many variables due to injury and games under center. Marcell Reed could develop with each game or he can regress because defenses learn how to defend him. Conner could get healthy and take back the starting job. He could be gone all season due to Reed’s play or his own health. I’m going to call this a push simply because it’s more of the same. We haven’t the foggiest idea what we truly have at quarterback right now.

Running Back:
Despite the loss of Rueben Owens; Moss, Daniels, and Smith have been serviceable. They’re certainly not carrying this team as they’re not a homerun threat every time they touch ball. They’re the least of the worries on offense though. They’re grinding out yards as best they can. I call this a slight advantage.

Offensive Line:
Last year’s unit was so bad that everyone is now enamored with the 2024 Aggie offensive line. It’s absolutely better but I’m still not sure how great it is. It’s far from the 2012 and 2020 offensive lines in my mind. How much better this unit is than last year’s remains to be seen. I’ll just call this unit some degree of better and hope it can improve even more.

Wide Receiver:
Oh boy. Through four games this unit is definitely worse than last year. We miss a playmaker like Ainias in a big way. Maybe Reed and these guys just need to get on the same page. A quarter of the season in, and this unit looks like a non factor for moving the ball and scoring points. This unit is definitely worse than last years.

Sure, there’s been a few good receptions but they’re few and far between. We need a lot more production out of this unit if we’re going to have a great season.

We need better receivers but how do you recruit better receivers if the current receivers you have aren’t producing? What kind of receiver recruit wants to come here? They want a productive passing game. That hasn’t happend in College Station for a while.

I felt like Elko really missed on getting a great receiver in the portal. Isiah Bond seemed like the obvious choice after hiring is position coach from Bama but he wound up in Austin. That made no sense to me why he didn’t land in College Station. Is the perception that bad or did Elko and Wiggins not pursue him or miss out on him?

I’m not saying Bond would have dramatically changed the outlook for this team but there’s no way Elko and Wiggins could have thought he wouldn’t be a positive addition to the wide receiver room. Bond would have absolutely been a positive addition to the wide receiver unit.

Whatever happens this season, Mike Elko needs to address our wide receiver situation in the absolute worst way. This position has been stuck in neutral since Jimbo arrived in 2018 and it’s time to figure out a way to put it in gear.

Defensive Line:
I think a lot of people would say this unit is better than last years. I don’t know if I would go that far. Last year’s defensive line was pretty elite. I don’t think this unit is worse than last years but it’s different. We don’t have the run stopper like we had with MacKinnley Jackson but Albert Regis is doing a damn fine job. Shermar Turner is doing a damn fine job taking over Walter Nolen’s spot. Scourton and Stewart are doing just fine on the edge. I’m going to call this one a push. That’s not a bad thing. It’s actually a good thing they’re similar to last year’s unit.

I don’t really care about the lack of sacks with this unit. If you’re watching the game you know what this unit is doing. Quarterbacks aren’t setting up shop in the pocket and it’s clear offenses are doing everything they can to slow this unit down. I attribute the lack of sacks to the respect offenses are paying this unit and the lack of plays by the other parts of the defense.

Linebacker:
I was worried we would miss Edge Cooper and I feel we do. I think York is struggling being the main guy offenses can focus on. He’s a smart player but he’s not nearly as physical as Cooper. Offenses seem to be able to take him out of plays where Cooper was much tougher to take out.

Besides York, it’s a rotation of mostly Scooby Williams and Daymion Sanford. They’ve been okay, but like York, they can be taken out of plays. I’m afraid this unit is going to get exposed by the better SEC teams on our schedule. This unit is definitely worse than last year.

Secondary:
My greatest fear for the 2024 Aggie football team is this unit has not been tested. Which means it may not have been fully exposed. I think we’re slightly better than last year but this unit was so bad last year that’s not saying much. This unit has blown coverage at times and seems to struggle to tackle on broken running plays. I’m going to call this unit incomplete but I think we find out a lot on Saturday.

Bobby Petrino has tried to be very balanced with his quarterback this season but against Oklahoma State he aired it out. I think he’s going to take some big swings early in the game so this unit better be up for the challenge. If not, it’s going to be a long game and season for the Aggies.

As a whole, I think this team is about the same as last year just in different ways. Oline is improved while wide receiver and linebacker are worse.

Last year was a 7-5 team for reference.

One more thing on talent while we’re here.

How many NFL draft picks do you think are currently on this roster? I mean absolutely certain NFL draft picks? I count three in the Shermar Brothers and Nic Scourton.

There’s certainly some other guys that could get drafted, but if I had to wager money on guys right now, those are the only three I’m wagering on.

Season Outlook:

Here’s my breakdown of remaining games:

No doubt – New Mexico State
Should wins – Arkansas, Mississippi State, and Auburn
Tough wins – Missouri, LSU, and South Carolina
Longshot right now – Texas

I feel like there’s 8 wins in there and maybe even 9, but this coaching staff is going to have to pull their heads out of their rear ends and realize the Jimbo style of coaching ain’t gonna work. They need to admit this isn’t an overly talented team and start taking some chances on offense. At least start desiging creative plays instead of just trying to establish the running game in hopes the passing game follows it.

They need to figure out how to get their defense to play smart football for 4 quarters and not give up second half plays because their players were in the wrong position to defend the play. They need to admit there’s holes in the linebacker group when it comes to defending the run and holes in the secondary for defending passes.

If you didn’t know Mike Elko and a whole new staff were on the sidelines, you’d think this was another Jimbo season but with motion from the offense. There’s nothing new with this staff four games in.

We’re going to find out a lot this weekend in Arlington. You better believe Pittman and Petrino smell blood to salvage their season. They need an A&M win to get to six wins and go bowling this season.

They need to beat one of the currently ranked teams on their schedule to go bowling. We’re the lowest rated of those teams. When you look at their remaining games, we’re the most obvious sixth win.

They’re going to stress the Aggies and we won’t win if we don’t change our approach.

If we lose this weekend, we’ve dug a massive hole for the 2024 season.

We win and we’ll have taken the best punch from someone smelling blood and can feel much better about the rest of the season.

One game at a time.

Coaching Concerns:

I love Mike Elko as a person. I don’t know about him as a head coach though.

If you ask any Aggie why they love the Elko hire there’s three main things:

1) He was a wonderful defensive coordinator under Jimbo.
2) He elevated Duke as their head coach.
3) He gets A&M.

Only one of those three things actually matters to being a great head coach and that’s his time at Duke. He was 8-4 in his first season and 7-5 in his second season so he actually regressed in his two years. I know he lost Leonard but we can’t give Elko a pass on his losing his QB when Jimbo had the same issue.
The reality is his time at Duke was pretty good but it wasn’t amazing or elite. Doesn’t mean he can’t become amazing or elite but we certainly haven’t seen it.

I’m in no way calling for the firing of Elko. Not even close. He’s our head coach for at least four seasons due to financial reasons. Plus, we’re not like some other programs who change their head coach at the drop of a hat. Elko will get plenty of time to prove himself as the Aggie head coach.

I hope the light comes on for him as a head coach and he finally elevates the Aggie program to a level we haven’t seen since the late 80s and early 90s.

Yes, it’s really been that long.

My greatest fear with Elko right now is he’s some version of Wade Phillips. A lovable person with an amazing mind for defense including exotic blitzes. However, he’s just missing something as a head coach.

I’m not saying he’s another Wade Phillips. His head coaching tenure is too short to really know. I’m just saying there could be some similarities if Elko doesn’t flip a switch as a head coach. Two seasons at Duke and four games at A&M aren’t trending well if you’re truly being objective and looking under the hood a bit.

He’s responsible for the hiring of Klein and Bateman. Right now, neither hire looks that great.

Klein is running a VERY vanilla offense. What does this offense look like without Reed’s mobility? It’s very possible we’re 2-2 and maybe even 1-3.

It’s a stagnant offense if not for Reed’s legs. And don’t give me everyone is getting used to it. What was the point of the off season if it takes actual games to get used to it? I do understand it takes time so you’re going to see some hiccups from time to time. However, there is NOTHING we’ve seen from this Klein offense. It’s a vanilla offense that has no wrinkles or urgency.

It’s not the same, but the end result is a Jimbo style offense. But with motion. The on field performance is all that matters. It’s not there four games in.

I get Elko wants to win with defense because he’s a defensive coach. The reality is this defense might not be as good as Elko thinks. We have played four pretty bad offenses. We’ve got a couple more in Mississippi State and Auburn thank goodness.

However, I don’t think this defense can hold up to the stresses that Missouri, LSU, South Carolina, and Texas will put on it. If our offense isn’t ready to swing back then we’re going to lose those games.
My greatest fear right now is Petrino pulls something out of the hat this weekend and by the time we get to Auburn in November, Freeze has found a quarterback that doesn’t turn the ball over.

If that happens, there’s a chance we don’t go bowling and recruiting is going to take a massive hit.
If Elko can’t see that and get Klein to start designing and calling plays with some creativity and urgency; then this Aggie team could be in big trouble.

I hope he’s aware after four games that 8-4 is very possible. However, it’s nowhere near a lock and it’s going to take some adapting from the first four games. If he’s stubborn like his predecessor and keeps trying the same thing, it’s going to be a long season.

We’ll find out a lot over the next two weeks with Arkansas and Missouri. Both winnable games if this coaching staff is willing to admit reality and take come chances. If not, they’re both losable.
We know the talent on this team. The wins and losses will come down to coaching the rest of the way.

The Elephant in the Room:

While talking about the talent issues, there’s a main culprit that everyone has forgotten about or doesn’t want to remember.

The greatest recruiting class in the history of college football. That’s right. The vaunted 2022 recruiting class.

The 30 guys that were supposed to elevate this program to a sure national championship. They would be in their third year in the program. It’s not a stretch to think half of our starters this season should be from that class.

Care to guess how that class went?

7 guys have started this season. Only 5 are currently starting due to the injuries to Weigman and Nabou. Shermar Stewart, Le’Veon Moss, Theo Ohrstrom, Bryce Anderson, and Noah Thomas. That’s it.

There are seven other guys still rostered. I think only Brownlow-Dindy and Donovan Green of this group stand any chance of starting at any point in the future. I know Green’s injury knocked him back quite a bit, but there are five guys from that class still rostered who will likely never see meaningful minutes for the Aggies.

The 16 others are gone pecans. Over half the 30 guys in that vaunted class are no longer on the roster.
Third season and half the class has vaporized for whatever reason.

That’s where the talent drain happened. I get it’s a new era with NIL and the transfer portal but that’s pretty pitiful. A class of elite prospects mostly wiped out with little to show for it from the transfer portal.

OUCH!!!!

What a massive failure that class was. Not just on the field but financially. That class is a massive reason Jimbo got his big extension. We couldn’t let Jimbo go to LSU and have that class dissipate. I get the why.

Everybody just looked at the stars and not under the hood. I’ll admit I looked at the stars like everyone else, but I don’t get paid to look under the hood when offering contracts to coaches. I was just being an excited fan hoping things were finally turning for Aggie Football.

That class is THE biggest reason we’re in the shape we’re in for the 2024 season. We don’t have the talent that elite college football teams have. It never materialized and we never even came close to replacing it.

We can pretend we have the talent of elite programs, but that would be foolish. I certainly agree we have more talent than a lot of college football teams, but I’m ready for Texas A&M to be elite. I’m tired of this cycle we seem to be stuck in other than an outlier season every now and then.

To become elite will require creative and aggressive coaching. Doing the same thing the previous staff did but with a defensive mindset is not going to work.

NIL is no longer an advantage for us. Everyone else in the SEC has money too. We can’t tout that advantage anymore. Sure, we can still spend with the best of them but it’s not a unique advantage.

We need WINS!!!!

WINS is what will make the difference in recruiting and building the program to an elite level. We can’t keep selling we have great resources and it’s only a matter of time story. I’m tired of Groundhog Day.

WINS will come with great coaching. That’s on Elko on his staff. We need WINS now more than ever.

I sure hope a light went off in Elko’s head at Kyle Field on Saturday night.

If not, I’m afraid it’s gonna be just like it use to be.

Florida Fodder

This is a tough game to truly analyze for a few reasons:

1) It was more of a 3 period game than a 2 half game. It’s not a big deal, but definitely didn’t have the flow of a normal game. Not sure if that had any effect on either team but it felt like it did.

2) Florida was horribly coached. Billy Napier is firmly on the hot seat and he decided to rotate his quarterbacks on a regular schedule. It was clear Graham Mertz was the better quarterback on his series. Why Napier kept trotting out D.J. Lagway and not ride Mertz in the second half is beyond me. And I’m a massive D.J. Lagway fan. I wanted him to come to A&M and do think he’s going to be a great college quarterback somewhere. In my mind, Napier certainly didn’t seem to be coaching to win this game. Mertz gave him the best option to win in the second half and he didn’t seem to care or be aware.

3) Florida was missing their best receiver. I have no idea if he would have made any difference but I certainly would have preferred to be tested at full strength.

4) I think this Florida team is completely beaten down. Two weeks ago, they were embarrassed by Miami, and A&M came in and controlled the game from the start. They certainly didn’t seem to put up much of a fight, especially in the second half.

With all of that being said, Texas A&M’s win was EXCELLENT. I expected a little more from Florida, but I’m not going to downplay A&M’s effort and execution in this game.

Texas A&M was far from perfect on Saturday. Yet, they controlled Florida the entire game in their house. There’s no way to minimize that.

A&M cleans up their mistakes and they can beat anyone on their schedule. They’ll need to play a perfect game against a couple of teams or near perfect game against the others but what I saw on Saturday gives me some hope this team and coaching staff can improve as the season goes on.

I certainly wasn’t feeling great after the first two games. Really, just since Notre Dame because McNeese showed us absolutely nothing they were so bad.

Three weeks into the season, I think it’s obvious the easiest wins for A&M are Florida (duh), Arkansas, and Mississippi State. I think Florida might be the most talented of those three but the worst coached. Just a terrible showing from the Gator coaching staff on Saturday.

I feel much better about A&M going at least 6-6 this season and think 8-4 is a real possibility. I wouldn’t even put 10-2 out of reach based on what I saw on Saturday. 10-2 is still a pretty big reach but I do think it’s possible.

College football is crazy, so things can change in a week’s time. Just ask a host of teams from last Saturday.

Wins in the SEC don’t come easy, so there’s no easy win. If you’re not ready to perform, you’re going to get a loss.

With that, here’s how I would rate the coaching staff on A&M’s wins and losses for the rest of the season:

5 wins or less – Terrible
6-6 – Below average
7-5 – Average
8-4 – Good
9-3 – Really good
10-2 – Great
11-1 – Amazing

I’m not going to guess where those wins and losses come from but that’s my current scale for grading this coaching staff. My expectation at this point is 8-4 but I’m all for it being better than that.

We’ll find out a lot more in the next three games.

Let’s talk about some specifics of the game and the most obvious question first:

• I don’t know how Marcel Reed isn’t the clear and obvious starting quarterback. I had questions about him during the McNeese State game but what he did on Saturday was impressive. I have no idea if he can keep this up as we saw what happened to Jaylon Henderson last season. He had an amazing first start against Mississippi State. Then struggled against LSU, got hurt on the first play of the Texas Bowl, and then lost his backup job to Reed ove the spring and summer. The list of quarterbacks who’s first start was their best start (see Kenny Trill) is long, but you have to find out if Reed is for real. Until Reed has any level of struggles, he should be the starting quarterback with no questions asked. I don’t care what Elko says during the week. I only care how he manages his quarterbacks for the next couple of games. Reed needs to start and play the large majority of the snaps against Bowling Green assuming he’s having similar success. You have to ride the hot hand and Reed is hot.

• As for Reed’s specific play, he was terrific. He wasn’t perfect in his decision making but he was really damn good most of the night. I knew he could run like a deer and has a great arm but was really impressed with his accuracy. He obviously had some big plays with wide open guys but his passes were on the mark. We’ve seen plenty of quarterbacks miss wide open guys but Reed made the passes when the big play was there.

• The play of the offensive line was also impressive. Even if the Florida defense was mailing it in. Rolling up 310 yards of rushing is impressive. Our backs certainly deserve some credit, but most of the credit is due to our offensive line controlling the line of scrimmage and opening holes. The most impressive thing without a doubt was the 99 yard drive in the rain in the second quarter. That drive alone broke what little will the Florida defense had. The offensive line deserves massive kudos for their play in this game.

• Crownover and Fatheree were rotating at right tackle early in the game but it looked like Fatheree took most of the snaps in the second half. Not sure if that means he’s won the job or something was wrong with Crownover but I’d love to see someone take over that job. I could be wrong on that and their snaps were equal, but it seemed like a I saw Fatheree more in the second half.

• T.J. Callahan looked really good at center. I’m big on him because he seems to play with a mean streak. It bit him on that 99 yard drive with his personal foul, but he got bailed out thanks to a targeting call. I don’t think Callahan will be a big drop off if he has to play center full time for us.

• Thanks to some creative play calling and routes, we finally saw some receivers running wide open against a Power 5 opponent. I can’t tell you how long I’ve been waiting on that. Some of it was the offensive line giving Reed time and Reed’s ability to extend the play, but it was nice to see.

• The first two games felt like the same old plodding Jimbo offense. This offense felt different than those first two games from the start. No doubt Reed’s athletic ability opened up some things, but the play calling in this game felt a little more forceful. The most obvious was the big TD pass to Cyrus Allen after the Florida score in the second half. I assumed we were going to run the ball most of that series. So did Florida, but Klein called a motion route out of the backfield that completely leveraged their safety cheating to the run. Reed read it perfectly and made a great pass to Allen who utilized the space to find the end zone. It was the perfect play call and execution. If Florida had any thoughts of making a comeback, that play put those thoughts to bed. Just a wonderful play in that moment.

• We only had 178 yards passing but we leveraged the running game perfectly to create two big passing touchdowns. I believe we’re going to need to leverage the passing game more as the season wears on, but I have no issue running down the throat of a team with no will and using the passing game to make sure they’re put away.

• I think you’ll see teams focus more on Reeds ability to run which is fine. I believe we can leverage that via the passing game. There’s nothing more dangerous than a quarterback in the pocket that can pull the ball down and run like a deer when the middle of the field is open. I believe that’s going to open up our passing game as linebackers and safeties have to watch for Reed taking off but we’ll see.

• Defensively, that was a tough game to analyze with the extended breaks. They were dominant in the first and second quarters and then kind of had some issues in the second half. I think this defense would have looked different had we not had that long break between the 1st and 2nd quarter. They seemed to come out a little flat in the second half because the game seemed in hand. We also appeared to rotate a few more of the backups in the second half so I think that was a factor as well.

• I think the most impressive thing I’ve seen from this defense is the adaptation to the fact the defensive line is not going to get pressure on the quarterback by themselves. That’s a tall order for four guys to beat five guys. Instead of just repeatedly hoping it happens, Elko and Bateman are using a 5th defensive lineman as a true edge rusher along with well timed and disguised blitzes to get pressure. It’s clear our defensive line can be disruptive, but it’s also clear that offensive lines are going to do their best to not let it be disruptive. When that happens, you have to be creative in getting pressure. I see that happening. The use of Cashius Howell and Rylan Kennedy has been really good. They’re technically defensive ends but they’ve been used as edge rushers on passing downs like linebackers. They’ve been really effective.

• We need to get used to Nick Scourton getting held to a degree. I saw several times where Scourton would make an inside move and the tackle would just kind of swallow him up with a hug. It’s not an obvious hold but it’s a hold. The refs weren’t calling it so Florida kept doing it. I was actually impressed with the technique Florida was using and don’t blame them for doing it. You can bet other teams are going to try the same thing until it gets flagged.

• I still have questions about this defense’s ability to defend the pass because they haven’t truly been tested, but their plan and execution for shutting down Florida was impressive. At least in the first half. I still think Arkansas is a going to be a good test of this passing defense, but I feel much better about this unit after watching them shut down Florida for a half.

• I think Elko and Bateman’s intention of applying pressure will also help this pass defense. D.J. Durkin had a terrible knack of relying only on the front four to bring pressure. You can’t do that if it’s not working. You have to bring pressure from other areas and it seems Elko and Bateman recognize that. A comfortable quarterback is a dangerous quarterback so you can’t let him get comfortable.

• An offense that can actually score points will be a big factor in how this defenses plays. Being up a few points or having an offense with the ability to respond to a big play is a massive advantage for a defensive. You can play much more aggressive knowing the offense can pick up your slack. Aggressive defenses are better defenses. We saw that on Saturday.

It’s amazing a how a single win can change your outlook on the season. The establishment of hope is an amazing thing. We have hope again.

There’s no way to truly know what this win means for the rest of our nine games. Hopefully, it’s a launch point like 2020, but we could also look back and realize Florida is a beat down team with terrible coaching. No matter what, this win is INFINITELY better than a loss.

That much is for sure.

Even more than just a win, was the play of an offense that finally showed the ability to make plays. There’s no way to know if this is sustainable. All we can do is wait until our next test against Arkansas to know if this was a blip or a trend.

I have hope it’s a trend.

Musings from McNeese

This game’s write-up will have a little more rambling and musing than a structured one.

I’m not sure what I saw on Saturday, so it’s hard to fully diagnose that game. McNeese is a bad football team—a very bad football team.

It was nice to see A&M dominate McNeese, but I’m not sure what positives there are to the game. Sure, dominating is better than struggling against McNeese, but that was a glorified scrimmage against a much inferior opponent. There’s just not a lot of good that can come from playing a game like this.

In addition to not gaining anything by playing McNeese, Some Directional Illinois beat Notre Dame in its stadium.

So, I still don’t know what the hell to think about the 2024 Aggies. The concerns remain, and the Notre Dame loss only compounds them.

Can’t even really call the Notre Dame loss a “good” loss anymore. We got beat at home by a team that got beat at home by Some Directional Illinois the following week. Those mental gymnastics rationalizing a Notre Dame loss seem to be out the window right now.

As for the McNeese game:

• Good to see Conner get back on track. I know it was just McNeese, but seeing him go 11/14 for 125 yards and two scores was nice. He missed a few passes, but he was really on the mark for the part of the game he played. I have no idea if it translates to a tougher defense but it’s sure better than him struggling against a team like McNeese.

• I thought it was moronic he got pulled when he did. He had a chance to run a 2-minute drill before the end of the first half. Then, come out for a series or two after the half to see how he responds after sitting for a bit. I understand getting Reed some snaps, but I thought Conner should have received all the snaps a couple of series into the third quarter.

• As for Marcell Reed, it’s pretty clear Conner is the unquestioned starter. I love Reed’s athleticism, but he went 5 for 11 for 71 yards. Against McNeese.

• I’m still not sold on this offensive line. It’s certainly improved from last season, but Crownover and Fatheree split time in the first half. I don’t like that at all. Our starting line needs to be set. That tells me there’s still uncertainty on who the right tackle should be. That’s a liability that will likely haunt us at some point this season.

• I’m also still worried about this line as a whole. They’re going to get tested this season, and I hope they respond. Just because they’re better than last season’s version doesn’t mean they’re a really good unit.

• I thought Moss and Daniels looked good. I still don’t think they’re elite-level backs, but I do think they will be fine for the 2024 Aggies.

• Cyrus Allen and Noah Thomas had some nice catches. We had a Moose sighting, but who knows if it will last. I think there’s some decent talent at receiver, but I’m unsure about the scheme and coaching. I expected a lot more two games in.

• If I didn’t know Elko and a new staff were running this offense, I’d think it’s still a Jimbo offense but with motion. I know it’s only two games in, but I don’t see anything different or special about this offense. It still looks like a slow, plodding offense with no creativity or wrinkles.

• Defensively, it’s really hard to judge this squad during that game. I believe McNeese was playing their backup quarterback, as their starting quarterback was banged up.

• We did have a couple of nice interceptions, but then again, it was McNeese.

• Overall, there seemed to be a dramatic difference in the quality of play when the second and third teams entered the third game. This doesn’t speak well to our depth.

Looking forward:

• Nothing changed my mind that 8-4 is the ceiling for this team. Unless there’s a dramatic change on offense, we’ll find ourselves on the short side of at least three more games. That’s not going to be a good season. We need some sort of urgency to show things are different.

• We’ll find out a lot more this weekend against Florida. Florida isn’t a good team, but they’re wounded. That scares me a bit. I’m also a little worried that pulling our starters early in the game will return and bite us in Florida. I understand the value of getting the backups some playing time, but I also want to know if our starters are prepared for 4 quarters of football. I’m not saying we’ll lose to Florida, but I don’t see it as an easy win. I hope I’m wrong and the Aggies stomp in The Swamp.

• I’m a little concerned about the Arkansas game. I know they lost to an Oklahoma State team that’s probably overrated, but Bobby Petrino will try to take advantage of our defense. I’m still not totally sold on our defense. There’s some definite talent along the starting defensive line, but I’m not sure how elite it is. I think we might be pretty susceptible to a good running team. Our linebackers and corners might struggle to defend the pass, so we’ll need our defensive line to pressure them. I know that sounds obvious, but Arkansas will tell us a lot. Bobby Petrino will find and try to attack the weaknesses.

• There’s no way to project much beyond the Florida and Arkansas games right now. Let’s see what happens in The Swamp this Saturday before we spend more time deciding more about the 2024 Aggies. It’s just not worth our time and effort right now.

Thoughts from the Notre Dame Game

Hello darkness, our old Aggie friend
I’m writing another blog about disappointment yet again

I hate to say I saw this loss coming, but if you read my pre-season ramblings, I certainly knew it was possible.

You can read those here – https://rcwouldhavegonefor2.com/2024/08/28/ramblings-and-musings-for-the-2024-aggies/

This wasn’t a horrible loss by any stretch, but to say it was disappointing is an understatement.

The Aggie football team had most of college football watching to see if they could make a statement. Aggie fans everywhere were full of hope, hoping to see a sign that things would be different.

There was no statement and indeed no sign. This was just another Aggie team with a chance to take a massive leap in the hierarchy of college football. But like so many times before, that step simply slipped away.

Same thing, different season. Great seasons appear to be an anomaly and not a standard.

A fan base that yearns for more respect in college football with a football program that rarely delivers. Expectations and reality are completely out of whack.

Sure, the Aggies can still salvage this season, but what was on display on Saturday night suggests that this team will struggle to reach eight wins.

Notre Dame is a really good football team, but it’s not elite. It’s a storied program with a schedule that only tests them in 2-3 games. The rest of the way, Florida State and USC are their only ranked opponents. They likely punched their ticket to the College Football Playoff with that win last night because they’re probably going 10-2 this season, and they’re Notre Dame.

Even though they’re likely headed to the CFP, they were totally beatable. There will be some talk that might be the best defense A&M plays all season. That may be, but the Aggie offense was utterly inept against it.

I’m not even sure that’ll be one of the best three defenses we face all year. It’s certainly a defense that’s been elevated by its schedule.

I think the lack of offense was more due to the Aggie offense being completely inept than the Notre Dame defense being stifling. That’s a good Notre Dame defense, but that Aggie offense was MISERABLE.

I will put more structure into this blog rather than my ramblings and musings like last time.

Coaching:

I don’t hate the Elko hire, but I’ve always questioned if Mike Elko is an elite head coach.

What he did at Duke was impressive as he certainly elevated their football program, but it’s not like he put Duke football on a different level. They were 8-4 and 7-5 in his two seasons.

He had some nice wins over those two years, but he also had some disappointing losses they could have won, most notably Notre Dame and North Carolina last season.

What would Aggie fans have thought of the hire if he hadn’t been the Aggie defensive coordinator?

We love hiring coaches that “get A&M,” but I don’t know if that’s the best criteria.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t have hired Elko and I’m certainly not saying he should be fired. It’s not even close to that at all. We need to simply look at Mike Elko for what games he’s been a head coach and what they have shown us.

Mike Elko will be our head coach for a few seasons, but nothing in his sample set shows he’s an elite-level head coach. Elite-level head coaching was not on display on Saturday night.

I hope I’m wrong, but I can only go on actual results. Those results aren’t elite right now.

I think most people have seen the video clip of Elko waving the white flag on the final drive and yelling at whoever was on the head set with Colin Klein to run the ball. He was more spirited than that, but Elko was not happy with Klein’s play-calling.

I’m not worried about the emotion. I love the emotion.

I’m worried about our head coach and offensive coordinator not being on the same page even if it appeared to be a meaningless drive.

Throughout the game, Elko was on the sidelines with a headset. I assume he has direct contact with his offensive coordinator. I hope he has regular conversations with his offensive coordinator during the game.

We can argue about Elko waving the white flag on the final drive, but at that moment, why did the offensive coordinator not know what his head coach wanted to do? Or was Klein acting in defiance of what his head coach wanted to do?

Maybe it was just a misunderstanding, but it’s a flag to me about how Elko handles the offensive side of the ball. I know Elko is a defensive coach, and I don’t want him calling the offensive plays. I ABSOLUTELY want him to give feedback and guidance to his offensive coordinator throughout the game, though.

That’s his job as head coach and should make the offensive coordinator’s job easier. This way, Klien can focus more on calling plays rather than spending time thinking through what direction he wants to call plays.

An elite-level head coach offers his coordinators guidance. His job is to watch the entire game, offer feedback on what’s happening, and give guidance on where to go.

I’ll get to the offense in a bit, but I hope what happened at the end was a misunderstanding and not a sign that Klein is operating the offense in a complete vacuum.

Mike Elko had a chance to make a statement on Saturday night and he didn’t. We knew the game was likely going to be an ugly offensive game. The Aggies as a whole looked really unprepared for that game. Especially on offense

I get that the coaching staff and a large part of the roster are new, but they’ve had plenty of time to prepare and look more crisp.

We certainly didn’t see elite coaching on Saturday night.

I suppose we can only go up from here, but we need to get there quickly. Mike Elko furthered the perception that the Texas A&M football team is not prepared to take that next step and make a statement. It looks like more of the same.

That will hurt our recruiting in a horrible way if it doesn’t turn around.

Mike Elko needs to win now in a huge way. sooner than later.

Offense:

Play calling:

Before I get to the obvious concern about the offense, I have to talk about the play calling.

This looked like a Jimbo Fisher called offense but with new and improved motion! Like when a crappy beer updates its can. It’s the same crappy beer, but there’s new vibrant colors on the can!

In all seriousness, there did not appear to be a comprehensive plan for this offense. It looked like a random selection of plays based on the play before it. Nothing was being set up, and it didn’t seem like this offense had any real idea of how to attack Notre Dame’s defense.

This offense looked slow, plodding, and not crisp at all. It looked like the last six years of Aggie Football.

I saw ZERO wrinkles that surprised Notre Dame. It was a straightforward offense that Notre Dame could defend.

To be fair, the quarterback play was not helping at all, but there didn’t appear to be any adapting to how the quarterback was playing.

It was like, “Oh shit. That play didn’t work. Try this one. Dang. That didn’t work either. Try this one. Crap. Okay, punt the ball, and we’ll see if we can figure out something for the next series.”

Just a bunch of haphazard plays that had no apparent rhyme or reason. If Jimbo Fisher was watching this game, he was nodding in agreement at the futility of this offense.

Just like he would have called, but with new and improved motion!

Quarterback:

First off, I don’t care that Conner threw up during the game. Sure, it’s not ideal your starting quarterback threw up during a big game. However, he’s not the first player to throw up during a game, and he won’t be the last.

I saw Elko say it was a puke and rally. That’s exactly right. It’s no big deal he threw up. I don’t really care about it.

I do care about Conner’s total lack of accuracy. He threw some really bad passes all night.

Completing 12 of 30 passes for 100 yards with two interceptions with no touchdowns shows an issue with accuracy. Visually, some of his misses were really bad.

He looked like a pitcher who couldn’t throw strikes with his fastball. Instead of trying different pitches for strikes, he just kept humming fastballs, hoping the accuracy would find its way. It never did.

Early in the game, he made two throws to the running backs, but he just gunned the ball too far in front of them. Neither running back had a chance to catch the ball. Those should be pretty high-percentage completions.

On one of his interceptions, he completely missed Noah Thomas high, which wound up in the hands of the defense back. Noah had no chance at catching the ball even though he launched himself into the air. The ball still sailed over his hands. Conner completely missed him.

Conner didn’t have a super clean pocket, but it wasn’t like he was super pressured all night long, running for his life. He had time.

He was also staring down receivers like he’d already decided where the ball was going before the snap. Primarily to Cyrus Allen on quick throws.

That’s okay to do from time to time but it looked more like he couldn’t process the defense in real time. He was just going to a guy he hoped would be open based on pre-snap reads.

I have no idea what the issue was on Saturday night, but a game from his past has scared me.

Last week, I wrote that Conner played four full games against a Power 5 opponent. In those four games, he either threw for over 300 yards or under 200.

I was looking at those games as half-full glasses. The two games in which he threw for over 300 yards were the reality, not the games in which he threw for under 200 yards.

The game that scared me the most, which I didn’t talk about, is the 2022 Auburn game.

In that game, the Aggie offense had to punt on its first 10 possessions. We never even got into field goal range on our first 10 possessions. Ten possessions and 10 punts to start the game—that’s the definition of inept.

Auburn had a decent defense, but it wasn’t super elite. However, the Aggie offense was so inept that it couldn’t move the ball inside field goal range on 10 straight possessions to open the game.

That’s the famous game where Moose was suspended for wanting to wear sleeves.

We finally got a field goal attempt on our 11th possession, but that was because of a defensive interception in Auburn territory. On that 11th possession, we didn’t even get a first down. The offense went three and out, only kicking a field goal thanks to the field position the defense secured.

The definition of inept.

In that game, Conner was 14 of 36 for 121 yards. That’s less than a 40% completion rate.

After that game, I remember thinking, “A great quarterback somehow finds ways to make plays.” Conner certainly didn’t make plays that game, but I chalked it up to stupid Jimbo because of the Moose suspension. It seemed like the perfect comedy of ineptness Jimbo was proving to be good at.

I never put any of it at Conner’s feet. Maybe I should have. Maybe Conner struggles against better defenses.

Ironically, the next season, he got hurt against Auburn on the last offensive play of the first half. In that game, he was 8 of 14 for 70 yards. I remember watching that game and thinking he was struggling. Then he got hurt, and I just chalked it up to not getting a chance to play a full game. He would have lit it up in the second half.

It’s crazy to think the game against Notre Dame is a definitive game. However, if you look at his five and a half games against Power 5 opponents, the glass is definitely half empty. There might even be a leak.

He’s undoubtedly feast or famine at this point.

I’m not giving up on Conner, but he’s no longer getting a blind pass when the Aggie passing game struggles. The data suggests there’s a good chance he’s part of the problem.

I hope he turns it around, but the trend right now is a massive red flag.

Insane to think the guy everyone assumed would be the savior of Aggie football isn’t that savior.

Welcome to Aggie football.

Offensive Line:

The offensive line has been everyone’s biggest concern coming into this season.

However, most folks blamed it on Steve Addazio; everything would be fine.

Welp, Steve Addazio was nowhere near Kyle Field on Saturday night, and the offensive line still struggled.

Last week, I discussed the shuffling as a specific concern. Well, that happened on Saturday night. Some of it was due to Mark Nabou’s apparent injury, but even before he got hurt, they were shuffling people.

You can’t do that. As a coaching staff, you must decide on the five guys you think are the best unit and let it roll.

That’s apparently what Notre Dame did. I wasn’t explicitly watching their line, but they appear to have stuck with the five guys they deemed the starters for the last two weeks. They were young and inexperienced, but they were more effective than the Aggie offensive line.

The Aggie offensive line wasn’t horrible on Saturday night, but it seemed like a microcosm of the entire Aggie offense philosophy, which has no clear plan or identity.

Sometimes, they looked okay, and other times, they struggled to pass protect or blow Notre Dame off the ball. They certainly did not have an identity of what they wanted to do to the Notre Dame defense, which caused a lot of confusion and uncertainty at times.

I believe that’s mostly tied to confusion and uncertainty about who’s playing where.

Head Coach Mike Elko needs to instruct his offensive coordinator and offensive line coach to pick the best five guys for what they want to do and stick with them. There should be no more mixing and matching.

Not during the game and not during practice.

These are the starting five for at least the next four games. Let’s see if we can finally build cohesion on the offensive line.

Running Back:

Running back was exactly what I thought it would be. Decent enough, but nothing spectacular. Moss led the way with 20 carries for 72 yards and a touchdown.

My biggest beef with Moss was that midway through the fourth quarter, we had a third-and-9. Conner hit him on a short pass out of the backfield, and Moss stepped out one yard shy of the stick. He didn’t even fight for the extra yard to get the first down.

This is your feature back?

Middle of the 4th quarter in a tie game where conversions and possession matter and your lead back isn’t fighting for a first down?

In my mind, that’s more about coaching than Moss. He needs to be aware of what’s on the line and fight for it.

It’s more of an example of an offensive that has no clue about its identity. And that’s on coaching.

Daniels showed he still has his burst, and E.J. Smith looks like a nice change of pace.

I’ve said this unit won’t carry the team, and I still believe it. They do look serviceable, but the offensive line needs to be identified to help these guys.

Wide Receiver:

I was concerned about this unit coming into the season, but I saw nothing from them. I know Notre Dame has a good defense, and Conner struggled with his accuracy, but these guys did nothing to get open.

We had 12 completions for 100 yards. Our longest completion was for 18 yards to a tight end.

Remember when I said I’m tired of tight ends leading any portion of our receiving unit? Well, I’m still tired of it.

We never once tried a deep ball in a man-coverage situation. Motion is supposed to expose the defensive coverage, and we never once went for a big play.

We never tested the safeties and linebackers on seam routes down the middle of the field.

Is that a mark on the players or is it a lack of confidence by the offensive coaching staff with their personnel? I know Conner was bad but he never had a truly wide-open receiver down the field he completely whiffed on.

All of Conner’s misses were in traffic. Our receivers were not getting open either due to a lack of talent or poorly designed routes. Maybe both.

Like the running backs, I don’t expect much from this unit, but I was hoping for something different beyond their pre-snap motion.

Noah Thomas was in the slot most of the night. Maybe my assessment is wrong, but I feel he’s our most talented receiver. He needs to be on the outside looking for man coverage down the field. We need to see if he can be a guy that defenses have to account for on the outside.

We can put to bed whatever hope we had of Moose turning into a player under a different coaching staff.

New coaching staff and the same missing Moose.

Let’s move on.

Moose ain’t ever getting loose.

Defense:

Defensive Line:

The defensive line was expected to be the best unit of this Aggie team, and they certainly lived up to those expectations.

They were, far and away, the best unit of the Aggies on Saturday night.

They didn’t register any sacks, but that’s because Notre Dame smartly used the run and quick passes, so we never had a chance to tee off on Riley Leonard. They certainly applied pressure on passing plays.

The only thing I can say about this unit is a concern for defending the run. It’s not a massive knock but I think they’re so focused on just being disruptive they lose gap integrity on obvious running situations.

Notre Dame rolled up 214 yards on 34 carries. That’s an almost 6 yard per carry average. That was the difference in the game. There were two big touchdown runs but those tend to happen when a team is committed to leaning on the defensive line for much of the game.

I’m curious if better offensive lines will have even more success running the ball against this defense. Obviously, our inept offense allowed Notre Dame to stay committed to the run, but if there’s an apparent weakness on this defensive line, it’s defending the run.

One of the night’s biggest surprises for me was the play of Cashius Howell and Rylan Kennedy. I thought they looked outstanding in the snaps they got.

We knew our starters would be good, but it’s nice to see some apparent depth and talent to give those starters a break.

Linebacker:

I thought our linebackers were okay but not dominant. I know York blames himself for the missed tackle on the long touchdown run, but there were a lot of missed tackles on that run.

We rotated a lot of guys at the linebacker position all night so it was kind of tough for me to judge how they all performed.

I’m against mixing and matching the offensive line, but I’m okay with mixing and matching the linebackers based on what we expect the opponent to do coming into the game and what we see during the game.

Other than York, we’ve got three guys whose in-game ability we’re not really sure about, so it may take a little time to develop.

I think this unit’s whole existence this season will be spent cleaning up what the defensive line misses.

So, no matter who and how they play, they have to get better at tackling and staying in position.

Secondary:

This unit didn’t get tested thanks to A&M’s inept offense and Notre Dame’s smart offensive plan.

Notre Dame threw for 158 yards on 18 completions with a long pass of 20 yards.

I don’t think we can really judge this unit from this game.

Like I’m curious what an experienced offensive line that’s committed to the run will do against our defensive line, I’m also curious what a pass-happy offense will do against this secondary.

I still fear our corners are a liability, and an effective pass-happy team can light this secondary up.

I hope I’m wrong, but Notre Dame was definitely not an effective pass-happy team that put this secondary to the test.

Looking Forward:

I have no idea if A&M will rebound from this loss. I’d like to think we will, but I have no clue.

I know the 2012 team lost to Florida in their first game, but that loss felt different, and that team was totally different. It had loads of talent on offense and a ton of seniors on defense.

I remember seeing some flashes from Johnny that game. We certainly didn’t see flashes from Conner on Saturday night. I honestly don’t know how a quarterback can have that bad of a game and completely turn it around. It’s possible, but it’s going to be a massive concern right now.

I know the 2020 team struggled in its first game against Vandy, got soundly beaten by Bama, and then turned it around against Florida, never losing the rest of the way.

That team was also different in its third year with Jimbo. It had a senior offensive line with an experienced senior quarterback. It also had two really good running backs, Isiah Spiller and some guy named Devon Achane.

This 2024 team looks more like the other years that aren’t 2012 and 2020.

We’ll learn more about this team in two weeks against a very beatable Florida team. But it’s an SEC game on the road, which I don’t need to tell you about our current losing streak in those games.

I’m also slightly concerned about facing an actual Bobby Petrino offense in Arlington. We’ll learn more about them this week as they take on Oklahoma State, but Arkansas may not be an obvious win.

We have four games before Missouri comes to town, and that will be a much tougher game than people expect.

While Notre Dame might be one of the best defenses we face all season, I also think their offense will be one of the worst we see all season—at least of the SEC teams left on our schedule.

Our defense is going to face much bigger tests.

I still contend this feels like an 8-4 season. With the loss, we skew to the 6-6 side, not the 10-2 side.

We had an amazing night. Kyle Field was flat out rocking, and we could have made a statement. We did what Aggie Football has done in forever: We stubbed our toe.

It doesn’t mean our season is lost, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be concerned.

We just have to wait until September 14th to see another data point for this team.

Ramblings and Musings for the 2024 Aggies

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!

A Month of Mike Elko

In my initial analysis of Mike Elko after his firing, I stated I felt the Aggies finally got the hire right. This was after four failed attempts with Fran, Sherman, Sumlin, and Jimbo. I’m going to retract the statement I think we finally hired the right guy.

I’m not retracting my statement because Elko was a bad hire. I’m retracting my statement because I have no idea if Mike Elko will be successful at Texas A&M. We all HOPE Elko was the right hire, but nobody has any real clue if he was the right hire or not at this point. Everybody is just guessing.

We all know Mike Elko appears to be a tried and true football coach. He doesn’t seem to be some slick salesman or some dude who has ridden a hot hand he didn’t have much to do with.

Mike Elko has got to where he is because he’s a tried and true football coach. He’s a football coach above everything else. That I don’t question.

I believe Mike Elko can succeed at Texas A&M, but I wonder if he will be. I’m looking at Mike Elko with a more objective lens than I did with the previous coaches. I drank the Maroon Kool-Aid way too early with Fran, Sumlin, and Jimbo.

What’s the saying? Fool me once; shame on me. Fool me three times; shame on you, Aggie Football head coach, hiring decision-makers.

Like the coaches before him, Mike Elko will be judged on the 12-game schedule and whatever bowl games he attends. The offseason matters, but it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme. The off-season, including signings and practices, is fodder until the games are played.

What matters for Mike Elko is how many wins and losses he’ll have over the next few years. That’s impossible to predict right now.

The biggest epiphany in changing my mind about how I see Elko came the night of the Texas Bowl. Many folks will say it’s a meaningless bowl game, but I’m afraid I have to disagree after watching it.

My greatest takeaway in watching that game was the massive talent deficiency of the Aggies. It was MASSIVE.

Sure, the excuse is there were quite a few injuries, opt-outs, and folks entering the transfer portal. That’s right, but most folks are missing the point – This is the base from which Elko has to work. We lost to a pretty bad Oklahoma State team that night. We lost because we had a severe talent deficiency.

I know we lost our third-string quarterback on the first play, but our cornerbacks got worked by a pedestrian set of receivers and quarterback. Our defensive line and linebackers got very little pressure. We did an excellent job of slowing Oklahoma State’s running game, but the pass defense is a massive concern for me going into 2024.

Offensively, we did decent passing the ball but struggled to establish the running game. Our running backs combined for 15 carries and 47 yards. That’s slightly better than three yards per carry. That’s not a great Oklahoma State defense, and we couldn’t establish the run.

We were down most of the game, so we had no choice but to make up ground through the air. I still would have liked to have seen us establish the run. We abandoned it too soon, but what little we did run could have been more impressive, so that could be a reason.

While 372 yards of passing isn’t terrible, I’d like to present two stats: 1) No passing touchdowns and 2) Max Wright had the longest pass completion of 40 yards.

That isn’t a knock on Max Wright. He’s a good football player who embodies what a Fightin’ Texas Aggie should be. The problem is Max Wright is a tight end and not what one would call a passing threat. This is the second game in a row where he’s had the longest pass completion.

That’s a massive concern for me regarding our receiving corps. It needs to be discussed because there are some plays where these guys flash, but this receiving corps, as it stands right now, is pedestrian. I’m serious. We continue to need more elite-level receivers.

Ainias Smith is the lone exception to the receivers in the six years Jimbo was at the helm. I don’t see that changing anytime soon. You must have receivers who can take on the best secondaries to excel in college football. The Aggies still need to be elite through the air right now.

We can move the ball at times, but for the most part, we can’t routinely press secondaries with our receiving corps. That has got to change and change quickly. I don’t see it happening, though.

Coming out of the Texas Bowl against a VERY beatable Oklahoma State, I have these concerns:
1) An inability to bring pressure by the defensive front.
2) Can’t cover at all.
3) Can’t establish the running game.
4) Receivers can’t consistently dominate.

Other than that, it wasn’t all that bad…

That was not a meaningless bowl game. It was an eye-opener to where things stand with the Aggie football program. It’s not good.

Many of you think Elko will fix it with the transfer portal. While I will give Elko credit, he’s doing everything he can via the transfer portal. However, I equate it to an NFL expansion team trying to bolster its roster via the expansion draft. It really is.

Mike Elko is going to sign roughly 20 guys from the transfer portal. 25% of his scholarship roster will be guys from the transfer portal.

These aren’t SEC starters are even SEC two deep guys he’s signing. Most of these guys are coming from non-Power 5 conferences. They have yet to face elite talent like they’ll be facing in the SEC. They’re all going to go through a massive learning curve if they actually survive the learning curve.

One guy can be an immediate contributor, and that’s the defensive end from Purdue, who led the Big 10 in sacks last season. He looks like the real deal and an excellent get from the transfer portal.
Other than him, these guys have yet to produce much in a major conference.

I like the corner from Kansas State, but we’ll see if his skills transfer to a more physical league with better overall talent.

The rest of these transfers? There are a couple of guys with promise, but I have a question on whether they’re that much better than the guys they will try to replace.

Why does this worry me? The top teams in college football don’t have to load up in the transfer portal. The argument will be they don’t have to because they’re a good football team. That is precisely my argument. They’re not coming off a 5-7 and 7-6 season. Texas A&M has a losing record over the last two seasons.

A&M has received a bad rap related to the transfer portal over the last two years, but you can’t objectively deny that flipping over a roster every year is not the recipe for success. You should use the transfer portal to add talent in critical areas. You shouldn’t use the transfer portal to replace 25% of your roster in one season.

That’s where Texas A&M is right now. Our depth and a few critically talented individuals have left the program. Elko is forced to fill the roster with people from the transfer portal.

I’m sorry. That’s just not ideal.

I fully get the argument Elko is trying to mold the roster with “his guys.” The problem is we are still determining if Elko can truly identify and develop talent. We don’t know that, as there’s no track record of him doing it.

We have two seasons of Mike Elko at Duke, where he went 8-4 and 7-5. That’s pretty decent for Duke, but he also coached in what could be the worst Power 5 conference. I know he lost his quarterback for parts of this season, but didn’t Jimbo lose his quarterback as well?

Why do we give Elko the benefit of the doubt in losing his quarterback but not Jimbo? I’m not defending Jimbo. I just want a head coach where we don’t have to routinely defend the loss of our starting quarterback for the win-loss record.

What Elko did at Duke is impressive, but it’s not like he won the ACC or even a division. His time at Duke is promising, but it’s certainly not definitive for having success at Texas A&M.

As for the 2024 schedule, it is easier because Alabama isn’t on it. However, the Saban news changes that. The 2024 schedule is still a big challenge for a team with around 40% of its scholarships filled with guys who have never taken a snap for the Aggies. I’m including the high school signees and the transfer portal guys in that number.

FORTY PERCENT OF THE ROSTER WILL HAVE NEVER TAKEN A SNAP IN AN AGGIE UNIFORM.

I’m sorry. That’s not ideal.

Elko is bringing in a ton of guys, hoping and praying they can fill half a dozen starting spots if not more. That’s roughly 25% of the starting spots. He needs transfer players to win the job and then play at a high level to win ten games.

I don’t see that happening in Mike Elko’s first year. That doesn’t mean he can’t be successful long term, but it’s much easier to be successful in college football with some early excitement from a coaching staff that wins football games.

This will be more of an 8-4 team in 2024.

When we fired Jimbo, I thought the right coach could come in and win right away with our roster. Mike Elko has decided to take a different approach and turn this into a 2-3 year build. If that pays off, I’m good with it, but I have massive questions right now.

While the transfer portal is new, Mike Elko is attempting to do something that nobody else is doing. I don’t know of any other team overhauling 40% of their roster in a single season. It’s a bold move, for sure.

Once the final roster is set with transfer portal players and the final signing class is done, I’ll look at how the team shapes up.

I believe we’ll be worse off going into the 2024 season than in 2023. I hope I’m wrong, but after watching the Texas Bowl and realizing what Elko is doing with the roster, I have some concerns about what Aggie Football is capable of in 2024.

The Aggies have to compete with all of college football, and if you accurately compare where things stand right now, it could be better. In a vacuum, it seems exciting to get all new players. There are concerns when you compare it to the rest of college football.

Only time will tell if those concerns are real.

We Finally Got Our Guy

The Aggies hired Mike Elko on Monday, November 27, 2023, but not without a major fiasco.

We’ll get to Mike Elko in a bit, but let’s first go through the fiasco that was the hiring process.

All reports led into last weekend that Texas A&M was finally conducting an actual hiring process for their head coach. For the first time since Jackie Sherrill, the powers that be appeared to be considering a lot of potential coaches rather than starting with the end already known.

In my last blog post, I mentioned how every hire since Jackie Sherrill resulted in the most obvious hire with no apparent due diligence into that coach and any other candidates.

In Monday’s press conference after introducing Mike Elko, Ross Bjork indicated at least 30 potential coaches had been considered in some form, shape, or fashion. That doesn’t mean they interviewed or talked to 30 coaches; it just means many coaches were considered.

That sounds like a wonderful coaching search.

The rumored plan headed into the last regular season of college football was there were some key targets, and Saturday’s games needed to be played to see if that changed any interest in coaches on the coach’s side or A&M’s side.

Once again, this is a wonderful plan for a coaching search. We’ve got a little time, so let’s wait one more weekend to see if someone has a different level of interest once their season ends and they have no shot at the College Football Playoff. Or at least a minimal shot after losing in a rival game.

It seemed that the Aggies would make a very well-thought-out and intelligent hire.

Wellllllllllllllllllllll, on Saturday night around 8:48 p.m., the wheels didn’t just fall off the coaching search wagon; they blew up like a 90s-era Ford Explorer and turned the coaching search wagon completely upside down.

Reports started flowing out that the Aggies and Mark Stoops agreed for him to become the new Aggie head coach. His name surfaced late Friday night on the Internet and Saturday morning during the pre-game shows, but nobody thought it was real.

Based on what I can tell, Billy Liucci with TexAgs was the first to say anything at 8:48 p.m. He posted this on his premium forum, so it wasn’t technically public knowledge. I’m not a premium subscriber, so I didn’t see it, but I was sent what was posted. Liucci never publicly Tweeted anything, but when he breaks something that big in his premium forum, it’s basically public information.

Mark Passwaters, another well-connected reporter following Aggie sports, publicly Tweeted at 8:51 that Mark Stoops looked like the next Aggie head coach “barring a last-minute collapse.” By this time, every national reporter was also Tweeting that Mark Stoops was all but officially the next head football coach at Texas A&M.

The Mark Stoops to Aggieland train was running full steam down the tracks.

Social media lit up with Aggies everywhere, including players, ridiculing the hire. I mean, it just absolutely blew up. This is the first time I’ve seen something like it where there wasn’t an Aggie to be found that was supportive of the hire.

Many sports reporters were questioning the hire, but Aggies everywhere were lambasting the hire. And for good reason.

My cell phone blew up from friends, but I found it hard to believe. Surely, the powers that be weren’t that stupid. I’ll get to why hiring Mark Stoops made no sense later, but I couldn’t believe we would fire Jimbo Fisher to hire Mark Stoops.

It seemed real, but it also seemed odd.

I was pretty tired from a full day of watching college football, so I went to bed around 10:30, assuming/hoping I would wake up to different news. Luckily, that was the case, but let me finish how the night played out.

At 10:48 p.m., Brent Zwerneman of the Houston Chronicle Tweeted, “Any reports that say Mark Stoops to Texas A&M is a done deal are premature and inaccurate.”

Precisely two hours after Billy Liucci posted it looked like Mark Stoops would be the next head coach; a very well-connected Brent Zwerneman said reports of Mark Stoops were inaccurate. Now, mind you, Brent jumped on the Stoops to Aggieland train an hour before, saying it was also a done deal.

Somewhere along the way, I feel like there were reports that Mike Elko had told the Duke administration he would be staying at Duke. All signs pointed to Mark Stoops getting the Aggie gig.

What happened in that hour that Brent posted Stoops was coming, and then he wasn’t, I have no idea. Brent changed course quickly.

Brent has a connection at the highest level of Texas A&M. I don’t have proof of it, but Brent has broken some pretty big news related to Texas A&M. He would also officially announce the hire of Mike Elko the next day before anyone else.

Brent is connected.

When Brent Tweeted out the news it was premature, I believe it slowed down the train, but you don’t stop trains. They have to roll to a stop over a pretty good distance. The Mark Stoops train kept moving, and people’s fury had not fully calmed down.

At 11:16 p.m., a Kentucky reporter tweeted that Mark Stoops was staying in Kentucky. At 11:20 p.m., Billy Liucci confirmed that report. It looked like the Mark Stoops train to A&M was stopped and not going anywhere.

At 12:02 a.m., Mark Stoops tweeted that he had listened to a potential opportunity but would stay at Kentucky. He never denied the reports or consideration. That’s key, which I’ll get to later.

If you still couldn’t believe the reporters, the man himself had spoken, he wouldn’t be the next Aggie head coach. He never stated the specific school, but what he talked about was obvious.

What a WILD 3 hours that was. The Mark Stoops era at Texas A&M will be any Aggie head coach’s shortest but most exciting tenure. Maybe he wasn’t officially the head coach, but three very well-connected reporters all reported it was all but a done deal waiting on official approval.

So What the Hell Happened?:

Only a few people know what happened, but it’s possible to piece together what likely happened.
I do not know Ross Bjork led this, but Ross Bjork has never denied that Mark Stoops was a finalist. In his press conference on Monday, Ross Bjork stated he didn’t know how the reports got out and that the list of finalists and the finalist was “fluid.”

He never mentioned Mark Stoops by name, but he also never denied that final terms were being discussed with Mark Stoops. He also never said Mike Elko was the clear finalist heading into Saturday evening. He simply said everything on Saturday evening was “fluid.” That’s a non-denial if I’ve ever heard one.

So, the rest of what you’re about to read is all speculation on my part, but I have a solid basis for my speculation.

Ross Bjork seemed to be working independently or with a few people and had decided on Mark Stoops as the next Aggie head coach.

The problem appears to be that Bjork hadn’t informed enough of the folks who would make the final approval to see their thoughts. In the couple of hours of this going public, final approvers made their intentions known internally that they would disapprove of Mark Stoops as the head coach of Texas A&M.

I don’t specifically know who those people are, but it’s safe to assume those people have some combination of money and power. Certainly more than Ross Bjork.

Some of it might have been the public sentiment in those couple of hours, but if the news of Mark Stoops being the finalist had not been made public, I still don’t think it would have been approved. It was unanimous and widespread amongst Aggies that Mark Stoops was not the answer to the current issues with Aggie Football.

The exact time of death is up for debate, but the death of the Mark Stoops era at Texas A&M was between 10:48 p.m. on November 25, 2023, and 12:02 a.m. on November 26, 2023.

Like a rocket headed out of the Earth’s atmosphere, it didn’t last long, but it was full of energy. That was the Mark Stoops era at Texas A&M.

It’ll go down in Aggie legend.

Like most things on social media, the good news is that it’s all but gone and forgotten now. Sure, it’ll get brought back up occasionally, but it was so short and chaotic, along with nailing the Elko hire shortly after that, that it’s a mere blip.

It was an embarrassing blip by certain Aggie leaders, but it’s still a blip.

The future of Aggie Football lies with Mike Elko and his ability to win football games.

What the Hell Was Bjork Thinking?:

Nobody knows, including Ross Bjork. Whatever happened on Saturday night, Bjork dropped Mark Stoops like a hot potato. Stoops may say he declined, but final approval for him to decline was never coming. It could be an exercise in semantics that he removed his name from consideration before the final decision was made. Still, Mark Stoops never got an official offer to come to Aggieland.

The Mark Stoops to Aggieland train only has Bjork and I’m guessing, a couple of other ill-informed folks. I don’t know how many, but I don’t think Bjork had decided and started negotiating with Stoops in a vacuum. If that’s true, it’s even scarier Bjork thought he had that level of autonomy in this search.
I wonder how Bjork could conclude that Mark Stoops was the best candidate for Texas A&M.

I get guys like Dan Lanning, Ryan Day, and Kalen DeBoer weren’t coming to Aggieland. You do your due diligence and ensure there’s no possibility first. You start with the most proven and successful, even if their tenure as head coach is short. They’ve all accomplished more than Mark Stoops has, as they’ve all made it to conference championship games or better.

There’s a LONG list of coaches between those three guys and Mark Stoops.

Mike Elko, Elijah Robinson, and Jed Fischer were all rumored to be under strong consideration. Those guys are light years ahead of Mark Stoops for the Aggie job.

If Bjork wanted a sitting SEC head coach, the obvious hire was Lane Kiffin. I know people don’t like Lane Kiffin, but the dude would have won football games at Texas A&M. Winning cures everything, so Aggie fans would have gotten over Kiffin as their coach in short order. Kiffin would have taken the job as well.

In addition to Kiffin, Eli Drinkwitz should have been considered before Mark Stoops. I think Drinkwitz would have considered leaving Missouri for A&M. Those SEC head coaches are infinitely more qualified for the Aggie job than Mark Stoops.

How Bjork settled on Mark Stoops is beyond me and everyone I’ve read or talked to. Stoops has done well at Kentucky, but he hasn’t exactly killed it in Lexington. He has a losing record in the SEC and has spent 12 seasons in the SEC East, a much weaker division than the West. He should have a winning record in the SEC East, even at Kentucky, if he’s a great coach.

He’s never taken Kentucky to Atlanta for the SEC Championship or played in a New Year’s Six bowl game. He’s made Kentucky relevant and competitive in football, but he’s not excelled as their head coach.

The only thing I can think that swayed Bjork to settle on Stoops is that he’s a sitting SEC head coach. That does look like a strong move, but we saw what happened with Dan Mullen going from Mississippi State to Florida. That only sometimes works out.

If you want to play conspiracy, Bjork and Stoops briefly crossed paths in Miami in 2003. They may have made a personal connection there. Sports is a ton about personal relationships when it comes to hiring.

Maybe Bjork, like Scott Woodward before him, who hired his buddy, Jimbo, wanted to hire someone he knew well. He wouldn’t be the first, and he wouldn’t be the last.

If you want to go further down the conspiracy hole, both Bjork and Stoops are repped by Jimmy Sexton. Jimmy Sexton represents some of the top names in college football, so that he may have offered advice in Bjork’s ear.

I’ve tried to figure out what Bjork was thinking, but I can’t. I think Bjork is just an idiot.

Sure, he comes across looking and talking the part, but remember he was the Athletic Director at Ole Miss when all the Hugh Freeze stuff went down. He and the Ole Miss administration completely botched that. They had to fire Hugh Freeze because a lawsuit they created produced records showing Freeze had called an escort service from a University phone.

Bjork has gotten his head coach (Freeze) fired, thanks to a decision he was part of. He can add Mark Stoops to a head coach decision that was blown up when he brought it for final approval. Bjork’s track record could be better.

Once again, this is all speculation on my part with Bjork’s involvement, but it seems like he was leading the Mark Stoops decision with little feedback.

There’s nothing “fluid” about a list of finalists in a coaching search like this. Sure, there’s a little uncertainty, but at some point, you nail down your finalist and get them. It seems apparent that Stoops was Bjork’s finalist, but he quickly learned nobody else felt the same.

We’ll likely find out in the next 12-24 months if this is the case. If this wasn’t Bjork’s doing, he’ll remain the Aggie AD for a good period. The sports that matter are in good hands with good coaches. We need deep post-season runs by those sports other than one season for baseball, but the Aggie athletic department is humming along thanks to ticket sales and large donations.

I believe we’ll see Bjork move on within the next 12 months and Justin Moore promoted to Athletic Director. At this point, Bjork has lost all faith with the Aggie faithful. It will take some deep post-season runs in football, basketball, and baseball for him to win some favor back.

How Did We Get Mike Elko?:

This is all speculation as well, but after Bjork recommended the hiring of Mark Stoops, the powers that be told him to get Elko and be done with the coaching search. Don’t screw it up any worse than what you’ve already done.

When Mark Stoops was recommended and blown up, there were two choices:
1) Reset the whole process.
2) Make the most apparent hire right away, which was Elko.

I was leaning to number one on Sunday morning mainly because I needed to learn how botched things were. After seeing the results, I fully agree that number two was the proper path.

There was no need to complicate the process and make it worse. Who knows what coaches on the “fluid list” were still interested after learning about Mark Stoops and the blowback?

Mike Elko was the guy to get at that point. And we went and got him.

I’d like to know if initially focusing on Mark Stoops over Mike Elko costs us another million per year and an additional year on the contract. We could have had Mike Elko for five years at $30 million had he been the main target when the key games were done on Saturday. Instead, we gave him a six-year contract for $42 million.

It’s not a terrible contract based on the current market, but I was surprised to see the annual salary and length of the deal. Hopefully, it’s a moot point, and we’re not wondering if Ross Bjork cost us a few million thanks to his idiocy.

Is Mike Elko a Good Hire?:

After all the dust settled, Mike Elko was the best hire. I’m confused that Mark Stoops was even on the “fluid list” of finalists. I wonder how anyone could think Stoops was a better hire than Elko. It makes no sense.

Moving on from Stoops, I like Elko over Dan Lanning, Ryan Day, Kalen DeBoer, Jed Fisch, and even Kyle Whittingham, who entered the process late with sincere interest.

Lane Kiffin is the only other coach who would have been a great hire, but I get perception wouldn’t have allowed it.

I love the Elko hire for a host of reasons.

First off, he’s a football coach through and through. Not just some Xs and Os genius but a dude who understands the game of football from the players, the program, and the plays. His two years at Duke were fantastic; he learned much about being a head coach. He’s a more well-rounded football coach than when he left Texas A&M. It’s almost like we sent him to finishing school for two years.

In addition, Elko is young and hungry.

This is the thing we missed the most on Jimbo. Jimbo is a football coach but wasn’t hungry when we hired him.

Jimbo’s problem was he was so focused on making his offense work in today’s game that he wouldn’t evolve. He didn’t have to because he had a national championship and a massive guaranteed contract. He could dig in trying to make his offense work because he didn’t have to worry about anything from an accomplishment or monetary standpoint. Sure, he ruined his legacy at two schools, but he’s got a national championship ring and earned well over $100 million in his career. Jimbo wanted to prove a point rather than evolve because he wasn’t hungry for success.

Elko appears to be the exact opposite. Sure, he’s got a fat contract that can take care of a few generations, but he hasn’t won anything on the football field as a head coach. What he did at Duke the last two seasons is impressive, but in the grand scheme, it’s not much.

Mike Elko has a good decade or two of coaching football in front of him. He’s got an incentive-based contract where he can make more money than his base salary if he wins a national championship. He has all the world’s motivation to succeed at Texas A&M.

He’s only two seasons removed from the Aggie program, so he has more familiarity than any potential head coach. Elijah Robinson has the most, but he would never be the head coach with Elko in the mix. Elko makes more sense than Robinson because he’s done it for a couple of seasons.

Elko’s familiarity with the Aggie program is going to pay massive dividends. We’ve already seen it with the team and recruiting. In the first few days since his announcement, there has yet to be a mass exodus to the transfer portal or de-commitments in recruiting. Sure, some players are likely going to transfer, and maybe a couple of kids will de-commit, but by and large, it looks like the players are committed to keeping this thing together.

That is HUGE because this Aggie team is loaded with talent. This isn’t a rebuild job. This isn’t a head coach driving the program into the ground, and the next coach has to rebuild everything. This is a situation where a head coach needs to walk in and keep the train on the track while making some modifications so the train runs better.

This team was a few points away from playing in Atlanta this season. The talent is there, and it’s clear that Elko’s familiarity with the players is a massive asset.

Beyond the players, Mike Elko knows the administration to a large degree. There have been some changes in two years, but for the most part, Mike Elko has a good idea of who does what from an administration standpoint. He doesn’t have to sit in his office wondering who to contact when he needs something. He already has a good idea, which will make his transition easier.

His family’s familiarity with College Station is also a positive. They likely have friends with whom they can plug back in and know where they want to live. We forget coaches are people with family that need to be taken care of. I’m sure Elko’s wife and kids can go about their way and not spend a lot of time adjusting to a new place.

That saves Elko from worrying about them.

I have no idea how successful Elko will be at Texas A&M. Nobody does. I’m not foolish enough to think he will win repeated national championships. He’s in a position to appear in the College Football Playoff, and that’s all you can ask for.

Most people have not realized it, but a MASSIVE change is coming to college football next season. The Big 10 and SEC are doing away with divisions, and the playoff is expanding to 12 teams.

For Texas A&M, that’s a massive gain because everything doesn’t go through Tuscaloosa and Atlanta anymore. Even if Nick Saban continues to dominate, it’s not our most significant issue. We can still carve a path to the College Football Playoff, which will be a massive step for the program.

Don’t get me wrong, I want to supplant Alabama and Georgia in the SEC, but that’s a tall order for next season. From day one, Mike Elko has a much easier path to college football relevance than in years past.
I’m bullish on the future of Aggie Football. Only time will tell if I’m right. I hope I’m finally right because I missed on Fran, Sumlin, and Jimbo. I was right on Sherman from the start.

I bought into the hype early on with the other three and thought each guy would return Aggie Football to national relevance. They had a blip of a great season but failed to do more over their entire tenure. They failed.

I’m hoping Mike Elko is different, but I think we finally got it right.

I can’t believe anyone with authority thought Mark Stoops was the answer. What a train wreck that would have been. No Stoops for us, thank goodness.

What a Fiasco

Someone in the Texas A&M Athletic Department took all the attention away from a pretty good day of college football, including one of the greatest endings in Iron Bowl history.

For 3 hours on a Saturday night, Mark Stoops had become the head coach of Texas A&M.

I don’t know exactly what happened, but it seems Ross Bjork had been discussing the position with Mark Stoops. He was doing this without the knowledge of his bosses and didn’t have full authority. Stoops and Bjork had reached an agreement. All that was needed was approval from Bjork’s higher-ups.

From what I can tell, Billy Liucci with TexAgs posted on his website that the hire of Stoops was all but done. Liucci is also the person who broke the news that Jimbo had been fired. He’s clearly connected to someone who said it was okay to post the information.

The hiring of Mark Stoops by Texas A&M hit social media, and all hell broke loose. I’ve never seen anything like it. My phone blew up from people asking what was going on. Twitter/X was full of people in disapproval. NOBODY was supportive of the hire.

For good reason. You don’t fire Jimbo Fisher to hire Mark Stoops. It makes ZERO sense that someone at Texas A&M was even talking to Stoops, much less finalizing details for his hiring.

Mark Stoops was never getting hired at Texas A&M. I don’t think he would have gotten the approval from those above Bjork. A lot of assumptions were made. It was a done deal, but it never was.

Either way, it’s an embarrassment. It’s further proof the chain of command at Texas A&M is broken and needs to be fixed. I don’t know precisely what needs to be fixed, but someone above Bjork better be super pissed off if this ever happened and get it fixed.

Watching Bjork’s initial press conference and interviews over the last couple of weeks made me think we had an actual plan for hiring Jimbo’s replacement. It’s now apparent we don’t. That’s frustrating.

The Mark Stoops era at Texas A&M provided and will provide a ton of good humor. Unfortunately, it’s an embarrassment of leadership. It should have never happened.

Where Do The Aggies Go From Here:

Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened in college football. Most people don’t know, but Alabama once “hired” Rich Rodriguez, who decided not to come. The guy they wound up hiring would be Nick Saban. It’s wild to think what would have happened if Rich Rodriguez had taken the job and not Saban.

There’s another instance where Tennessee “hired” Greg Schiano, but similar to A&M and Stoops, the fan base revolted, and Schiano didn’t take the job. The Volunteers would eventually hire Jeremy Pruitt, and we know how that turned out. It wasn’t good.

Is Texas A&M hiring the next Nick Saban? Probably not. But they can avoid hiring the next Jeremy Pruitt.

Someone needs to get their ass chewed on this morning. Then, immediately settle down and get re-focused on hiring the best coach for Texas A&M. If that means taking the keys from Ross Bjork, then so be it. It would be best if he were talking to Mark Stoops.

I believe Texas A&M had a plan to see how the games this weekend played out. Most notably, with Ryan Day at Ohio State and Kalen DeBoer at Washington.

Day lost, and DeBoer won.

The Aggie leadership needs to get back to their original plan. Reach out to Day and ask his interest and if he can make a decision in the next 72 hours. I still believe he’s the best hire for the job. Conform with DeBoer he’s deciding once Washington is out of the hunt for the College Football Playoff.

You reach out to Jed Fisch and confirm he’s still interested despite what happened on Saturday night. You tell him nothing was officially decided, and an erroneous report occurred.

You also put Elijah Robinson and Mike Elko back in serious consideration. I have some concerns with Elijah Robinson based on how the team played in his two games as head coach. Maybe there was just too much “Jimbo Stink,” but many apparent errors that somebody should have cleaned up weren’t. They still looked a lot like a Jimbo-coached team.

Robinson may need an entire off-season to change the program’s culture. I know the players want to play for Robinson, but there’s a massive difference between wanting to play for someone and winning football games. We don’t have enough information on what kind of coach Elijah Robinson could be. I wanted to see more out of him these last two games.

As for Elko, I still think he’s the ultimate fallback guy, but you can’t wait forever. He would stabilize a lot of the issues Jimbo left. This feels like a “lick your wounds” hire at this point, but there are much worse hires.

The other thing I would do at this point, but it won’t happen, is to reach out to Lane Kiffin and Eli Drinkwitz. If you’re going to talk to SEC coaches, this is who it should be. Certainly not Mark Stoops.

I know many people don’t like Kiffin, and I have issues with him, but he would elevate A&M’s football program from a Win/Loss standpoint.

The number one focus for the coaching search should be SOLELY on finding a coach that will improve the number of wins. That’s it.

Sure, there has to be some element to being a fit, but don’t let emotion miss out on someone that can elevate the program to national prominence. That’s what Bjork said was the mission in firing Jimbo and getting a replacement.

While what happened with Stoops on Saturday is an embarrassment, the A&M administration still has the opportunity to do what they set out to do – Improve the number of wins from Jimbo Fisher.

Someone in the administration needs to chew on whoever’s ass needs chewing on and then get everyone calmed down and back on the mission.

This whole thing can still be salvaged with the proper focus. Hopefully, that happens, and we can all look back on the last Saturday night of the regular season and laugh.

Right, Aggie leadership?

Is This Hire Gonna Be Like It Used To Be

As we wait on the white smoke from Kyle Field, I want to take a look back at previous Aggie Football coaching hires to see if this go-round is any different.

This is a monumental hire for Aggie Football. I know it feels like that every time but this time is truly different. The reason is the talent on the current team is capable of winning a national championship. It is.
The same thing existed in 2011 when we hired Kevin Sumlin but nobody realized it. We didn’t know what Johnny Manziel was capable of. This time is different because every coaching staff in the country knows what kind of talent is on the Aggie roster.

In addition, coaches know that Texas A&M is poised to compete at the highest levels in what college football is about to become. Money and support will matter now more than ever. You’re starting to hear from coaches that if a program doesn’t have money to spend it’s going to be limited in its success going forward.

Coaches understand what Texas A&M is capable of going forward even if most college football fans that can only look at past results don’t.

To get there I want to go back and look at who and how we hired coaches before this one. Having that frame of reference will help determine if we truly learn from past mistakes and do things differently.
Before I get going let me say I have very little inside knowledge. Most of my knowledge comes from public sources anyone can read. I think I consume a lot more stuff when it comes to Aggie Football but I don’t have any real inside knowledge other than a few things I’ve picked up along the way.

Previous Coaches:

Jackie Sherrill:
I’m going back as far as my knowledge will let me. I was alive when Jackie was hired but I wasn’t aware of the hire. In reading the history of this hire this was a MASSIVE hire. Bum Bright wanted a big name and wanted to flex the money muscle.

Bum was willing to make the next Aggie coach the first with an annual income of over a million dollars.
He tried to get Bo Schembechler first but he declined. Then he went and got Jackie Sherrill.

Jackie had just come off three consecutive 11-1 seasons at Pitt with three bowl wins where his teams finished in the Top 5. He was extremely successful at Pitt.

Jackie had great success at A&M but his hire was as big as it got at the time.

The search consisted solely of finding the most successful coach that would take the money.

It worked.

R.C. Slocum:
Slocum took over from Jackie due to some recruiting violations and internal politics.

Slocum was the obvious choice because the Aggies were rolling on the field and Slocum was the architect of the Wrecking Crew. No coaching search necessary.

Just give the keys to the machine Jackie built and see what he can do. The same formula has worked for OU giving the keys to Lincoln Riley and Ohio State giving the keys to Ryan Day.

Dennis Franchione:
Sandwiched between Jackie and the Jimbo hire, Dennis Franchione was as big of a hire as it got at the time.

He had been wildly successful at TCU and had some immediate success at Alabama. He looked like a no-brainer hire.

The story was the Franchiones wanted to come back to Texas. From a football standpoint Alabama was about to have some recruiting restrictions placed on them for things that happened before Franchione got there.

That all makes sense as to why Franchione would take the Aggie job over the Crimson Tide job. It was also deemed payback for Alabama luring Bear Bryant away from Texas A&M. The storylines were wonderful to paint for the media and Texas A&M.

There was a fallacy in this hire in that Fran was the only coach considered based on my knowledge of how things went down. It makes sense as on the surface Fran was a MASSIVE get for Texas A&M and the school hadn’t had a coaching search in 20ish years.

They didn’t want to screw up firing Slocum and missing out on Fran. Based on what I’ve read and heard including being very attentive at the time no one else was considered.

I wanted them to consider Brent Venables who was running OU’s defense to perfection at the time along with this coach at Bowling Green named Urban Meyer. Yes, Urban Meyer jumped from Bowling Green to Utah at the same time Fran went from Alabama to A&M.

To be completely honest I think even if the school did a legit coaching search with due diligence on multiple coaches Fran likely still gets hired. However, who knows what a true search with due diligence would have produced?

Fran didn’t work out because he was a fraud propped up by Gary Patterson at TCU and some pretty awesome talent left to him at Alabama. I don’t know if due diligence would have uncovered that but it would have been interesting to know.

Mike Sherman:
We got Bill Byrne as our AD right before we hired Fran but Byrne didn’t have much to do with the Fran hire other than stamp it and introduce him at the press conference. For Mike Sherman, I was told this hire was all Bill Byrne’s by someone who would know.

I trust that person immensely but the factors around the timing of the hire lend to that as well. Robert Gates had just left Texas A&M the year before and we had an interim President. Bill Byrne had sole control of the Athletic Department.

This hire also fits Bill Byrne to a T.

I could write 10 pages on Bill Byrne but the jist of Bill Byrne is that he seemed to never think Texas A&M was a Tier 1 athletic department. He would talk like it but his actions never showed it. He was mindful of finances which was very helpful from a profitability standpoint.

When it came to hiring coaches he never shot for the stars when it came to head coaching hires other than Billy Gillispie, Pat Henry, and Gary Blair.

While all three were EXCELLENT hires they were also easy hires. They were Texas guys that weren’t making huge salaries at the time. He just paid them more money and gave them the keys to their respective sports at a flagship Texas school Very astute hires but it didn’t take a lot of work on his part to make.

For every other hire at Texas A&M, Bill Byrne liked to show he knew more about hiring a coach than anyone else. He never went for the big names. He liked to find the diamond in the rough.

When Coach Fran announced he had been fired Bill Byrne said he was immediately starting a national search. Well, that national search took him to a hotel room in Hempstead to interview Mike Sherman. I shit you not that’s about as far as it really got.

Bill Byrne loved the Green Bay Packers and the offensive line. Mike Sherman fit exactly what Bill Byrne thought football should be.

While Mike Sherman is a fine person and offensive coach he was never made for college football. Especially at a program like Texas A&M. He certainly stabilized the program from what Fran had done to it but Sherman was never the long-term answer. I loathed this hire from a college football standpoint.

It’s been a while so I can’t remember who was available during that coaching cycle but there was another coach that could have been interviewed in Hempstead by the name of Art Briles. He was coaching in Houston just like Mike Sherman. I know Art Briles’ name is sullied now but at the time I don’t see how any person could have interviewed Briles and Sherman thinking that Sherman was the better college hire.
Byrne zeroed in on Mike Sherman from the start and never deviated.

The craziest part about that is EVERYONE knew Fran was getting fired that season. That was the year the news of his VIP email “leaked.” The leaders at Texas A&M had months to see who would be interested.

After Fran was officially dismissed, Bill Byrne simply drove 45 minutes down Highway 6 to meet with the guy I believe he wanted all along. His statement of a “national search” was a farce.

He was always hiring Mike Sherman in my mind. Nobody held Byrne accountable because there was no real leadership at Texas A&M when the hiring went down. Byrne did what he wanted.

Kevin Sumlin:
I don’t have a lot of insider information on the Sumlin hire.

The timing of it all was very strange. I do know there were no plans to fire Mike Sherman until after the loss to Texas on Thanksgiving night. The decision as I understand it was made pretty swiftly that night.

We were headed to the SEC. There were concerns about Mike Sherman being the guy to lead the Aggies into the SEC but he was going to get the chance. However, that loss to Texas made it obvious he wasn’t the guy.

To complicate matters, Bill Byrne was on his way out. Bill Byrne didn’t think the Aggies should go to the SEC so he was winding down as athletic director.

So we had a surprise firing and lame-duck athletic director. We were behind the ball from a timing standpoint and an athletic director who didn’t care about the results for that head coach.

I think Byrne headed up the search committee since he was technically the athletic director but there was a lot of input from various parties. As with most committees with a lot of input and little accountability, the results don’t turn out well.

I will say at the time Kevin Sumlin was a very hot name. He had great success at Houston and seemed to be on the rise. I don’t begrudge the hire at all but just curious what some due diligence would have done.

Sumlin was successful thanks to Case Keenum and Bob Stoops. You remove those two elements and he’s not the same coach. I don’t know that due diligence would have uncovered that but my guess is Sumlin was the hire all along because it was the easy hire.

To be fair, the obvious coaching candidates at the time were all pretty lame. Larry Fedora was the other name being thrown around and he didn’t do anything at UNC. It might have made sense for A&M to hire an up-and-coming coordinator or big name over an established coach at the lower levels.

There was a rumor Mark Richt was being considered and may have even visited campus but that seemed like a stretch to get him from Georgia. I’m also not sure Richt would have been the correct hire as his ceiling was pretty clear.

Either way, Texas A&M went with the easy and obvious hire in Sumlin.

Jimbo Fisher:
Kevin Sumlin went into the 2017 season on a massive hot seat. After he blew the game against UCLA in the Rose Bowl his seat was on fire and he was a dead man walking.

The whole season there was speculation on not if Sumlin got canned but when. The Aggies had plenty of time to get things lined out for a new coach.

Thanks to Scott Woodward who was the Athletic Director at the time they made a massive hire in Jimbo Fisher. I don’t know if anyone else was considered as it seems Woodward zeroed in on Jimbo Fisher and no one else. I think 99 times out of 100 you make this hire but there were some questions about Jimbo.

For me, I was mostly curious about how the Jameis Winston situation was handled. Art Briles had been let go from Baylor a couple of seasons ago so I was curious what Jimbo knew and how he handled it.

On the football field, Jimbo was having his worst season ever. Florida State was struggling to be bowl-eligible and had been passed up in the ACC by Clemson the previous two seasons. Florida State was in a clear decline from when Jameis was under center.

Everyone chalked it up to Jimbo being frustrated with the FSU administration. He was checked out because he knew he was headed to Aggieland. On the surface, it sounds reasonable but you would think a championship-caliber coach would have some personal pride to try and win football games. Especially when you’re still a big dog in the conference.

I think even with some due diligence you still hire Jimbo but I don’t think the administration did that.

Through Scott Woodward’s connection to Jimbo, the Aggies could make a massive flex by hiring a coach with a national championship to his name.

Like I said, 99 times out of 100 you make that hire but it would have been interesting to look under Jimbo’s hood and see who else might be interested and attainable.

Summary:
Other than Mike Sherman I believe every coach the Aggies hired would have been hired even with some more due diligence. They were easy and obvious hires but rooted in enough reason they would be successful as the head coach in Aggieland.

I just think it might have made more sense to not zero in on someone from the start. Have some flexibility in truly considering more than a single candidate should question marks emerge about the lead candidate. You never know what might happen when you don’t have a solution to the problem before working through the problem.

What We Know About This Coaching Hire:

In his initial “We Canned Jimbo” press conference, Ross Bjork laid out these items for what he deemed necessary for the next head coach in Aggieland.

1) Program Identity – Not sure what this means other than they need head coaching experience along with if they’re defensive or offensive oriented.
2) Great Interpersonal Skills – They don’t want to hire an asshole. I wonder if they’ll take a jerk that wins football games.
3) Track Record of Player Development – Assuming this means putting some guys in the NFL.
4) Commitment to Academics – Giggle.
5) Recruiting Machine – Obviously.
6) Supreme Organizational Skills – I think this is a shot at Jimbo.
7) Culture of Discipline – Another shot at Jimbo I believe.
8) Passion for the Game – I take it as they want someone not just looking for a paycheck. Wonderful idea.
9) Proven Winner With Strong Leadership Skills – This one seems obvious.
10) Involved in the Community – Eh. Let’s be real. Nobody cares about this one. Just win football games and the community can fend for itself.
11) Knowledge of Xs and Os – While important I’d rather they just have the ability to hire great coordinators, watch game film to understand opponents, and watch the game to offer adjustments to their staff. “Schematic Advantage” as Charlie Weiss once put it is way overrated for a head coach.
12) Ability to Capitalize on Today’s Modern College Athletics – I think this means someone with intimate knowledge of NIL programs and the Transfer Portal. We ABSOLUTELY need someone knowledgeable about that.

None of these items are truly insightful. All they tell me is the Aggies are looking for an established head coach with some kind of record if they can find one. It makes sense. Start with someone who has the most experience and work from there.

The Contract:
Ross Bjork has alluded to learning from the Jimbo contracts. First off, we don’t need to tie ourselves to a coach for 10 years. I don’t know the number Bjork has in mind but I wouldn’t go longer than 6 years. From an annual salary standpoint, I wouldn’t go more than $10 million a year.

I don’t want to give out a $60 million contract but it’s not far off from what the top coaches make. You are going to have to pay market value to get a top-notch head coach. If you can grab someone with a truly established track record don’t let money be the factor. Just don’t tie ourselves to a decade if it doesn’t work out.

In addition to the annual salary throw some serious incentives for 10 wins, SEC West, SEC Champion, College Football Playoffs, and of course a massive incentive for a national title. I’m saying you can make another $10 million if you win it all.

Pay them a ton when they’ve done something.

The Search Process and Candidates:
The rest of what you’re going to read is based on my reading of social media and various articles. I have no insider information on what’s going on. I do think I have a pretty good idea of what’s real and what’s not. I know who to trust in these processes and who not to.

I believe Dan Lanning was the number one target from the second we fired Jimbo. As both sides started talking I think it became clear Lanning isn’t going to leave Oregon for Texas A&M right now. Some of it is money and the other is he has serious momentum at Oregon. He’s got a potential Heisman Trophy candidate and a decent shot at playing for the College Football Playoff.

Should he lose to Oregon State this weekend or Washington next weekend he might come back around but I think that’s a long shot.

Because Lanning isn’t a serious candidate it seems the search committee broadened their search. Thanks to the standardization of Zoom and Teams it seems they have talked to several candidates last week. Based on what I’ve read they talked to actual candidates and not their agent which has been the norm in several coaching candidates.

Many times, agents got the coaches hired without administrations ever actually talking to the coach. It sounds like the Aggies are talking to actual coaches via video conferencing. I think this is a great move.
The Aggies also seem to be talking to coaches who have expressed interest in the Aggie job. It doesn’t hurt to talk to someone to see if they’re genuinely interested and have a plan. You never know who might impress you until you talk to them.

I don’t know what the result will be but so far I’m pleased with the process based on what I’ve read.
Based on what I’ve read and seen there appear to be three finalists in the moment. This is all very fluid as there are two more weeks of games. I’m not sure how a coach with a legit shot at the College Football Playoff leaves their program for Texas A&M. Stranger things have happened but it seems like a massive longshot for a coach to leave with a shot to win a national title.

Here are who I believe are the three finalists heading into the final weekend of college football:

Ryan Day:
This seems like a massive longshot but the more I’ve read on Day it seems like if he loses to Michigan on Saturday he’ll be named the Aggie head coach next week. Ohio State thinks he’s underachieving and will never win them a national championship.

To me, that’s crazy because he pushed Georgia to the brink in the Semi-Final last season. If his kicker makes that game-ending field goal they win the game and I’m convinced they would have beat TCU in the championship game.

This dude is a field goal away from a national championship and they’re still not happy. Sure, Ohio State has massive resources but Day is doing a pretty good job. They’ve only won two national championships since 1970. Twice in 50 years. Day isn’t doing anything more than any coach before him.

He’s recruiting well and has been in the College Football Playoff for 3 of 4 seasons. What more does Ohio State want? I have no clue how he could be on the hot seat but if I was him I wouldn’t be happy either.

In addition to his actual coaching, he’s become enamored with the SEC. Ever since losing to Alabama in the 2020 title game, he realized how he needed to adapt Ohio State to being more physical like the SEC. In his first test with an SEC team since that 2020 game with Bama, he took Georgia to the wire.

I don’t think he loses to Michigan this weekend so the Aggies never get a real chance to hire him. However, if he wants to come to Aggieland you make this hire all day every day.

The dude wants to win it all and he’s got the experience and is still plenty young and hungry.
Cheer for Michigan as this is the guy to hire.

Kalen DeBoer:
I don’t know much about this guy as he didn’t come onto the national scene until this year. He did well at Washington last year and has been damn good this year. If he can get by Oregon next week he’s headed to the College Football Playoff.

My biggest question with DeBoer is his lack of time at a major program without a stud at quarterback. Michael Penix, Jr is a stud so I’d like to see more of DeBoer without him.

I wouldn’t mind this hire but there are lots of questions in my mind for how he’ll translate to the SEC as well.

Jed Fisch:
Ironically enough, Jed Fisch took over the Arizona program from Kevin Sumlin. He went 1-11 in his first season, 5-7 last season, and he’s likely to go 9-3 in his third year at Arizona.

What he’s done in 3 seasons at Arizona is pretty impressive. I just don’t know what his ceiling is.
His pedigree is pretty impressive as he’s coached for a ton of successful head coaches.

He’s a roll of the dice hire. If he’s the floor it’s not a terrible floor.

It also gives me some hope the search committee didn’t go in with any preconceived notions about who should be the head coach. They’ve let the process play out like it should if Fisch is a finalist.

So What’s Going To Happen?:

At this moment nobody knows for sure.

Bjork has made it clear he’d like to hire someone by December 4th due to the transfer portal window opening up. That makes sense. The College Football Playoff will be set so no need to wait around on a coach in the playoffs. Make the hire once the playoffs have been set if not sooner with Day.

If Ohio State loses this weekend then I think Day is named next week. I don’t think that happens and Day stays at Ohio State. He’s the guy I want even above Lanning after thinking about it more.

Assuming Ohio State wins, I think we wait to see if Washington beats Oregon next weekend. If Washington loses then I think DeBoer is headed to Aggieland. I wouldn’t be upset at that either.

I do think both Ohio State and Washington make the College Football Playoff removing Day and DeBoer from consideration.

We’ll make one more run at Lanning before announcing Jed Fisch as the head coach on Monday, December 4th.

Maybe Fisch can finally be the guy to Make Aggie Football Great Again.

R.C. Would Have Gone For 2

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