Texas A&M’s rise under Mike Elko is starting to show up in places that matter, and the latest SEC Media Poll is another sign the Aggies have changed the conversation.
That would have sounded far-fetched not long ago. Before Elko arrived in College Station after the 2023 season, a College Football Playoff berth - or even a year with more than eight wins - had never really been part of the Texas A&M expectation. Now the Aggies have already forced their way into that discussion after winning their first 11 games of the 2025 season and securing a spot in the 12-team field.
The postseason didn’t end the way Texas A&M wanted. In Elko’s second season, the Aggies lost again to Texas and then were bounced from the CFP by Miami.
But the bigger picture from 2025 was impossible to ignore. Texas A&M kept stacking wins and making noise on the field.
That momentum carried into SEC Media Days in Tampa, where the preseason media poll placed the Aggies fourth in the conference. Georgia, Texas and Ole Miss took the top three spots, but Texas A&M landed ahead of LSU, a team coming off an aggressive offseason.
For an program that spent years cycling through the turbulence of the Kevin Sumlin era and the Jimbo Fisher years, that kind of placement says plenty. The Aggies are being treated like a team with real staying power, even if the trophy case still tells a different story. Texas A&M is nearing a full century without a national championship, and last season marked its first double-digit win campaign since Johnny Manziel’s Heisman Trophy season in 2012.
Still, the results from 2024 and 2025 have changed the perception. Big winning streaks and wins over LSU and Notre Dame have pushed the Aggies into a different tier in the eyes of the media.
And if Texas A&M wants to prove that ranking is earned, 2026 offers the kind of schedule that will answer the question quickly. The Aggies are set to travel to LSU, Alabama and Oklahoma - three places where visitors rarely have an easy night. At home, they’ll get Texas, a rival they haven’t beaten in more than 15 years, along with Arizona State in a Week 2 non-conference game.
Last season felt like a preview. Now Texas A&M has a chance to show that the leap is real.
In Other News...
New Loudest Stadium Ranking Puts Kyle Field In The Spotlight
Mike Elko is trying to steer Texas A&M back into the College Football Playoff in 2026, and the path figures to run through a roster that looks plenty different from the one that finished last season. Marcel Reeds continued growth at quarterback remains central to that push after his strong previous year, while the Aggies also have to absorb the effects of 10 players heading to the NFL and 17 transfers arriving to reshape the depth chart.
Kyle Field will still be one of the defining advantages on the schedule, even if a new loudest-stadium ranking places it eighth among college football venues. The Aggies will lean on that atmosphere for a slate that includes difficult SEC road trips and plenty of pressure-packed home dates, with the noise and the stakes both expected to be part of the equation in College Station. [Read more 🡒]
Texas A&Ms 2027 Roster Just Got A Lot More Complicated
The conversation around Texas A&Ms roster is already stretching beyond the usual spring and summer planning, because the NCAAs new 5 for 5 eligibility rule has changed the way coaches and players have to think about the next two seasons. Mike Elko and several key Aggies, including Marcel Reed, Marcus Ratcliffe and Daymion Sanford, have been talking through what 2026 could look like with the rule now giving players five full seasons of eligibility and reshaping the timeline for a group that had been expecting a more traditional runway.
For Texas A&M, the impact is immediate and broad, with 45 scholarship players affected and a handful who otherwise would have been out of eligibility after this year. The bigger issue is the uncertainty it creates for the players themselves, since Reed, Ratcliffe and Sanford all made clear their post-2026 plans will hinge on how the season unfolds. Even before a snap is played, the Aggies are already sorting through a future roster puzzle that could look very different depending on who decides to stay, who moves on and how the year goes. [Read more 🡒]
Max Johnsons Wild Career Is Another Reminder Of Jimbos QB Chaos
Max Johnsons college journey has become one of those reminders that quarterback development is rarely neat, especially for a program like Texas A&M that spent years trying to sort out the position under Jimbo Fisher. After stops at LSU, Texas A&M and North Carolina, Johnson has moved on again, this time to Georgia Southern for what he says will be his sixth and final college season, carrying with him the kind of resume that says as much about college footballs churn as it does about any one school.
Johnson also arrives with a path shaped by more than just transfers. He is the son of Super Bowl-winning quarterback Brad Johnson, and his career has already taken him through a long list of prominent coaches while bouncing from one opportunity to the next. For Aggies fans, he is another entry in the larger story of how unstable the quarterback picture could get during that era, and another example of a player still trying to put the pieces together in one last stop. [Read more 🡒]