Last season, Texas A&M looked like a team ready to crash the national title conversation. This year, the Aggies are fighting just to stay bowl eligible, and the drop-off has been brutal.
A year ago at this point, Texas A&M was undefeated, sitting near the top of the AP Top 25 and coming off a 49-25 rout of LSU in Baton Rouge. That stretch eventually carried the Aggies into the 12-team College Football Playoff.
Now? They’re 4-4 overall, 1-4 in conference play, and coming off a 35-6 loss to the same LSU team they rolled a season ago.
The offense has been the clearest place where everything has gone sideways, and Marcel Reed is right in the middle of it. Reed was in Heisman Trophy discussion for much of last season and finished with 25 passing touchdowns and 12 interceptions, with most of those picks coming late. This year, his touchdown and interception totals are both at eight, and his passer rating sits at 42.6, one of the worst marks in the nation.
There are reasons the offense has struggled beyond Reed alone. He’s operating behind four new offensive linemen, and Mario Craver, his No. 1 target, has not been 100 percent for much of the season. Even so, the pressure has mounted enough that some are calling for Mike Elko to turn to backup quarterback Brady Hart.
Elko, though, is taking the heat for a lot more than just the quarterback situation. The head coach has repeatedly taken responsibility after bad outings, but the criticism has only grown louder as the losses pile up.
His fourth-down decisions have especially raised eyebrows. The most recent example came against Alabama, when Texas A&M punted on 4th & 6 while trailing by 11 late in the fourth quarter. Elko said he felt the team simply "wasn't in a position to convert."
That call stood out even more because it came after a very different decision against Kentucky last month, when the Aggies went for it on 4th & 2 from their own 33-yard line while trailing by 14. That kind of inconsistency has become part of the frustration, and it points straight back to the sideline.
There’s also been skepticism around Elko’s decision to elevate former wide receivers coach Holmon Wiggins to offensive coordinator, a role Wiggins had never held on his own before. Instead of bringing in someone from outside, Texas A&M handed the keys to an unproven play-caller and paired him with a rebuilt offensive line and a quarterback who has clearly been fighting his own slump. The result has been ugly.
The quarterback handling has been another sore spot. Elko has acknowledged Reed isn’t at his best, but the staff has stuck with him rather than giving Hart a chance. That hesitation has drawn even more attention because the coaches weren’t nearly as patient two years ago, when they pulled Conner Weigman against LSU and gave Reed the job.
Wiggins does have a history with elite receiver play. He coached DeVonta Smith to the 2020 Heisman Trophy at Alabama, during the season in which Smith put together one of the greatest statistical receiving years ever seen.
But what Texas A&M had working last year was a different kind of machine. With Craver, KC Concepcion and Ashton Bethel-Roman, the passing game was among the most efficient in the country, and that success helped earn Wiggins his promotion.
Right now, the production is nowhere close to that level. The nine-yard touchdown pass from Reed to Craver against Alabama was significant because it was the Aggies’ first touchdown away from Kyle Field and their first touchdown in a ranked matchup. That says plenty about how rough the road offense has been.
The Missouri game was even worse. Texas A&M managed only two first downs for most of the contest, produced just three yards in the entire third quarter and at one point went nearly 14 minutes between completions for Reed.
So while the season has clearly gone off the rails, there is still time left to salvage something. A return to the College Football Playoff is off the table for this year, but a bowl game remains within reach. For Texas A&M, the challenge is obvious: fix it now, and fast.
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