Texas A&M football team embraces underdog role after humbling season
Texas A&M will have to earn top 10 status in 2023 after failing miserably to live up to expectations the last two seasons when the Aggies began the year ranked sixth both times.
A&M is ranked 23rd by the Associated Press and 25th by the coaches to begin this season. Six Southeastern Conference teams are ranked ahead of the Aggies with four of them Western Division rivals.
“Nobody’s paying that much attention to us,” A&M junior defensive lineman Fadil Diggs said. “We’ll take advantage of it and just sneak up on them.”
A&M ended last season with a 38-23 upset of sixth-ranked LSU, but by then the Aggies were out of the national spotlight after losing to five unranked teams. The victory did allow A&M to tie Auburn for sixth place in the SEC West instead of finishing alone in the cellar with the school’s worst conference record in more than 50 years.
“We have had a lot of people talking about us in the previous years, but this year it seems like a lot of people aren’t talking about us, and I personally like that,” senior wide receiver Ainias Smith said. “Being an underdog is somebody that I’ve been for a long, long time in my life, and I just like the fact that we have to be able to prove ourselves and show everybody what it is.”
A&M, which hasn’t won a conference championship since 1998, seemingly turned the corner after going 9-1 in 2020 and just missing that year’s College Football Playoff. The Aggies beat North Carolina in the Orange Bowl to finish that season ranked fourth, their highest spot since the 1939 national championship.
But the Aggies slipped to 8-4 in 2021, dropping their last two league games to finish 4-4 in SEC play for the sixth time since joining in 2012. A&M’s roster was so decimated by season-ending injuries, COVID-19 concerns and players opting not to play in the postseason to concentrate on the NFL draft that it forced the Aggies to pull out of the Gator Bowl. Most thought it was an anomaly, not a trend.
A&M again had high expectations for 2022, ready to fill in departed players with replacements from four straight top 10 recruiting classes. Instead the Aggies became a punching bag, taking gut punches early and often.
The Aggies suffered a shocking 17-14 loss to Appalachian State in the second week. They rebounded to beat 13th-ranked Miami and 10th-ranked Arkansas only to lose six straight, the program’s longest losing streak in 50 years.
“Nobody loves losing,” Diggs said. “Going 5-7, that was hard, but we’ll have a chip on our shoulder because that’s something we don’t want to do [again].”
A&M was riddled with injuries, especially on offense. Smith suffered a season-ending injury in the fourth game. Starting center Bryce Foster played only four games, and the Aggies used three quarterbacks because of injuries, illness and ineffectiveness. The silver lining was A&M playing plenty of underclassmen.
“Now you’re bringing a lot of those guys back with experience, and I think our two-deep probably has as much experience as we’ve had since we’ve been here,” A&M coach Jimbo Fisher said. “I feel very confident in that group. And as I say, some of your problems a year ago can be your strengths this year, but again, those have to translate on to the field.”
A&M got a huge boost when Smith opted to return for a fifth season instead of going to the NFL. Strong safety Demani Richardson, linebacker Chris Russell Jr. and tight end Max Wright also returned for an extra year granted by the NCAA due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Richardson has started a team-high 43 games, including 26 straight.
A&M’s depth chart remains littered with underclassmen, but the Aggies will have at least six senior starters.
“I love the leadership of our football team,” Fisher said. “It’s great to have some fourth- and fifth-year guys on this team, which in today’s college football is very rare, and we had a lot of guys come back. It’s fun. I mean, it’s a lot of experience that they can pass down to the other guys.”
Smith and Richardson started in the Orange Bowl victory over North Carolina, while six other returners saw significant action.
Fisher also is counting on the experience and expertise of offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino to get that unit rolling. Petrino will take over Fisher’s play-calling duties after two seasons of the offense declining.
“I think A&M’s getting an elite offensive mind and an elite play-caller,” longtime Arkansas Democrat-Gazette writer Bob Holt said. “I think he makes a lot of sense for A&M because their offense had been in a dumpster.”
A&M averaged 22.8 points per game last season to rank 100th nationally, yet if the Aggies had scored one more touchdown in every game they would have gone 10-2. Petrino in his last two seasons at Arkansas in 2010-11 averaged 36.5 (17th) and 36.8 points per game (15th).
“Coach Petrino has come in and sparked the energy, sparked some light in us and opened up the playbook a little bit more,” Smith said.
Sophomore Conner Weigman and senior Max Johnson had a competitive battle for starting quarterback in spring drills that carried over into the summer and fall camp. A year ago, they both at different times replaced Haynes King, who started the last two season openers but transferred to Georgia Tech during the offseason.
Weigman started three of the last four games in 2022. He threw for 896 yards for the year, completing 73 of 132 passes. He had eight touchdowns and no interceptions. He passed for 155 yards against LSU, completing 12 of 18 with two scores.
After replacing King, Johnson engineered the victories over Miami and Arkansas before breaking a bone in his throwing hand. The left-hander completed 60.6% of his passes (43 of 71) with three TDs and no interceptions.
A&M’s receiving corps struggled without Smith, but Evan Stewart led the team with 53 receptions for 649 yards. Fellow true freshman Noah Thomas had only five catches but by all accounts had a breakout spring that carried over into fall camp. Throw in junior Moose Muhammad III (38 receptions, 610 yards, 16.1 average, four TDs) and there are options no matter who is quarterback.
The offensive line has been a liability the past two years, but with senior guard Layden Robinson poised to rebound from a so-so season and a healthy Foster in the middle, the unit should be vastly improved.
A&M will run the ball by committee after losing junior De’Von Achane, who was a third-round pick by the Miami Dolphins. Freshman running back Rueben Owens, a five-star recruit, has created a buzz, while Amari Daniels and Le’Veon Moss combined for 314 yards last year on 63 carries (5.0) in limited action.
Owens was part of a recruiting class that ranked 15th, ending A&M’s run of top 10 classes. Owens and Katy Paetow defensive lineman D.J. Hicks were the lone five-star recruits in the group, which pales to the previous year’s top-ranked class that had eight five-star players. But seven of those players ended up being among the 26 scholarship players from last year’s roster who transferred out of the program.
A&M twice had to suspend freshmen for breaking team rules last year. Defensive back Denver Harris and wide receiver Chris Marshall, who were included in both disciplinary actions, were among those who left.
“It was guys who were stars in their high school that went to big places in their high school [careers],” Robinson said. “They were the best on their team. Some people, they don’t know how to react to a situation to where when you come into college, anybody could beat you on any given day. It was an adjustment for them. We had to learn the hard way, but thank God we learned it, so let’s move on now. Let’s move on to bigger and greater things.”
This year’s incoming freshmen and transfers have blended in well with the returning players.
“This class didn’t get the hype that the other one did, but I’m going to tell you what, there’s some really good players in there,” Fisher said.
A&M returns nine starters on defense led by Richardson and senior lineman McKinnley Jackson, who both were second-team All-SEC picks.
A&M needs to shore up its run defense after allowing 208.8 yards per game to rank 122nd in the country. The Aggies have depth on the defensive line and return linebackers Edgerrin Cooper and Russell, who combined for 121 tackles, 15 of them for loss.
A&M used the transfer portal to add depth on defense, landing defensive backs Tony Grimes (North Carolina), Josh DeBerry (Boston College) and Sam McCall (Florida State).
