CFB's Kirby Hocutt: "Committee believes Texas A&M has played stronger sked than Washington." 4 Ws over .500 teams vs. 2 Ws.

— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) November 1, 2016

Auburn (bigger number) - TAMU (smaller number)

Tuco

It all comes down to the battle on the edge of our offensive line.  If Auburn can slow down the Aggies' ends long enough to let Sean White throw the ball downfield, Auburn could run away with this game.  If Garrett gets to White early and often, it's going to be a hard game to win.  Auburn 38 Texas A&M 27.

Dr Z

Following their most lopsided shutout victory since 1993, Texas A&M was rewarded by moving up several spots in both college football polls. The Aggies moved up from 24th to 20th in the Amway Coaches Poll, and from 20th to 17th in the Associated Press Poll.

The Aggies are one of eight SEC teams ranked in both polls, along with Alabama (1, 1), Georgia (13, 16), Tennessee (15, 15), Ole Miss (17, 19), LSU (22, 20), Florida (23, 23) and Arkansas (24, 24).

Texas A&M opens SEC play at 6 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 17, as they travel to take on Auburn at Jordan Hare Stadium. The Tigers are 1-1 following a season-opening loss to Clemson and a week two win over Arkansas State. The game will be broadcast on ESPN.

Preseason rankings are now moot for all but four teams.

My new Top 10: https://t.co/sCVA0sPhYd

— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) September 4, 2016

As we approach the 2016 A&M football season, there’s an undeniable feeling that this is a critical year for Kevin Sumlin. We are now headed into Year 5 of his regime, and after historical success in 2012, it’s been followed by 3 straight years of declining production, wins, and "momentum". I’ll say right off the top I’m a fan of Coach Sumlin and still believe as of right now he’s the best man to lead the A&M football program going forward. But despite the myriad reasons that have contributed to the team’s successes and failures the last four years, there’s no arguing this is a pivotal year for the team.

One of the biggest "knocks" on the Sumlin Era is the lack of high quality wins at Kyle Field. Through four seasons, which have included 10 wins against Top 25 teams, only one of them has come at Kyle Field. The 2015 victory versus #21 Mississippi State. In our first four years in the SEC, we are now 0-7 at Kyle Field against Alabama, LSU, Ole Miss, and Auburn. Yes, we’ve actually had some tremendous success on the road, and at neutral sites and bowl games. And Sumlin deserves credit for that success away from home. And I don’t necessarily think anyone could definitively point to any reason(s) for the home-away results vs ranked opponents.

Winning big games at home is critical for any football program for several reasons. Your fan base is much more willing to support you if they are treated to some nice wins at home. They feel better about purchasing season tickets, because the high expenses that come with that are also paired with the mind-numbing fun of sending a ranked team away from Kyle Field with a loss. It’s important for recruiting as well. Its great to bring in 15-20 big time recruits to show off your facilities, the atmosphere of Kyle Field, the Spirit of the 12th Man, and SEC football. But its not so great when those games keep ending with A&M walking off the field with a loss in a spotlight game.

So for 2016, let’s throw away the three crappy non-conference games at Kyle Field and focus on the ones that could make or break this season, and possibly the future of Kevin Sumlin at A&M. Aggie fans will be treated to 4 huge games at Kyle Field versus ranked opponents heading into the season.

• #24 UCLA - Saturday September 3rd. This is the season opener for the Aggies. Another prime matchup on CBS with a Pac-12 opponent that could once again try and set the tone for the season. Win this game, and you’ve already bought some goodwill with the fan base to start the year. Lose this one and the "hot seat" talk, unwarranted or not, begins to ramp up early.
• #10 Tennessee - Saturday October 8th. Tennessee enters the season with the hype train rolling full steam. They are considered the early favorites to win the SEC East. This would also be a huge win for A&M to quiet the talk of the prior two years' collapses in October. A loss, and it's "same song, third verse".
• #12 Ole Miss - Saturday November 12th. As A&M continues to try and move up the pecking order in the SEC West, Ole Miss currently stands in the way ahead of us. This would give the Ags a much needed boost against Ole Miss for recruiting purposes as well. A loss here could potentially sink the Ags back down into the lower half of the position standings in the West.
• #6 LSU - Thursday November 24th. Quite possibly the most important game at Kyle Field this year. The only team we've yet to defeat in the SEC West. End the season on a high note at Kyle Field. Want to get a real rivalry started up again with the Tigers? Win this damn game. Depending on how the other home games above have gone, a loss here could be a catastrophe.

I'm confident A&M finally turns the corner vs ranked teams at Kyle Field this year.  I trust in Sumlin.  Let me know in the comments how you think A&M will fare against these ranked foes at home.

#SoonerSquad17 ⭕️ pic.twitter.com/huRaa0DHp3

— Creed Humphrey (@creed_humphrey) August 8, 2016

In addition to holding the first practice of fall camp on Saturday, the Texas Longhorns also hosted several visitors, including Texas A&M Aggies outside linebacker commit Devodrick Johnson, who apparently enjoyed his time in Austin:

The 6’1, 210-pounder plays quarterback for Dallas Kimball, but will make the move to defense in college as a hybrid linebacker/safety capable of dropping into coverage and covering a lot of ground. As a result of that unique skill set, the Texas coaches have been trying to get Johnson on campus for some time, and finally succeeded.

Johnson committed to Texas A&M in the middle of July on a visit to College Station, but it appears that he hasn’t quite completely closed down his recruitment, as few prospects do who commit at this stage.

An offer from the ‘Horns hasn’t happened yet for the Aggies commit and it may take some movement with other players before Texas would make a move, as there are plenty of linebackers on campus and plenty of big targets at the position, including Dylan Moses, Baron Browning, and Anthony Hines.

The recruitment to watch as it concerns Johnson is that of Fort Bend Elkins product Kenneth Murray, who is similar in size to Johnson, likely to play a similar role in college, and set to decide on August 10.

If Murray commits elsewhere, say, to Oklahoma, which may be the current leader, there’s a chance that Texas could offer Johnson.

Johnson and the True Buzz Athletics group out of the Dallas area also brought along 2018 West Mesquite cornerback Dayven Coleman, a 6’1, 186-pounder who has the height and length preferred by head coach Charlie Strong and defensive coordinator Vance Bedford.

That’s Coleman on the left and Johnson on the right.

Coleman is still looking for his first offer and the early rankings for him aren’t spectacular — he’s a low three-star prospect ranked No. 54 nationally at his position, but there’s not exactly a lot of consensus out there right now with only one service having yet released rankings for that class.

So file the name away for later with Coleman, as the ‘Horns are still pretty early in the evaluation stages for that class.

Another visitor on campus was 2018 San Antonio Marshall wide receiver Stanley Lambert, who burst onto the scene and earned an offer from the ‘Horns at the Under the Lights camp back in July:

Texas likely isn’t pushing for a decision from Lambert any time soon, as per the usual tactics by the staff, but the early offer and multiple visits seem to have the Longhorns in a good initial position with Lambert.

Each year, Athlon Sports flexes some of its access to provide unique insights by way of getting the opinions of teams from opposing coaching staffs. The promise of anonymity is upheld in an effort to get full candor.

Hearing what other SEC coaches have to say about A&M confirms a lot of our assumptions and biases heading into 2016, but also yields some fresh perspectives. Here's what the coaches had to say:

“I don’t know much about their quarterback situation, but obviously they’ve had turmoil there with all the transfers. Maybe going back to one guy and removing some of the ego from that situation will help from a chemistry standpoint.”

As an observer from afar, I believe much of the poor chemistry in the locker room was fixed the moment Kyler Murray left College Station. There are question marks and unknowns surrounding Trevor Knight, but here is what we do know:

• He's been around major, successful college football for four years
• He is mature beyond his years and rooted in humility as evidenced by how he departed OU and supported the program as a backup on their run to the College Football Playoff.
• Unlikely to pass out in a bush (be good in the comments) on Northgate.
• One of a few people in history that have made a Nick Saban defense look horrible.

“Schematically, they’re real simple. They play fast to try to get you off-kilter, but they’re simple. They changed coordinators, but they hired the exact same offense in my opinion with Noel Mazzone. He’s not overly complicated either. I just don’t know if they’ll be better at QB.”

I choose to believe simple = good. This is the Leach/Sumlin/Kingsbury/Briles through-line. What will likely piss off the Aggie Internet here is the indication that we've rehired the Spav offense. UH OH. Thing is, the lion's share of our issues on offense the last couple years have been tied to youth, inexperience, and a culture as petty and vapid as the set of Real Housewives of Dallas.

Mentioned again - what do we have in Trevor Knight?

“Maybe they’ll play two backs more with Mazzone; knowing him from when he was at UCLA, he had some split back-type stuff. But at the end of the day, they’ll probably do a lot of the same stuff, just with a different guy calling the plays and a new QB.”

This is from a totally different coach scouting A&M... Interesting trends.

“Offensive line-wise, we thought they were weak, but in that offense they don’t do a whole lot of complicated blocking schemes. They’re just not as talented as they were in Kevin Sumlin’s first couple years. They don’t have a Jake Matthews or Luke Joeckel or some of those linemen they had in the past. I don’t know if they missed in recruiting or what.”

I've been vocal in saying we were awful on the offensive line last year. Poorly coached, soft, technically a mess, lacking cohesion, and devoid of grit and toughness. Is there an easy fix to this? Sumlin's job hinges greatly on this question.

Also: yeah, we missed on recruiting at that position for a couple years. When you miss in the trenches, you pay dearly.

“They’re really good on the defensive line obviously, and a guy to keep an eye on is the Daylon Mack kid. He’s a really special talent. Our offense was as worried about him being disruptive as they were about Myles Garrett.”

Analysis:

“Clearly John Chavis had a big impact in the way they played last year, but if they don’t figure out the quarterback situation, it’ll be tough to beat the better teams in the West.”

Well, Trev. They're all yours. Here's your opportunity to be great.

Gig 'em.

Last football season took a lot out of me. Actual play on the field notwithstanding, December and January were awful months for Aggie Football, and took me out of my place of unhealthy optimism to the point of realism borderlining on pessimism regarding the state of Aggie Football.

But now that we're towards the end of the summer, with the football season being only 50 some odd days away, I find that optimism creeping back in. I find myself getting excited by what we could actually do this year, and I find myself being really confused about some of the expectations outsiders have for our team (I saw a Vegas site that had our over/under on wins at 6.5 and had to stop myself from betting my kids college fund on the over--baby steps!).

So with that, I figured this could be a good space to process a bit and talk about why those expectations (4th in the division) might be right or why they might be woefully wrong.

WHY THEY MIGHT BE RIGHT

Let's get the bad news out of the way. To me there are three main reasons why folks seem to be pessimistic about this iteration of the Aggie Football team.

Coaching

The media has given Kevin Sumlin the benefit of the doubt for a while...and I think this year they're just done. Two straight years where we failed to meet expectations (despite how unrealistic those expectations may have been after 5-0 starts) have resulted in many folks putting Sumlin in a "good coach, but not good enough" box.

And I don't really disagree with them. I think few A&M fans are as hopelessly devoted to Summy as we may have been 3 years ago. We've proven to have issues with ego management, offensive scheme, and recruiting strategy. Sumlin is not without his warts.

But again, I can't help but be somewhat positive here regarding the moves we've made. Both Turners (DL/OL) were really really good hires. I expect our DTs to be much more disciplined under Turner than they were under Hagen. Few A&M coaches have the mysticism/lore of Jim Turner...but I think we will see a significantly improved offensive line this fall (cant get worse, can it?). I think Mazzone was a damn fine hire. In fact, I think we should have hired him when Kingsbury left.

Combine all those things with another year under Chavis and I really think that our coaching has turned a corner. In fact I'd say this is probably the best slate of coaches (from top to bottom) that we've had under Sumlin. We had issues but we fixed them.

Schedule

No getting around this one...the schedule is the hardest one we've had since entering the SEC. We could reasonably be a better football team without it being reflected in the overall record. Tennessee, UCLA, and having most of our tougher SEC-W games being on the road make for a pretty dang hard slate.

There's not much good news or spin here. The one thing that I can say is that if we have another 5-0 start (as we've had the past two years) then this team will be for real. 5-0 means we knocked off UCLA, Auburn (at Jordan-Hare), Arkansas, and South Carolina. That's a pretty decent start.

QB

Off the field, Trevor Knight is the best possible guy we could have added to the locker room. Kyle and Kyler seemed divisive and left the locker room void of any leadership and teeming with dysfunction. Trevor seems to be the direct opposite and for the first time in Sumlin's career he'll be trotting out an upperclassman QB at the helm of the team.

How good can Trevor Knight be on the field? Will he be the 2014 Bama game Trevor Knight or will he be the one who got beat out by (Heisman finalist) Baker Mayfield? Do we even need him to be the 2014 Bama game Knight...or do we just need him to minimize mistakes and distribute the ball? Total unknown there.

WHY THEY MIGHT BE WRONG

Defensive Talent

This team is loaded defensively at a few positions. I'm not just talking "in a good place", I'm talking full of blue chip talent. Our defensive line should be the best we've had in at least 10 or so years. We've got two elite defensive ends, at least two outstanding defensive tackles, and a host of of other players who can step in and make things happen. Our DL is going to be really good.

Safeties are in the same space. I can't quite remember a better group of safeties at A&M than Watts, Evans, and Wilson. Each of them does what they do so damn well. Hard to think that only three years ago I was bemoaning safety as the biggest weak spot on the team.

Experience/Personnel

The wide receiver and running back positions are stacked too. RSJ, Reynolds, and Kirk would be starting damn near anywhere and maybe (?)(!) this is the year Speedy puts it together. We were incredibly lucky last year that Tra Carson is a cyborg and didn't get hurt, but he had his limitations. We were missing a home run threat to go along with the sledgehammer. This year we have both--Trayveon Williams, Keith Ford, and James White are a solid group of RBs who can play a number of roles in Mazzone's offense.

There are question marks at LB and OL...but both of those rosters have talent. When healthy, Otaro Alaka has proven to be a very solid/rangy linebacker. We can find a starting 3 out of Washington, Alaka, Walker, George, Moore, Garner, and Thomas...all of whom have seen a decent amount of time on the field.

Same thing with the offensive line. They are green but not without talent. I have really high hopes for Jermaine Eluemunor. If Eric McCoy can be a reliable option at center, then this group could be serviceable to solid as well.

OVERALL

I understand why folks are doubting A&M this year. But I can't help but think that we've actually got the talent to make some noise and perform better than we have the past two years.

Am I wrong here? Let me know what you think in the comments.

In LA, from the other La. pic.twitter.com/mzgDUwh2Ul

— Kevin Sumlin (@CoachSumlin) June 12, 2016

All Praises Be To The Most High !!!

I AM PROUD TO SAY I AM OFFICIALLY COMMITTED TO TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY !!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/v6R8GfQi7b

— Keldrick Carper ® (@Keldrick_Carper) June 12, 2016