If I had told any Texas A&M fan what would be at stake in the first regular-season finale of the Mike Elko era, they would’ve taken it 100 times out of 100.
The positives were there. The Aggies had a late-November path to get to the SEC Championship Game for the first time. It earned that even though it was on the heels of agreeing to pay Jimbo Fisher a $76 million buyout. Shoot, it’s easy to forget that the Aggies still had a late-season Playoff path even though they had a back-and-forth quarterback situation with Conner Weigman and Marcel Reed.
The positives of 2024 were obvious in College Station, even if the bookends weren’t exactly that. The question that many will have is whether A&M has enough working in its favor to get over that hump and reach the Playoff for the first time. After all, that Year 1 script was (mostly) positive. Who’s to say that there aren’t more positives in store?
There’s no better time to be positive than talkin’ season. That’s what I always say. Each of the next 16 days, we’ll look at the best things about each SEC team. This daily series will align with the SEC Network Takeover, which runs from Saturday, June 28 until July 13, AKA just before talkin’ season officially kicks off at SEC Media Days on July 14.
For those keeping track at home, that’s alphabetical order.
So far, here are the teams that we’ve done:
- Alabama
- Arkansas
- Auburn
- Florida
- Georgia
- Kentucky
- LSU
- Ole Miss
- Mississippi State
- Mizzou
- Oklahoma
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Texas
Today, we’ll continue with the best things about Texas A&M in 2025:
Best offensive player: Le’Veon Moss, RB (if he’s healthy and Ar’Maj Reed-Adams if he’s not)
Looking back, one of the most significant, but underrated developments of the SEC season was when Moss took that hit on the sideline of the South Carolina game. A week removed from taking an all-important driver’s seat on the path to Atlanta with that LSU win, A&M’s best offensive player suffered a season-ending injury halfway through the first quarter in Columbia. After a 7-0 stretch in September-October, A&M lost Moss and lost a key piece of its offensive identity for the home stretch of the season. He was sprinting toward a 1,200-yard rushing season when that happened.
Coming off that injury, Moss is still the straw that stirs the drink for that offense if he’s healthy. He averaged 4.4 yards after first contact (6th among Power Conference running backs with 100 carries) and he still finished with double-digit rushing scores in basically 8 games of action. That’s going to be an asset in Year 2 in the Collin Klein offense, especially one that returns a mobile quarterback and all 5 starters on the offensive line. And while one of those returning offensive linemen, Ar’maj Reed-Adams, is projected as a first-round pick as one of the elite interior offensive linemen in America, I’m still giving the nod to Moss here because he could be the leading rusher for the SEC’s top rushing attack.
The good news for A&M is that Rueben Owens is ready to roll if Moss needs a bit of extra time to get back to 100%, and Amari Daniels is an experienced option after taking on lead-back work in Moss’s late-season absence.
In short, just assume A&M’s best offensive player will have a major role in the ground attack.
Best defensive player: Taurean York, LB
If you didn’t know any better, you’d assume that York is some 23-year-old who has been at A&M since 2019. Nope. He’s a 20-year-old with 2 years of starting experience and 1 year of experience as A&M’s captain. That’s darn impressive for someone who won’t even be draft-eligible until after the 2025 season. As a sophomore, York led A&M with 82 tackles and he was second with 9.5 tackles for loss. He also added 21 quarterback pressures and 15 hurries for a group that surprisingly lacked a pass rush too often down the stretch.
On a defense that was expected to have its best player come from that loaded, NFL-bound defensive line, it was York who became the top dog for Elko. He’s going to be asked to do a lot once again. That’s fine. No returning Power Conference player had as many run stops as York the last 2 seasons (59), and while he’s still a bit more of a work in progress in coverage, he’s not a liability there, either.
York should be at the top of every scouting report as long as he’s in College Station.
Best freshman: Marco Jones, Edge
A spring-game performance isn’t always the best barometer for true freshmen, but it can absolutely be a positive sign for a guy who turned heads upon arrival. That’s the case for Jones. All he did to cap off a banner spring was put together a 5-sack (6 TFLs) spring-game showing. Even with quarterbacks getting 2-hand touch treatment, that’s no small feat against an A&M offensive line that’s loaded with depth. He’s got the athleticism and coordination as a baseball standout at 6-6, 250 pounds.
Jones has a shot to not just be on the 2-deep from the jump, but to start at some point in his freshman year. Granted, Cashius Howell isn’t giving up that starting job anytime soon, but Jones played inside linebacker in high school. Plus, with A&M losing Shemar Stewart and Nic Scourton to the NFL Draft, opportunity awaits. A year after we watched Dylan Stewart and Colin Simmons become game-wrecking edge guys as true freshmen in the SEC, don’t be surprised if Jones is next up.
Best game: Week 14, Texas A&M at Texas
I could go in a bunch of different directions here. I could run it back with the Notre Dame game after that thriller of an opener. That Florida game in College Station will be a huge showdown, as will the return trip to LSU after last year’s 180 of a game. Even that South Carolina game will be appointment viewing because of what LaNorris Sellers and the Gamecocks did to the Aggies last year in Columbia. I get all of that.
But let’s not overthink this. It’s still the Texas game. It’s still the rivalry that finally got renewed on the field instead of just the internet. It’s one of the best rivalries in the sport, which we were reminded of last year in a game that only had 2 offensive touchdowns, both of which happened in the first 22 minutes. Didn’t matter. It was still an incredible atmosphere with a spot in the SEC Championship Game up for grabs.
It’s unfair to assume that’ll be the case on an annual basis, but there figures to be a decent chance that one of these teams will have that on the line. That’ll only add to a game that would be off-the-charts intense even if both teams were 4-7. Arch Manning’s first start vs. A&M should have a major say in bragging rights in the Lone Star State in 2025.
Best reason for improvement: A 2020-like identity
Wait, am I saying that the Aggies are going to finish as a top-4 team like they did in 2020? Nope. We’re not going there.
But this team, whether some realize it or not, has a ton of similarities with that 2020 squad. The biggest strength of the 2020 A&M team was that it had offensive line continuity, an elite ground game with a mobile quarterback and an Elko-coached defense. All of those elements are there for the 2025 squad.
Even if KC Concepcion steps in and becomes an All-SEC receiver, I wouldn’t expect Reed to completely flip the switch and become an elite downfield thrower in a pass-first offense. A&M wants to line up and beat you in the ground game. That’s the Klein offense. In Year 2 of it, we’re going to see that even more consistently than last year when the Aggies averaged 195 rushing yards per contest on 4.8 yards/carry. This has the makings of a top-10 ground attack in America if it can stay healthy. That’s going to allow for better game control after last year’s team dealt with 2 significant backfield injuries and the aforementioned quarterback switches.
If Elko can stamp his identity on this defense — that’s a major “if” for a group that he admitted had baffling issues in zone coverage down the stretch in 2024 — A&M is going to have November Playoff relevance in Year 2.
You’d take that 100 times out of 100.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
