Editor’s note: Saturday Down South’s annual Crystal Ball series continues today with Texas A&M. This concludes our SEC West prediction previews. Next week, we’ll predict every game for every SEC East team.

Previously: Alabama | Arkansas | Auburn | LSU | Mississippi State | Ole Miss

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Horrendous … awful … painful … dreadful … embarrassing … a few other words that probably aren’t appropriate for this audience.

Call it whatever you want. A&M’s 2022 season was a failure. If Jimbo Fisher’s buyout were $8.6 million instead of $86 million, he would’ve been fired at the end of Year 5. Period.

An offense stuck in neutral was hurt by injuries, but it was bad well before those really set in. Three different starting quarterbacks couldn’t get it done. If you include the disappointing Zach Calzada from 2021, 4 different starting quarterbacks contributed to A&M’s streak of 13 consecutive games without 30 points against FBS competition.

Of course, that came to an end in last year’s de-facto bowl game against LSU. A&M treated it like a bowl game. We saw perhaps shades of what the new Bobby Petrino offense will look like in 2023: more pre-snap motion, increased tempo and RPOs. It resulted in A&M’s best offensive showing of the year by a mile, though that’s not saying much.

Now, an A&M team that started 3-7 is hoping to pick up the pieces and at least get back to respectability in the nation’s toughest division.

Will that happen? And will Fisher’s $76.8 million buyout remain a topic of conversation throughout 2023?

Let’s dig into A&M’s 2023 Crystal Ball:

Robert Patrick Petrino is back in the SEC, just as the college football gods intended

Bless us. More than a decade removed from one of the iconic press conferences in college football history — certainly the No. 1 neck brace-related one — Petrino is back. Only this time, the well-traveled offensive mind isn’t a head coach; he’s Fisher’s first offensive play-caller. His well-documented arrival at A&M is loaded with intrigue, in part because Fisher tried to play it coy for 7 months about who would have full control of the offense.

But at the start of training camp, we found out that it is indeed Petrino who’ll be calling the plays. Good. That’s what Fisher needs. Adapt or die. Trotting out an extinct offense is how you die.

Fisher’s public resistance to use an up-tempo offense with pre-snap window dressing got us to this point. That is, A&M undergoing an offensive overhaul. Will we see the full spread concepts that Petrino has been known for? One would think that’ll be the case.

Fingers crossed that at some point, Petrino elects to operate from the sidelines. Something tells me a couple of fiery coaches — neither of whom have had to answer to anyone on the offensive side of the ball in 2 decades — will give us a few viral moments in 2023.

Conner Weigman has All-SEC upside if ___________.

“Fisher goes all in with him.”

I mean that in a few ways. One is that there’s no waffling about him as QB1. That means making sure he gets ample reps with the first-teamers and not pretending like Max Johnson is gonna win the starting job. Weigman is Fisher’s most talented quarterback since Jameis Winston. After what Weigman showed in a limited sample in 2022, he needs to be treated like a franchise quarterback.

And as mentioned with the Petrino element to this, the scheme overhaul should help that. There should be more opportunities for busts in coverage that allow the former 5-star recruit to use that arm talent to stretch the field. The downfield passing attack has been virtually non-existent. A&M had just 8 passing plays of 40 yards the past 2 seasons, which ranks dead last in the SEC, even behind the dink-and-dunk Mike Leach Air Raid.

Weigman has all the pieces in place to turn that around. Operating behind an extremely experienced offensive line, he also returns a prolific pass-catching trio of Ainias Smith, Evan Stewart and Moose Muhammad III. There might not be 2 or 3 better groups of wideouts in the SEC. We should see that on display.

If Weigman gets to run this offense in the way many feel he’s capable of, yes, he could be Fisher’s first all-conference quarterback since the aforementioned Winston.

Is DJ Durkin coaching for his job?

Here’s what I mean by that.

Was the A&M defense the problem last year? Not necessarily, though a depleted front 7 was responsible for a run defense that ranked in the bottom 10 nationally. How much of that was because they spent too much time on the field trying to do the heavy lifting while A&M’s offense sputtered? That’s tough to say.

But here’s what I mean by “is Durkin coaching for his job.” If A&M, which is loaded with 5-star talent on that defensive line, cannot stop the run again, Durkin will take the blame. Fisher will move on to someone with a new scheme because when you’re the one with $76.8 million left on that contract, you can call shots like that.

More beneficial for Durkin’s future would be if the likes of Walter Nolen, Shemar Stewart and Gabriel Brownlow-Dindy became all-conference contributors alongside a healthy McKinnley Jackson. The talent is there. And if an improved offense is also there, Durkin won’t have any reason not to produce a unit reminiscent of Mike Elko’s before he left for Duke.

If Durkin’s defense is a liability with that much talent on the roster, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Fisher make a change.

Game-by-game predictions

Week 1: vs. New Mexico (W)

A Petrino-Fisher lovefest, this one will yield. The explosive new A&M offense looks wildly different than last year’s opener, and A&M hits half a hundred against FBS competition for the first time since Year 1 of the Fisher era.

Week 2: at Miami (W)

You got the feeling when they played last year that it would be awfully difficult for either to finish as Top 25 teams. Who knew that both would miss bowl games. It’s hard to be optimistic about Miami in Year 2 of the Mario Cristobal era after a bizarre offseason with major staff turnover. This ends up being more of a smash-mouth game from the A&M offensive line, who opens holes for 4-star Miami native Amari Daniels en route to his first career 100-yard game. It’s not necessarily an offensive masterpiece, but A&M pulls out a huge 28-24 road win.

Week 3: vs. Louisiana-Monroe (W)

This will be the game that gets everyone excited about A&M true freshman running back Rueben Owens. The former 5-star recruit dominates the second half in a lopsided home win.

Week 4: vs. Auburn (W)

When I explain why SEC football is great, I’ll point to last year’s A&M-Auburn atmosphere at Jordan-Hare. At Kyle Field, it’ll be another great atmosphere. This is the first example of Auburn running into a passing game that can beat you in a variety of ways. A&M’s passing game shines as Hugh Freeze’s squad struggles to dial up pressure. That’s the difference in a “closer than expected” battle in College Station.

Week 5: vs. Arkansas in Arlington, Texas (W)

That KJ Jefferson fumble on the goal line against A&M changed the trajectory of Arkansas’ season. That was the difference in the matchup in 2022. What’s the difference this year? The pressure that A&M can finally put on a secondary with Petrino. Scheme will matter, but so will having an extremely deep group of pass-catchers to help the emerging Weigman. Petrino kept Arkansas on its heels with Missouri State’s roster last year. I imagine he’ll be able to even better things running the A&M offense against his former team.

Week 6: vs. Alabama (L)

A&M is no longer the pushover for Alabama that it was from 2014-20, which is surprising considering how lackluster the Aggies’ offense was the past 2 years. With Petrino on board, they should be significantly better offensively against elite competition, so then why won’t A&M pull off the upset? Alabama running back Justice Haynes has his biggest game to date. A pair of long rushing scores from the true freshman help the Tide keep A&M at an arm’s length and prevent any down-to-the-wire drama like the past 2 matchups.

Week 7: at Tennessee (L)

All of A&M’s good early-season vibes that yielded a top-10 ranking go out the window in Knoxville. Fresh off a bye week, Josh Heupel recognizes the brutal 3-game stretch the Aggies are at the end of, and he makes it a ground-heavy attack. Jaylen Wright, Jabari Small and Joe Milton all prove to be a nightmare for A&M to slow down. A game that enters as a juicy top-15 matchup turns into a blowout in a hurry. A&M limps into the bye week while Tennessee plows through to its Alabama showdown.

Week 8: Bye

Week 9: vs. South Carolina (W)

A&M’s dominance of South Carolina finally ended in 2022, but here’s why order will be restored in this rivalry. Four weeks removed from their last win, the Aggies flip the switch offensively. They attack the South Carolina corners and turn it into a pass-heavy game plan. But unlike when the Gamecocks couldn’t gain a first down in their last visit to College Station in 2021 (that’s what it felt like), this one turns into a back-and-forth shootout. A&M struggles to put away Spencer Rattler and the South Carolina offense until an interception on the final drive gives the Aggies a 42-38 victory.

Week 10: at Ole Miss (W)

The Lane Kiffin-Fisher rivalry is vastly underrated. Kiffin clearly thinks that Fisher has been operating under an outdated offensive philosophy. Well, until now. With an improved A&M run defense, Quinshon Judkins doesn’t go off like he did a year earlier. Instead, A&M’s tempo gives Ole Miss problems, and its balanced attack leads to a 500-yard day. The Petrino hire receives national praise while Pete Golding’s good standing becomes the talk of the town in Oxford.

Week 11: vs. Mississippi State (L)

Will Rogers carved up A&M each of the past 2 seasons, albeit in a different offense. But this time, Mississippi State keeps the Aggies off the field with the much improved ground attack. In addition to Mississippi State running back Jo’Quavious Marks, Simeon Price gets a significant workload. Instead of a favorable home matchup at Kyle Field, the day brings Durkin’s future into question.

Week 12: vs. Abilene Christian (W)

After a surprising home loss, A&M bounces back in a big way. Stewart takes flight for a couple of first-half touchdowns and the Aggies get back on track.

Week 13: at LSU (W)

Do you think A&M is going to relish the opportunity to play spoiler again? I do. Instead of LSU locking up another West title, it fails to avenge its 2022 loss to the Aggies and it blows a golden opportunity. Why? Balance. LSU is unable to pin its ears back and get home. Unlike last year when it was mostly about the A&M ground game, Weigman shows his growth by stepping into some NFL throws and burning LSU on the back end. The full transformation of A&M’s offense is complete and a stunned Death Valley crowd is left wondering what to make of a roller-coaster season.

2023 projection: 9-3 (5-3), 3rd in SEC West

#GigEm

No, I don’t think Fisher is fired. Yes, I do believe the Aggies will be the most improved team in the SEC.

But I’ll admit something: If this A&M team, which should have 1 of the 5 most talented rosters in the 247sports composite rankings, cannot at least be in the New Year’s 6 bowl conversation by season’s end, that’ll be it for my Fisher faith. It’s hanging on by a thread. The Petrino hire is that thread.

A 9-win season would make the 2022 disaster feel like a distant memory. Getting a competent offense on the field will do wonders in College Station. There’ll be a different kind of buzz at the end of 2023. If this projection hits, Weigman will be billed as one of the better returning quarterbacks in the country, a Heisman contender, and A&M will actually be worthy of starting in the top 10 entering 2024.

And if it doesn’t hit? Well, A&M might have a 1-way ticket to college football hell.