There’s a version of this column where I tell you the season “depends on the offensive line” and we all nod and nobody learns anything. I’ve written that column in my head every August for a decade.
So this year Will and I sat down on Inside Aggieland and put a W or an L on all twelve games. No pushes. No “we’ll know more in October.” I landed on 10-2, and the two losses are at Alabama and at Oklahoma.
Here’s the whole thing, including where I think I’m most likely to be wrong.
Inside Aggieland: Texas A&M Schedule Breakdown
What I actually believe about this team
A&M opens at No. 8 in the preseason AP poll after going 11-2 and starting 11-0 last year. SEC media picked us fourth. This is the first season of the nine-game conference schedule, which means one fewer breather, and we’ve got exactly one bye all year — Halloween.
Two things I’m genuinely bullish on.
This is a top-three receiver room in the country. I don’t think that’s homer talk. Mario Craver, Isaiah Horton in from Alabama, Ashton Bethel-Roman coming off 503 yards and five scores on twenty-four catches, and Terry Bussey. Elko said in camp that it’s the most talented receiver group he’s had since he got here, and Holmon Wiggins is going to use more four-receiver sets than Collin Klein did. Reed has said Wiggins has more love for the receivers. Good. Use them.
And the secondary. Elko went on record at SEC Media Days and said flatly that this is the best secondary he’s had in seven years at Texas A&M. That’s not a throwaway line from a coach hyping his guys in August — this is a defensive coach putting a marker down on his own unit, after a season where we finished 16th nationally in passing yards allowed at 176.6 a game. When Elko says it about a secondary, I believe him.
The concern is where it’s always been. Four of five offensive line starters are gone, and Mark Nabou is the only guy back. We also lost four of six starters in the front six on defense, plus ten guys to the NFL Draft, which tied a program record. There’s talent replacing them. There isn’t experience.
The other number that scares me: A&M forced ten turnovers all season last year. Only Arkansas had a worse turnover margin, and Arkansas fired its coach in September. Reed threw twelve of the room’s fourteen interceptions and fumbled away four of the five offensive fumbles. That’s the thing that has to change, and it’s the thread running through everything below.
Missouri State (Sept. 5) — Win
Everybody wants to write this off, and the score probably will let you. I’m watching one thing: the new-look defensive line and whether we can stop the run.
Go back to last year’s opener. UTSA rushed for 203 yards on us at Kyle Field. Robert Henry Jr. went for 177 and two touchdowns on sixteen carries — over eleven yards a pop — including a 75-yard touchdown on the first play of the second half that cut a comfortable lead to 21-17. We were outgained in the first half of our own opener. That was with Cashius Howell, Taurean York and Albert Regis on the field. Those three are gone.
Group of Five teams ran on us last year. Missouri State is a Conference USA team in its second year at the FBS level that went 7-6 and made a bowl. They’ve got a new head coach in Casey Woods and their quarterback is on an NFL roster now, so I’m not predicting anything close. But if a CUSA offensive line is getting movement on our front in the first quarter, I want to know that on September 5 rather than in Baton Rouge three weeks later.
Watch the front. The scoreboard will take care of itself.
Arizona State (Sept. 12) — Win
This is the first game that tells us anything about the offense.
Kenny Dillingham won the Big 12 two years ago and went 8-5 last year with an injured quarterback, so this isn’t a scrimmage. But Sam Leavitt is at LSU now and Jordyn Tyson is gone, and Big 12 writers picked them seventh. We should win.
What I want out of it is the offensive line against a real front, and the first honest look at what Holmon Wiggins’ play-calling actually is. We’ve heard about four-receiver sets and more aggression in the passing game. That’s an August talking point until somebody calls it on third-and-6 with an unproven line in front of them. Does Wiggins trust this group enough to spread it out, or does he protect them with tight sets and quick game?
An 11 a.m. kick in College Station in September is also a weapon and we shouldn’t apologize for it.
Kentucky (Sept. 19) — Win
Our SEC opener, and it comes against a program in the middle of a complete teardown.
Mark Stoops is gone after thirteen years and back-to-back losing seasons. Will Stein, who’s 36, comes over from Oregon, where his offense led the country in EPA per play. He brought in a new coordinator on each side and signed 31 transfers, thirteen of them projected starters — 45 new faces total. That’s not a rebuild, that’s a new roster wearing the same helmets.
Their quarterback is Kenny Minchey, a Notre Dame transfer with 32 career dropbacks. Thirty-two. There’s real talent around him — CJ Baxter, the former Texas back, and receiver Nic Anderson — and the offensive line is legitimately solid. But a first-year head coach, a first-year system, and a quarterback with no body of work, on the road, at Kyle Field, in a league opener? That’s the softest SEC home game we’ll get all year.
Fun wrinkle: we see Cutter Boley in Week 2 at Arizona State, then his old team in Week 3.
At LSU (Sept. 26) — Win
This is the most important game on the schedule, and I flipped it.
I had it as a loss when I started my notes. Lane Kiffin signed 41 transfers in his first offseason in Baton Rouge — the No. 1 portal class in the country — headlined by Leavitt at quarterback, Colorado’s Jordan Seaton at tackle, and Trey’Dez Green, the best tight end in the sport. That’s a lot of ability walking into Tiger Stadium.
Here’s what changed my mind.
The calendar. Forty-one new players is a lot of new in September. Kiffin’s teams are historically at their best in November — that was the pattern at Ole Miss every single year. Week 4 is the earliest point on this entire schedule where A&M is the more continuous roster. If we played LSU in Baton Rouge on Thanksgiving weekend, I take LSU without much hesitation. We don’t. We get them before they’ve figured out who they are.
Our continuity is on defense, and that’s the side that travels. Elko’s best secondary in seven years against a passing game that’s still learning its own timing, in the fourth week of the season. Road environments break down offenses, not defenses. That’s the matchup I want.
LSU plays at Ole Miss the week before us. That is not a normal Week 3. That’s Kiffin walking back into Oxford as the LSU head coach, in front of a fan base that sent him off with one-finger salutes. Vaught-Hemingway is going to be a genuinely unhinged environment and that game is going to take everything they have emotionally, win or lose. Then they turn around and host the No. 8 team in the country. I’ll take that spot.
And Marcel has done this exact thing. Last October, A&M went into Death Valley and won 49-25 — snapping a six-game losing streak there and winning in Tiger Stadium for the first time since 1994. And it wasn’t clean early. We trailed 18-14 at halftime with two Reed interceptions, then scored 35 unanswered in the second half. Reed threw for 202 and ran for 108 with four total touchdowns, and afterward said Death Valley “didn’t do much to me.”
I don’t need bravado from my quarterback. But I do want a group that has already stood in that stadium at night, gotten punched, and won anyway. That’s a real asset and most of that team is back.
Win this and the whole season sets up. You’re 4-0, you own a road win over a top-fifteen team, and every remaining path stays open through the bye.
It’s a coin flip. I’m taking the coin flip.
Arkansas (Oct. 3) — Win
They went 2-10 and 0-8 in the league. Sam Pittman was fired in late September, Bobby Petrino finished as interim, and Ryan Silverfield came over from Memphis, where he went 50-25 but never finished higher than third in his own conference.
The rebuild is real and it’s mostly on defense — they brought in something like a dozen defensive backs, plus transfer linemen in Hunter Osborne from Virginia and Xadavien Sims from Oregon. Miguel Mitchell is the only returning starter in that secondary. First-year staff, first-year scheme, brand-new two-deep, on the road in College Station.
Arkansas hasn’t had a winning SEC record since 2015. There’s a version of this program that becomes competent again in year two or three under Silverfield. This isn’t that year, and this isn’t that game.
At Missouri (Oct. 10) — Win, and I’m confident
I’ve seen people call this the letdown spot and I understand why. It’s a road game the week after Arkansas and two weeks before Tuscaloosa, and Missouri went 8-4 with Ahmad Hardy, who PFF rates as the best running back in the country.
I’m still very confident here.
Missouri’s questions are exactly where our strengths are. They turned over their secondary and their pass rush, and they’re breaking in Austin Simmons at quarterback. We’re bringing the best secondary Elko has ever had at A&M and a receiver room I think is top three nationally. That’s a favorable matchup on both sides of the ball.
Hardy will get his — that’s what elite backs do, and our run defense is the unsettled part of our team. But Missouri needs to win this game on the ground and through a first-year starter against our best unit. I’ll take that trade.
Trap game on paper. Not one I’m actually losing sleep over.
The Citadel (Oct. 17) — Win
Weird spot on the calendar — an FCS game in the middle of October instead of September. Functionally it’s a second bye before Alabama, and that matters more than the game does.
At Alabama (Oct. 24) — Loss
Here’s the one I’ll get yelled at for, so let me lay out the whole thing.
This is a very winnable game, and the timing could not be better for us. Alabama hosts Georgia on Oct. 10, then goes to Knoxville for the Third Saturday of October, then hosts us. Three straight, with the middle one a road trip into Neyland. We get The Citadel. On the schedule sheet, that’s about as good a draw as you can ask for in Tuscaloosa.
Their roster has real questions too. Ty Simpson is in the NFL, and Alabama’s offensive line lost four starters — the same problem everybody keeps pinning on us. If Alabama can’t establish a run game behind a rebuilt front, I’d feel genuinely good about this. Their defense is the strength: continuity and experience at all three levels under Kane Wommack, with the No. 2 recruiting class layered in.
The Keelon Russell factor cuts the other way, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. They named him the starter this week over Austin Mack. He was the No. 2 overall recruit in the 2025 class, the Gatorade National Player of the Year, and he went 11-of-15 for 143 yards and two scores in limited freshman work. Their quarterbacks coach said flatly that Russell won the job because he’s a playmaker. What separated him in camp was his ability to escape the pocket and throw on the run — which, with a line missing four starters, is exactly the trait that matters most.
So the upside on that roster is higher than “team breaking in a new quarterback” suggests. By late October he’ll have six starts under him, including a road SEC opener at Kentucky and Florida State at home.
And here’s why I’m still taking the loss.
Marcel Reed is going to have one bad game this year. That’s not a shot at him; it’s true of almost every quarterback, and it’s specifically true of this one. Half his interceptions last year came in the final four games. Against Texas and Miami combined, he threw zero touchdowns and four picks. Eight of his twelve interceptions came against top-35 defenses. Add in that he was responsible for twelve of the team’s fourteen picks and four of five lost fumbles, and you’ve got a guy whose floor is lower than his ceiling suggests.
I don’t think you predict losses by circling the best opponents. I think you predict where the variance lands. And this is the spot: the loudest road environment we’ll see all season, against the one unit on Alabama’s roster built on experience, in a game where we’ll be favored enough to press.
It’s a game we should win. I think we lose it anyway. If Reed plays clean and we win in Tuscaloosa, I’ll say so on air in November and take the L on the pick. But I’m not going to pretend the bad afternoon isn’t coming just because I don’t like where I think it lands.
At South Carolina (Nov. 7) — Win
This is the scariest trap game on the schedule and it’s not particularly close.
Look at the setup. It’s our first game off the only bye we get. It’s a night game at Williams-Brice, which is a legitimately nasty road environment. It comes right after a loss I’m predicting in Tuscaloosa, which means we’re either wounded or overcorrecting. And South Carolina is a 4-8 team that nobody will have us worried about, which is exactly the profile of a team that ruins a season.
They also have the most dangerous player we’ll face who plays for a bad team. LaNorris Sellers is back with Nyck Harbor, and Dylan Stewart is a genuine problem off the edge — the kind of rusher who can wreck a game against four new offensive linemen without any help.
The reason I’m still picking us: their 2025 offense was so bad that only Florida was worse in the SEC, and the rebuild is enormous. Kendal Briles is Shane Beamer’s fourth offensive coordinator in five years. They’ve got eight new offensive linemen and three new backs, and only six offensive players return who took even 200 snaps last season. Sellers is talented enough to beat you by himself for a half. Doing it for four quarters against Elko’s best secondary is a different ask.
I’m picking us. I’m also telling you now that if we lose a game I called a win, this is the one.
Tennessee (Nov. 14) — Win
Tennessee just named Faizon Brandon the starter, and he’s the real thing — five-star, top-ten overall recruit, 35-1 as a high school starter with back-to-back state titles. He’s also the first true freshman to start a season opener for Tennessee since 2004.
They’ll be frisky. There’s talent around him: DeSean Bishop ran for 16 touchdowns on 182 carries, and Mike Matthews and Braylon Staley both went for 800-plus receiving yards. Jim Knowles is in from Penn State to fix a defense that fell from third nationally in EPA per play to 81st, and he will fix a lot of it.
But they lost their top six players in pressures, they’re playing four preseason top-fifteen teams, and by mid-November a true freshman has been through the SEC gauntlet already. Now put him in a blacked-out Kyle Field at night in November.
That’s too much. Talent gets you a lot in this sport; it doesn’t get a nineteen-year-old through that building. This is the most favorable big-name game on our schedule.
At Oklahoma (Nov. 21) — Loss
Worst stylistic matchup on the board, and it isn’t close.
Oklahoma finished third nationally against the run and spent most of last season holding teams around 82 rushing yards a game. They allowed 15.5 points and 272.5 total yards per game. They led the country in both sacks and tackles for loss. Then they went and added Patrick Payton off a 10.5-sack season at LSU to a front that already had David Stone inside, Taylor Wein off the edge, and Kip Lewis leading the team in tackles. Brent Venables just signed an extension and this is why.
Their ceiling problem is offense — 92nd in total offense last year, with John Mateer at 2,885 yards, 22 total touchdowns and 11 interceptions after a hand injury slowed him down. They don’t have to score much.
So: the nation’s best pass rush against our least experienced unit, in Norman, in Week 12, with a defense that takes away the run and dares your quarterback to be perfect. Reed under pressure has been the whole conversation for two years.
If you told me A&M loses exactly one game in 2026, this is the one I’d pick.
Texas (Nov. 27, Black Friday) — Win
Lowest-confidence win on my sheet, and I want to be honest about how uncomfortable it is.
Texas is No. 5 in the country and got 57 first-place votes in the SEC media poll. Arch Manning is a projected No. 1 overall pick. PFF has them with the No. 2 offense in the country and a top-five defense, and they’re the only team in those rankings with a top-ten unit at every single position group. Cam Coleman is in from Auburn and is a likely first-rounder himself. Colin Simmons might be the best defensive player in the league. Sarkisian brought in the program’s strongest transfer class and swapped Will Muschamp in at defensive coordinator.
I’m picking us to beat the more talented team. I know it.
Here’s the case. Texas went 10-3 and missed the playoff, and the reason was protection. Manning was pressured on close to half his attempts and got sacked six times in the Florida loss, and Texas averaged the fewest points per game of the Sarkisian era. That interior offensive line is still the acknowledged weakness — they spent camp sorting through transfers at left guard. Manning is a better player this year, but you don’t fix an interior line by wanting to, and we’ll have had thirteen games to figure out our pass rush.
Add the setting: Black Friday at Kyle Field, the last game of the regular season, and two straight in this series that both stung. If there’s a game where this team plays over its head, it’s that one.
And I’ll say the quiet part: on Inside CFB, I left Texas out of my playoff field at 9-3. If I’m willing to make that call nationally, I’d better be willing to pick them to lose in College Station. I am.
Where that leaves me
10-2. Losses at Alabama and at Oklahoma. That’s a playoff résumé and it’s the exact record I gave A&M in my twelve on Inside CFB.
The three coin flips are LSU, Alabama and Texas, and I know it. Flip any one of them and this is a different column. I took LSU because of the calendar and the fact that this group has already won in that building. I took Texas because of Kyle Field, the date, and an interior offensive line they still haven’t fixed. I took the loss at Alabama because I think that’s where Marcel’s one bad afternoon lands, and I’d rather name it in August than explain it in October.