Due to the bizarre meta nature of topic discussions on this board, discussing Texas A&M for the 2025 football season, like those before it, has become a bizarre exercise in either posting on the ATM recruiting thread or the football board "Tell me about A&M" thread, neither of which actually wind up satisfying the purpose of staying updated on the team. This is a similar phenomenon for every other team any of us would give a shit about besides Texas itself.
Given that, I decided to start a new thread for the express purpose of tracking 2025 itself for Texas 8&4. I'll post my preseason thoughts here, and then I, and hopefully others, can provide updates towards and into the season when there's something new regarding the aggies. Will I be the only person tracking this thread and wind up posting to myself in an echo chamber? Wouldn't be the first time. Still, it's our little brother rival and I get tired of trying to parse signal from noise in other threads when it comes to their team.
In regard to their outlook for 2025, here are my thoughts, offense first:
QB: QB1 Marcel Reed (Soph); QB2 Jacob Zeno (SR); QB3 Miles O’Neill (FR); QB4 Brady Hart (FR) – Reed is slight and short, coming in at 6’2”, 180 lbs. Neither of those are accurate. He’s shorter than 6’2” and likely 5-10 pounds less than the sad 180 in his listing. He’s not some witch with escapability, but he is mobile. Klein likes to run his QBs and Reed’s arm isn’t begging to be heavily utilized. I wouldn’t be surprised if he got hurt and stayed hurt, prompting 7th year guy Zeno to fit into aggie fans’ favorite role, the elevated back-up QB.
RB: RB1 La’Veon Moss (SR); RB2 Reuben Owens (Soph); RB3 Amari Daniels (SR); RB4 EJ Smith (SR) – Moss was having a quality season last year before going down to injury. It sounds like he’s recovered and aggies are justified in expecting another good season. Owens went down early, came back late, and continued sucking from his Freshman year. Few RBs have been hyped this far into their career without having broken an arm tackle or 4 ypc (3.9), but this guy gets discussed every time an aggie preview is discussed. Daniels is the personification of average and Smith is worse than that. Moss needs to stay healthy for ATM to do much on offense.
TE: TE1 Theo Melin Ohrstrom (JR); TE2 Amari Niblacj (SR); TE3 Nate Boerkircher (SR); TE4 Micah Riley (SR) – The Swede is “really coming on!” and then we’ll see him this fall continue to disappear into the field, like a magic trick. They started talking shit about Niblack in the spring, but that’s been toned down. Now that it’s clear he’s allergic to contact and won’t learn the playbook, let’s see them smirk about luring him away from mean ol’Texas for $500k that Texas had no intention of matching. Today I learned that “Boerkircher” means “also ran” in Dutch. Micah Riley is rushing Sigma Chi this fall and might not even be able to attend most practices.
WR-X: WR1 Mario Craver (Soph); WR2 Ashton Bethel-Roman (Soph); WR3 Jerome Myles (FR) – Craver was a good get from the portal. He averaged over 21 ypc last year at Miss State and he has 3 years left to play. He’s a burner. Is he going to be a world beater in Klein’s offense like the aggies believe? Right. They also talk up this ABR guy a lot but I don’t recall him in a game or in recruiting. Myles is a 5 star that didn’t get to campus until this summer. Why on earth a 5 star WR would go to ATM to play for Klein is beyond me. It’s not like money isn’t available elsewhere.
WR-Z: WR1 Terry Bussey (Soph); WR2 Jonah Wilson (Soph); WR3 Kelshaun Johnson (FR) – Bussey’s displaying all of the issues discussed about him before he landed on campus – he’s raw, he’s been sheltered in 2A and the bright lights are a lot, and he’s not necessarily actually a WR. They’re talking about incorporating a bunch of screens and jet sweeps to leverage his size/speed combo. Wilson, former UT commit who Texas didn’t want to lose, went to UH to be their star and busted out. Johnson is another guy that Sarkisian wanted who didn’t want to have to fight for the limelight in a crowded WR room.
WR-Y: WR1 KC Concepcion (JR); WR2 Isaiah Williams (FR) – Concepcion had a great freshman season at NC State and became a well-known weapon to CFB fans. Bizarrely, he had a terrible sophomore year without injury. His numbers got worse while the rest of the offense’s numbers got better. NCSU lowered their NIL offer for the upcoming season and Concepcion left their locker room looking for a sucker in the portal. Found them! The aggie talking heads talk about this guy as though he’s a burner. It’s bizarre. He averaged less than 9 ypc last year and less than 12 ypc in 2023. Meanwhile, the aggies poo-poo the loss of Noah Thomas to the portal and the Georgia mods are drooling about his performance so far in their fall camp.
LT: LT1 Trey Zuhn III (SR); LT2 Lamont Rogers (FR); LT3 Robert Bourdon(FR) – Zuhn is a good OT, the aggies claim he’s a great OT. He’s not a mauler, but he’s competent and stays in front of his guys pretty well. Depth behind him is horrific, so aggies need to pray he stays healthy.
LG: LG1 Chase Bisontits (JR); LG2 Ashton Funk (FR); LG3 Isendra Ahfua (FR) – Bisontits is getting all kinds of hype from the ATM side. I think Liucci said something ludicrous like he’s going to be an early draft pick next year. He’s a better Guard than Tackle, that’s for sure. I’m sure he’ll continue his progression from dogshit to mediocre to perhaps above average. Again, he better stay healthy because depth is an issue behind him.
C : C1 Mark Nabou (JR); C2 Kolinu’u Faaiu (SR) – Nabou went down early against ND and missed the year. The aggies are high on him coming back. He was decent in 2023, so if healthy, this could be a solid return on the OL. Notice the depth behind these guys here as well. Attrition in the portal from guys like Shanahan could cause some ugly chickens to come home to roost this season.
RG: RG1 Armaj Reed-Adams (SR); RG2 Blake Ivey (FR) – Reed-Adams was one of the 3 players that The Elk took to SEC Media Days and he’s a returning all conference caliber player. He is actually someone they’re hyping as a quality draft pick and I believe them. Ivey is a guy with a history of shoulder issues. This, again, is a really thin spot on their OL.
RT: RT1 Demetrious Crownover (SR); RT2 Reuben Fatheree (SR) – Crownover has turned into a league average RT, which is saying a lot. He was atrocious early on at ATM. Fatheree continues to be listed as a viable candidate on their roster for PT, but I don’t see it. He is a shadow of his pre-injury self and they’ve been really reluctant to give him snaps. Good luck if Crownover is hurt.
The aggies have been big on touting that they’re returning their entire OL for this season. Anyone would, I guess, but based on last year, are they managing anyone’s expectations effectively? No. This OL has a chance to be decent, which would be an improvement. It’s not going to win the Joe Moore Award, and that’s what those assclowns are talking like. If the injury bug shows up at all in BCS at the OL positions, those guys need to light their cigarettes right about then, because the lack of depth in that area on their roster says they’ll have just been fucked.
Offensive Coaching: Collin Klein gets talked about every year as some sort of up and coming coaching star. His hire was lauded as a stroke of wizardry by The Elk in the winter of 2023. Apparently, none of the people talking in that way bothered to look anything up about the guy. He had his playcalling duties removed at KSU. KSU had no issues with helping the guy pack when he let them know that ATM had reached out. Then the aggie fans watched last season and perpetually scratched their heads about the offense.
Klein likes to use the QB in the run game a lot. Reed has the speed for it, but he’s bound for injury with overuse. The OL is expected to be a force, but those expectations seem lofty. The skill talent is being hailed as a source of strength for the aggie roster as well. The WRs might be better, but that’s a guess right now. There’s nothing interesting at TE. Moss is a good one at TB. All in all, the offense has a chance to be above average if they can stay healthy, but expecting some type of top 25 performing unit, which is how they’re talking, seems farfetched.