Can Jimbo Fisher be a hit for Texas A&M in his first season?

 

Texas A&M has a new sheriff in town. His new badge is an expensive one – $75 million (the badge is meant to last 10 years), but he arrived in the A&M-colored cowboy boots on the big plane. He did some good recruitin’, and Texas A&M should be primed to battle for the SEC West…..next year.

This year, Jimbo Fisher – prized from Florida State where he won a National Championship – will inherit a team that lost four out of its last six games – including a 55-52 loss to mighty Wake Forest in its bowl game – and finished 4th in the SEC West with a mediocre 7-6 record, with a 4-4 SEC record. Recruiting wasn’t fantastic by Aggies levels (6th in the SEC). Oh, and the schedule is going to pretty horrible, too.

OFFENSE

Lighting up a middling team was one exceptional player – Christian Kirk. One of the best punt and kick-off returners in the game, Kirk was also a pretty good wide receiver as well, blowing secondary and special teams players with his feats of speed and skill. The Aggies will miss his 919 yards and 10 TDs of production.

Trayveon Williams will be depended on to cause problems at running back. He put up 798 yards and 12 TDs last year, and Aggies fans will be praying he can be as good. The word ‘depended’? Williams will lose his partner-in-crime in Keith Ford, who left after putting up 500 yards. Kendall Bussey will hope to be a more dependable back-up than he was last year when he had back-to-back excellent games against poor opposition and then fell off the map, not putting up more than 12 yards for the rest of the season.

Jimbo Fisher doesn’t have the dazzling quarterbacks that he had at Florida State at his disposal in 2018, but after seeing Kellen Mond for a while last season, Aggies fans should be confident that he will cause defenses some problems with his legs, and we’ll expect him to cause defenses even more in his second year. He’ll be in a battle with Nick Starkel to see who’ll start, although Mississippi State QB Nick Fitzgerald thinks he’s pretty awesome.

As well as Kirk, Damion Ratley will also be missed, but there is a lot of excitement about Jhamon Austen, who averaged 11.4 yards per reception in a 574 yard, 3 TD season. Camron Buckley will also pick up some of the slack, with Roshauud Paul also expected to play more than he did in his sophomore year.

DEFENSE

Texas A&M managed to go to the north and got themselves DC Mike Elko from Notre Dame, and his biggest early gift will be  linebacker Tyrel Dodson, who led A&M’s 104-tackle, 5.5-sack and 3 INTs season as a sophomore. The kid’s a beast, and probably one of the best ‘gets’ in Kevin Sumlin’s career. His partnership with Otaro Alaka will be a lot of fun to watch.

Safety Armani Watts, who had 4 INTs as well 87 tackles, will be missed after being a four-year starter, but people are confident that the awesomely-named corner Clifford Chairman, who is 6-5 tall and is back from a season-long injury, could be someone for the future. But let’s be honest – the secondary wasn’t good last year (85th in the nation), and after Watts’ loss, we’re expecting teams to pass all over this year, too.

SCHEDULE

Sept. 1 Northwestern State  
Sept. 8 Clemson 
Sept. 15 ULM 
Sept. 22 at Alabama 
Sept. 29 vs. Arkansas (in Arlington) 
Oct. 6 Kentucky 
Oct. 13 at South Carolina 
Oct. 20 OPEN DATE
Oct. 27 at Mississippi State 
Nov. 3 at Auburn 
Nov. 10 Ole Miss
Nov. 17 UAB 
Nov. 24 LSU 

The Aggies have an evil start to the season, when they face Alabama and Clemson in the first four games of the year. We expect them to go 2-2 bearing in mind they’ve got ULM and season opener Northwestern State in that time, too. The Aggies shoot-out with Arkansas in Dallas should bring with it a lot of fun (God only knows what that result will be), and we expect a win over Kentucky. Then, the Aggies have three away trips (South Carolina, Missisisppi State and Auburn), with the only one saving grace that after the Carolina game there’s a bye week. They’ll be overjoyed to finish 2-1 in that space, but we think it could very possibly be 0-3. The Aggies should then beat Ole Miss and UAB pretty comfortably, and we think that they’ll celebrate the first win in Texas A&M’s SEC history against LSU.

Prediction: 7-5. A big look towards an exciting future, and look at Dodson being a future NFL first round pick and possible Butkus Award winner – even though he’s not on the shortlist pre-season (that’s Olaka).