2026 Missouri Football Opponent DEEP DIVE: Texas A&M Aggies
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Welcome back to Rock M Nation’s annual opponent preview series of the upcoming season. Each week we will break down one opponent from the schedule in chronological order. Given that rosters are ever fluid – and this is done by a hobbyist rather than a pro – there could be some errors in history and current roster makeup. All mistakes are done on purpose and with ill intent because Nate Edwards doesn’t like you or your team.
Catch up on previous 2026 opponent previews!
I warned you all back in 2024 that Texas A&M would be an actual, competent football team under Mike Elko. I also believed that A&M’s competence would mean the doom for any team that relied on beating the Aggies to launch themselves out of the mid-tier of the SEC and into the top tier. And I was right.
Mike Elko’s first year saw the Aggies rise to 13th in SP+ and win 8 games. Year Two featured a further leap to 10th in SP+, 11 wins, and a Playoff berth. And it doesn’t look like they are slowing down anytime soon.
Well…except for one little problem.
Here’s what Texas A&M did last year:
How can you win 11 games in the regular season and still spend the offseason being furious at missed opportunities? Ask Texas A&M, they have a good answer for you.
I’m not saying that the 10th-best team in SP+ with the 11th-best offense and 14th-ranked defense that made it to the Playoff is “overrated”. That’s a stupid thing to think.
However!
The Aggies benefited from a 4-0 record in one score games, two of which the other team had a legitimate opportunity to knock them off. One of which – South Carolina – needed a collapse of epic magnitude to allow A&M to steal the victory.
A&M was really freaking good and worthy of their AP ranking and SP+ ranking. I’m just saying they were closer to a 9-win team than an 11-win team. Semantics, I know.
But ignore all of that. Texas A&M ripped off 11-straight wins in 2025 and was ranked #3 in the nation heading to play their arch rival that was scuffling on offense and beatable on defense. And they lost by ten points. To the one team that you can’t lose to when you’re A&M, and one that you haven’t beaten since 2010!
Yes, that is a massive gut punch. But you know what? A&M was so good outside of that one game that the Playoff committee decided to give A&M a break and slot them as the 7-seed in the Playoff, meaning they got to host a 10-seed before heading to the Cotton Bowl in Arlington to play the overall 2-seed. Pretty good path to a National Championship, right?
WRONG. THEY LOST TO 10-SEED MIAMI AT HOME WHILE NEVER SCORING A TOUCHDOWN.
And that’s how you can be the most miserable fan base of an 11-win college football team.
Coaching Staff
Mike Elko – 3rd Year – 19-7 (12-4)
I’m a huge fan of Mike Elko. I’ve made that clear in every piece I’ve written about A&M while he’s been in College Station.
There’s not a real reason for me to wax poetic yet again about how much this guy rules. But every comic book is somebody’s first so allow me to cite myself in another preview featuring Mike Elko:
Apparently spending 18 years at under-funded football programs as a coordinator and two years at a smart-kid school as a head coach prepares you fairly well to build successful football programs.
Whereas Fisher was a “scheme guy” who thought the way he coached football was infallible because he won a national championship, Elko is a “FFC” (“f***in’ football coach” in industry parlance) and a guy who approaches his team building with a focus on practice, scheme, development, and “let’s see what’s going to work”. He isn’t going to win the press conference and he isn’t going to make you say “WOW” at some unheard of approach or scheme.
But he’s going to find guys who are bought in to his vision, he’s going to maximize what they can do by placing them in positions to thrive, and his teams aren’t going to give up.
Yes, they lost games, but all but one of those losses were less than 10 points and – for the first time in a long time – the Aggies looked prepared and fully understanding of what they were supposed to do, especially on offense. The fact that one of the richest fan bases in the country now has a competent head coach is a disaster for the rest of the SEC.
Assistant Staff
Texas A&M’s coaching staff has played a lot of musical chairs this cycle.
It all started with Collin Klein being hired as Kansas State’s next head coach. His departure meant A&M needed an offensive coordinator, which was a simple fill since they took away the “co” from Holmon Wiggins’ role and pushed him to sole offensive coordinator.
But then Klein took Texas A&M’s defensive coordinator, Jordan Peterson, with him to Manhattan, leaving a vacant DC spot. And defensive line coach Sean Spencer rejoined his old boss James Franklin at Virginia Tech.
Now, A&M is one of those programs with enough money that they’ll double up position coaches, or break a broad position (like defensive backs) into the smallest group possible (corners, safeties, slots, nickels, etc) so they already had two defensive line coaches. But then d-line coach extraordinaire – Elijah Robinson – wanted to come back to A&M after a bad run as Syracuse’s DC, but was asking for way more money than last time.
So Elko got creative! He promoted A&M’s “assistant head coach” Lyle Hemphill to DC, brought back Elijah Robinson as a co-DC, moved Tony Jerod-Eddie to a more focused defensive tackle role, and then reassigned the entire A&M defensive secondary staff. He then promoted two analyst-level coaches on offense to fill out the quarterback and receiver vacancies and…whew, I think that’s it.
The point is that most of these guys have a new job but, also, the majority of these dudes have been on this staff the entire time in some different capacity. The churn looks worse than it actually is, essentially.
Losing Collin Klein does hurt, though. The dude knows how to call an annoyingly efficeint offense.
Roster Movement
Think of all the teams you’ve read about so far and how many players they lost in the portal. The numbers you’ve seen have been 25. 39. 34. Numbers that, even three years ago, would seem beyond absurd but are now much more acceptable.
Texas A&M lost 19. And 8 of those were unranked dudes in high school and in the portal.
If you want a major reason why A&M is once again projected to potentially win the SEC, this is one of them. They bring a ton of production back and lost very little from the portal.
Again, Elko is a great program and culture builder and he’s doing it at a school that has the resources to bring in elite talent. Great for them. Terrible for everyone else.
Oh, and as if losing very little in the portal wasn’t a big enough problem, they also brought in the 12th-best portal class in the country to upgrade their roster. The main focus was both lines and, man, they really nailed it in this cycle. The got a great offensive tackle and receiver from Alabama, two big-time o-line talents from LSU, a pair of killer edge rushers, plus a bumper crop of interior linemen from Colorado, Illinois, and North Carolina. Throwing in the productive tight ends and linebackers from the G6, and the two talented defensive backs, and you could see this team not missing a beat from last year’s group.
Assuming all these guys play well together, anyway.
Annnnnnnnnnnnnnd A&M brought in the 10th-best high school recruiting class in the country, 5th-best in the SEC. Ho hum, just another barrel of 22 blue-chippers ready to be coached by one of the best guys in the industry. Yawn.
Offense
Bill Snyder’s Kansas State offenses were incredibly frustrating to go against because they prioritized simple, efficiency plays that kept the ball moving. Sitting in the stands you’d see a play develop and go “oh, yeah, they’re running right through the B gap and we have a guy there, cool” and then it was all blocked perfectly and the guy was tackled 4 yards later. Or, even worse, it would be 3rd-and-6 and the quarterback would be in the shotgun and you’d be yelling “THEY’RE RUNNING THE QUARTERBACK RIGHT UP THE MIDDLE” and then they’d do exactly that and it would be blocked perfectly for exactly 6 yards and a 1st-down. It was never enough to burn you, always enough to hold the ball, and simple enough that you wondered why no one could stop it.
That’s the style of offense that Collin Klein played as a tight end-turned-quarterback in K-State’s late aughts run with Bill Snyder Vol. 2. And it’s what Klein has utilized as an offensive coordinator.
The extra rub, then, was that Texas A&M had elite athletes that also offered speed, and explosive plays were also commonplace with A&M’s offense under Klein’s tutelage. So the 32nd-best efficiency team was also the 33rd-best explosiveness team. The 35th-best rushing attack also had the 30th-best passing attack, and the Aggies simply kept in Standard Down scenarios up and down the field with very little issue.
But you saw their weakness against Texas and Miami: passing downs. Despite the solid rankings across the board, the Aggies were 77th in obvious passing downs and struggled to convert, especially in the last two games of the season.
How much does this offense change under former co-coordinator/current only coordinator Holmon Wiggins? Can he improve passing downs? Can he help Marcel Reed’s completion percentage tick up a few points? Or is this a simple case of “two bad games do not define a season” and they keep going the exact way they were?
Quarterback
At this point we have a good idea of what Marcel Reed is: a supremely gifted athlete who can operate this offense well and be a plus in the running game and is a pretty good passer.
Yes, throwing for more than 3,000 yards is very good, especially in our current era where that is less frequent. Yes, a 2:1 TD:INT ratio is manageable. But his 7.7 ANY/A belies the issue: the interceptions and completion percentage is holding him back.
NFL-wonks are quick to criticize his inability to effectively read the field, the slowness of said reads, and the lackadaisical billowing of his sideline passes. I personally believe it’s a little harsh but, hey, NFL-analyst types are not really the forgiving type.
I think Reed is the perfect college quarterback – regardless of what his NFL prospects are – and that he’s going to take A&M very far once again, even with the obvious drawbacks to his game.
Running Backs
I had to double check these numbers because I couldn’t believe that a.) Reuben Owens only got 119 carries, and b.) didn’t eclipse 1,000 yards. But, yeah, that’s accurate. What’s interesting is that Owens was seemingly billed as THE GUY among the running backs but he had the second-worst rushing success rate of the 9 guys who ran the ball more than 10 times (Jamarion Marrow was the worst) and had the lowest 1st-down conversion rate as well.
Part of that is having the mobile Marcel Reed as quarterback, as well as Le’Veon Moss and E.J. Smith sharing the backfield. But Moss (lol “butt moss”) is now a Miami Dolphin and Smith is with the Kansas City Chiefs so Owens could be asked to carry a heavier load this time around.
Also, look at the fourth name in this list. TIGER RIDEN JR GET YOUR ASS OUT OF COLLEGE STATION AND OVER TO COLUMBIA MO. SON WHAT ARE YOU DOING PLAYING FOR THE AGGIES WHEN YOUR NAME IS TIGER RIDEN?
Receivers
Last year A&M was able to lean heavily on K.C. Concepcion, Mario Craver, and Ashton Bethel-Roman in their passing game. Those three represented 240 of the 406 passes thrown in 2025, just a little over 59%. Concepcion plays for the Browns now but Craver and Bethel-Roman return. While Concepcion was the touchdown and 1st-down creating receiver, Craver was much more sure-handed (higher catch rate, fewer drops) while Bethel-Roman averaged 21 yards per catch with a 71% 1st-down creation rate per catch. I’m not saying they were better than the 1st Round NFL Draft Pick, I’m just saying Craver was more reliable and Bethel-Roman more explosive.
Now A&M adds a much bigger version of Concepcion in Isaiah Horton, a guy with much better catch rates and yards per target , plus two high-performing tight ends from UTSA and Fresno State. The highly regarded Terry Bussey is still around, ready to break through at any time, plus the usual bevy of blue chip backups that litter the A&M roster.
Offensive Line
Last year’s offensive line was excellent and, more importantly, stuck with the same five starters the entire season. Yes, they rotated in other guys, but the next most utilized guy saw 222 snaps, while the “least used” starter had 654.
There was a clear set of guys the coaching staff trusted and that was it.
From left to right A&M’s offensive line in 2025 was:
- Trey Zuhn III (R-SR) – Chase Bisontis (JR) – Mark Nabou, Jr. (JR) – Dametrious Crownover (R-SR) – Ar’Maj Reed-Adams (GR)
What is that line in 2026? Glad you asked:
- 3rd Round Draft Pick – 2nd Round Draft Pick – Mark Nabou, Jr. (SR) – 6th Round Draft Pick – 7th Round Draft Pick
How do you replace four NFL draft picks on one offensive line? Well, you do so by grabbing Alabama’s starting Right Tackle, the entire left side of LSU’s offensive line, and South Carolina’s starting Right Guard.
Building a football roster is easy!
Defense
Texas A&M’s defense was so incredibly good last year, they were almost as good as Mizzou!
14th overall, 5th in success rate allowed, 7th in 3-and-out percentage, 9th against the run, 3rd against the pass, 10th in Standard Downs, 2nd in Passing Downs, 1st in overall 3rd-down success rate…it was an elite defense, that’s the point.
They did have some odd weaknesses, though. First off, they only turned opponents over 10 times, 116th in the nation. Their expected turnover number wasn’t much higher at 17, but that’s less than a turnover per game! Also, if opponents managed to cross the 40 yard line, they were walking away with points thanks to A&M’s 91st ranking points per scoring opportunity.
Also! 135th in explosiveness allowed. Reminder: there were 136 FBS teams last year.
For as good as this defense was they either blew up a play in the backfield or let the play go for 12 yards. That tends to hint at really tight coverage and playing close to the line, but I find it hard to believe that this staff didn’t recognize that and make adjustments. So maybe they’re just bad at stopping big plays?
A&M lost very little on defense but brought in the excellent Tulsa linebacker Ray Coney, as well as super disruptive Colorado safety Tafiq Byard to help shore up the pass defense. This is a unit that didn’t need much help and it looks like the got exactly what they needed.
So what does it all mean?
This is one of those rare teams where the staff is more jumbled than the roster but it’s hard not to see this team as an easy Playoff contender. They aren’t without questions – a completely rebuilt offensive line, needing to improve the explosive allowance on defense – but in an era of college football where everyone has questions because everyone’s roster gets detonated annually, A&M has some of the most proven and experienced quantities, not only in the SEC but in the country.
With the caveat that our Tigers can absolutely lose any game that occurs before this one, in my eyes, the Texas A&M matchup is Missouri’s first real test, and an indicator of what this season can be. You never want to overlook a rivalry game or two conference foes – especially a tricky one on the road – but if Mizzou is anywhere near the caliber of team that its loudest supporters think it will be, this is the game that will prove it.
Win (or lose close) and the Tigers have a good chance of making the 12-team Playoff. Lose by a big margin – like Drinkwitz has done every time he’s gone up against A&M – and expectations should be adjusted accordingly.
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