Texas A&M started 11-0, made the playoff, then collapsed twice in a row... so they rebuilt both lines

Mike Elko's second year in College Station produced the program's best start since 1992 and its first College Football Playoff bid. then Texas A&M lost to Texas and Miami back-to-back to close the season, and the tape on both losses pointed to the same two spots: the offensive line up front, and a secondary that couldn't finish plays the pass rush set up. Elko spent the offseason fixing exactly those two rooms. The scout Start with the O-line, because the collapse traces straight back there. last year's group tied Ole Miss for the fewest sacks allowed in the SEC (19.0) and made the Joe Moore Award's midseason honor roll — then four of five starters left for the NFL draft in the same cycle. instead of rebuilding with unproven depth, Elko went shopping in the portal for players who'd already started SEC snaps: Wilkin Formby (Alabama) at left tackle, Tyree Adams (LSU) at guard, plus Coen Echols (LSU) and Trovon Baugh (South Carolina) adding SEC-tested depth behind them. the one holdover is center Mark Nabou Jr., a fifth-year starter and preseason All-SEC second-teamer who missed most of 2024 with a torn MCL — he's the continuity piece a brand-new interior needs to communicate protections on the fly. That line exists to protect Marcel Reed, whose 2025 season is a story of two very different quarterbacks. against everyone else, he threw for a career-best 3,169 yards and 25 touchdowns and became the first Aggies QB invited to SEC Media Days since 2019. against top-35 defenses specifically, the numbers flip: six touchdowns, eight interceptions, a 59% completion rate — and those exact defenses (Texas, Miami) are the ones that ended the season. Elko's answer wasn't to bench him, it was to hire him a dedicated quarterback coach (Josh Lynch) and hand the play sheet to Holmon Wiggins, promoted after Collin Klein left to become Kansas State's head coach. On defense, the story is continuity with one specific fix. Jay Bateman left to become Kentucky's coordinator, but his replacement isn't a stranger — Lyle Hemphill has coached alongside Elko since 2006 at Hofstra and reunited with him at Duke, and he was already A&M's associate head coach for defense last season. the unit he inherits already ranked top-25 nationally in total defense (309.8 yards per game) and third-down conversion rate (22.7%). what it didn't do enough was take the ball away — A&M finished near the bottom of the SEC in interceptions, largely because the pass rush was so dominant (led by reigning SEC Defensive Player of the Year Cashius Howell, now a Bengals draft pick) that the secondary rarely saw a pass hang in the air long enough to be picked. Howell's gone, but Northwestern transfer Anto Saka and sophomore Marco Jones step into the rotation to keep pressure levels up while Hemphill works on turning that pressure into takeaways. The skill talent was never the problem. Mario Craver, a Mississippi State transfer, drew Travis Hunter comparisons in the first half of 2025 — 30 catches, 557 yards, 18.6 yards per catch through six games, including a 207-yard outburst against Notre Dame — and he's back as the clear WR1 now that fellow transfer KC Concepcion is gone. Rueben Owens II was a five-star, the No. 1 running back in his high school class by Rivals, whose first three college seasons were repeatedly interrupted by injury. he's healthy now and the presumptive lead back, in an offense that finally has a line built to open holes for him Fantasy · IDP · dynasty @Mario Craver is the clear buy — a big-play receiver already producing SEC-elite per-catch numbers who just inherited the entire target share Concepcion left behind. Rueben Owens is the classic talent-versus-availability dynasty gamble: five-star pedigree, a legitimate lead-back role for the first time in his career, and an offensive line finally built to protect volume touches, if his body cooperates.