News, notes and nuggets as Texas A&M sweats through its first days of practice in College Station . . .
Trayveon Williams’ replacement
One of the biggest question marks for the Aggies’ offense is replacing leading rusher Trayveon Williams. The current leading candidate to take over as the top running back is sophomore Jashaun Corbin. And he says that Williams started helping Corbin get prepared last season.
“Trayveon was like a big brother to me,” Corbin said. “He taught me a lot of leadership skills and just to be a good person on and off the field. Now that he’s gone, I’m trying to inherit the things that he taught me and spread it with the other running backs. “Our games are just alike – catching the ball, returning, being an all-purpose guy.”
Corbin, a 6-foot, 210-pounder, provided a hint of his abilities last season as Williams’ backup. He returned the opening kickoff against Arkansas 100 yards for a TD and averaged 5.7 yards per carry when Williams was resting. Corbin gained 346 yards on 61 carries in his rookie season.
Williams, who bypassed his senior season to enter the NFL Draft, finished with 1,760 yards and 18 touchdowns on 271 carries while adding 27 receptions for 278 yards. That’s 2,038 of 6,131 total yards gained by the Aggies last season.
Corbin, who is from Rockledge, Fla., had committed to Florida State but backed out of the verbal pledge when Texas A&M hired Seminoles coach Jimbo Fisher. Corbin followed Fisher.
“He does things right, he has great character,” Fisher said of Corbin. “He’s just a joy to coach, football means a lot to him. I am extremely pleasantly happy he came here.”
Yep. That’s a double adverb with an adjective praise from the Aggies’ coach.
Finding a backup QB
With junior Kellen Mond firmly established as A&M’s starting quarterback, this month will be about finding his backup. Last season, the Aggies had Nick Starkel available as Mond’s backup but after losing the battle for the starting job, Starkel transferred to Arkansas.
Currently, it’s a three-man race. Sophomore Connor Blumrick, redshirt freshman James Foster and freshman Zach Calzada are the candidates.
“We’re rotating them right now and all the guys have a good, solid grasp,” Fisher said. “We’ve got to get better to the details of everything, but they understand what they’re trying to accomplish and what the concepts of the plays are, which is good.
“Now we just hope the execution will pick up.”
When the Aggies open the season against Texas State on Aug. 29, Fisher hopes that the battle for the backup spot has been won.
“You’d like to, you definitely would,” Fisher said of settling on Mond’s understudy. “You’ve got to get him reps, and he’s one play away from leading your team.”
What they’re (anonymously) saying
Athlon, which publishes preseason magazines, also has a robust and productive website with several correspondents. Every website wants to draw clicks. One way to do that is produce “talk about” content.
Well, here’s something for Texas A&M fans to talk about. Athlon asked coaches in the Southeastern Conference to talk about their opponents – anonymously, of course. Here’s what the unnamed coaches had to say about the Aggies:
https://athlonsports.com/college-football/sec-coaches-talk-anonymously-about-conference-foes-2019
- “Kellen Mond should be a lot better this season, and he wasn’t bad at all last year. That’s just the jump you expect with Jimbo Fisher.”
- “They basically get everyone back at receiver. They’re a big, athletic group and there’s a lot of them. They can hit you at four or five spots on a given play, that’s the leftover spread roster from Kevin Sumlin.”
- “They really don’t have a tight end, and that’s the safety valve for Jimbo quarterbacks. Jace Sternberger made them go last year, he was their Nick O’Leary. They want to build that position up big time. The big freshman (Baylor) Cupp is going to be that guy. He could be a breakout player because of the amount of attention the receivers will command.”
- “Watch the offensive line, it could get rough there as they keep transitioning over to Fisher’s offense. (Former OL coach) Jim Turner was a big, big loss.”
- “They need to replace Trayveon Williams. Look out for the UCF transfer (Cordarrian Richardson), but that’s a pretty deep group.”
- “What a job Mike Elko did last year. They got better in the middle of the field but then lost those guys. They have to do it all over again this year.”
- “If they can improve this year as much as they did last year on defense this is going to be a really dangerous team.”
- “The way they finished last season and with Mond, everyone is really hot on them right now, but this is still a 2020 team. They’re not Georgia or Alabama or LSU deep. They’re not going to sneak up on anyone. But they’re not as far off as we want to admit.”
ESPN’s FPI: An 8-4 record
ESPN touts its Football Power Index as a formula that “measures team’s true strength on net points scale; expected point margin vs average opponent on neutral field.” The good news is that the FPI has Texas A&M ranked No. 11 in the preseason, which matches where the Aggies are ranked in the coaches’ poll.
The bad news? The FPI projections have A&M finishing with an 8-4 record.
The computer algorithm forecasts a loss at Clemson (with A&M projected as having a 12% chance of winning), a loss at home to Alabama (25.7% chance of winning), at Georgia (24.2%) and at LSU (26.6%). The FPI assessment in August can be far different come time for kickoff. Aggies fans can take heart that three of the projected losses are far from Dumb and Dumber, you’re telling me there’s a chance, territory.
Social media blackout
The A&M leadership council has decreed that the Aggies will ban social media until the season opener.
“We decided the whole team is going to turn off social media for fall camp, to just lock in and zone in,” said junior defensive tackle Justin Madubuike, who is on the leadership council. “One goal of mine is to win a national championship here, so we’re just taking it one day at a time, eliminating all the noise and just increasing our focus.
“That was a rule – no tweeting, no Facebook, no Instagram, none of all that. When (camp) is over, you can socialize and do your thing. But now, it’s just all-in time for us.”
Fisher approved of his players’ decision saying he’s for “anything that eliminates clutter.” He also noted that he doesn’t have a Twitter account and that any accounts that claim to be him are fake.
Madubuike, surrounded by a group of reporters (some who write for newspapers), was asked if the Aggies might go old school to stay current.
“Newspapers? It ain’t 1976 or whatever,” he said with a laugh.
Your Veteran Scribe must, sadly, agree.