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Cover Story: With 2019 season in view, Aggies focused on winning now
By Billy LiucciJuly 15, 2019
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As I descend upon Birmingham for what many of us consider the final countdown to the college football season, I think we all know what the major talking points are going to be when Jimbo Fisher, Kellen Mond and the gang take the podium on Tuesday.

Fisher will probably field a few annoying questions about the state of affairs in Tallahassee. This thanks to a hatchet piece written a couple of weeks ago with a lot of help from new FSU coach Willie Taggart’s desperate band of hapless assistants and at least one (very) disgruntled and still unemployed former Fisher assistant. Mond, Justin Madubuike and Braden Mann will all be asked about the seven-overtime LSU win and whether or not the Bayou Bengals are finally considered a rival. And, of course, there will be countless inquiries into the schedule. The fact that A&M’s 12-game stretch is as tough or tougher than perhaps any in college football will be hammered home on Tuesday more times than Ed O will complain about the officiating of last year’s win over LSU on Monday and more often than Chad Morris dances around any mention of Texas A&M on Wednesday.

Clemson. Alabama. Georgia. LSU. Auburn. It’s a murderer’s row the likes of which no A&M team in history has been asked to navigate. A schedule featuring four pre-season top-10 teams, five in the top-15, the defending national champs and last year’s runner-up, the 2018 SEC East and West champions and the consensus pre-season No. 1, 2 and 3-ranked teams in the country. So the fact this will probably be the primary talking point is perfectly understandable. That will inevitably propel most of us into the discussion of whether or not the Aggies are equipped to handle such a brutally taxing slate in year two under Fisher.


Quarterback Kellen Mond enters the season as one of the SEC’s top quarterbacks and remains the catalyst for the Aggie offense.
Jimbo is the perfect person to ask since he’s built one national champion and called plays for a Nick Saban-led LSU team that came out of the SEC and won the whole thing. And Mond’s name is right there at the top of the list when it comes to Aggies whose individual performances will have the greatest say in whether or not Texas A&M shocks the Southeastern Conference for the second time in eight years, and perhaps even shakes up the College Football Playoff race by scoring a major upset or two along the way.

TexAgs, the SEC Network, Paul Finebaum and all of the national folks will bounce the idea around all day Tuesday and we’ll talk about it from now until at least the end of September after the Ags have tested themselves against Dabo Swinney, Nick Saban and Gus Malzahn’s squads.

“Exactly how far away from breaking through is the A&M program under Jimbo Fisher?” is a fascinating question because the Maroon & White absolutely could have a profound impact on this year’s national title picture.

But let’s take it a step further and ask ourselves, “What if?” I’m not even talking about the Aggies making a run at the playoff or even an SEC title this fall. I’m talking about A&M winning enough games to maintain momentum…enough games to exceed expectations and hasten what I am becoming more convinced by the day is the inevitable – Texas A&M’s arrival as a true national power and a legitimate top-10 program. I’m talking about the Ags joining the likes of Clemson, Bama, Georgia (aka ‘the entire 2019 schedule), Ohio State and Oklahoma in college football’s current ruling class.

Even the most vocal detractors are having a hard time denying it because that is clearly the Aggies’ current trajectory. It’s why everyone outside of College Station is desperately looking for a sign of vulnerability or weakness. You see in the Big 12, where an overmatched Texas Longhorn staff is doing everything they can to shamelessly smear TAMU to prospects while also spending an embarrassing amount of time and energy to manipulate the national recruiting rankings. It’s folks clinging to the ridiculous notion that Jimbo would leave A&M for LSU, and you’ll continue to see it in hit pieces like the one written by Matt Hayes. And it’s everyone from Austin to Norman to Baton Rouge to Tuscaloosa hoping like hell the Aggies stumble and are ultimately subdued by the most daunting of schedules.

If the next five months go the way they could go for Fisher and his team, Mond could return to this same event a year from now as a Heisman Trophy candidate leading a bona fide national title contender into the 2020 season.
If the next five months go the way they could go for Fisher and his team, Mond could return to this same event a year from now as a Heisman Trophy candidate leading a bona fide national title contender into the 2020 season. I don’t know what the record has to be (it’s actually probably not a specific number) and let me point out that A&M is on the path to title contention regardless, but what happens between now and the end of December or early January has the potential to set the stage for a historic run in Aggieland.

The Ags’ second-year head coach understands better than anyone how difficult the climb to national prominence, and especially to the top of the Southeastern Conference actually is. So while preparing his talented team to go out and win every game in 2019 is the current task at hand, he’s also playing the long game and building the program for a sustained run of SEC title and playoff contention. Think Dabo Swinney and Clemson more so than what Bob Stoops did at OU or Kirby Smart managed at Georgia (both played for it all in year two).

I’m not saying lightning in a bottle is out of the realm of possibility, but we should see the best teams of the Jimbo Fisher Era in 2020 and beyond. Mond, Madubuike, Mann and the rest of the guys in Maroon have the chance to speed up the process. What I’m saying is, there’s a quiet confidence within the Bright Complex these days, and I get the feeling that the head coach and his staff are very pleased with the mindset of the 85 guys on the roster. I myself have noticed a different air about this particular team than most I’ve covered. The expectation level has been set and ingrained for well over a year and a half now. The expectation level in the Aggie locker room is when, not if Texas A&M will win the SEC, reach the four-team playoff and play for a national championship.

With every big win on the field and every big win on the recruiting front, the Ags take a notable step towards the ultimate goal. The ongoing order of business has to do with something Fisher is as passionate about as any head coach in the college game: Recruiting.

The Aggies finished third in the national rankings last year, trailing only Alabama and Georgia. As for the current class of 2020, A&M is about to push into the top 10, and the Aggies are riding a ton of momentum into the fall…momentum that is only going to build between now and the end of July. How hot are the Ags on the recruiting front these days? If Fisher and Darrell Dickey can officially add Longview star Haynes King‍ – quite possibly the nation’s No. 1 signal-caller – to the fold and convince him to choose TAMU over Tennessee, then the Ags will have their top prospect at the most important position on the field locked up for not only 2002 but also 2021 (Denton Guyer’s Eli Stowers‍ chose the Ags earlier this month).

Longview HS (TX) quarterback Haynes King is the A&M coaching staff’s most coveted prize, and a commitment from the signal caller would push Aggie recruiting into the stratosphere.
Stowers could soon be joined by the Aggies’ top ’21 wide receiver target in North Shore playmaker Shadrach Banks‍ . And King would be adding his name to a class featuring Demond Demas‍ (the nation’s best pass-catcher), Muhsin Muhammad III‍ and Troy Omeire‍ . That’s just a one-position look at what kind of damage the Aggies are doing and how they’re stacking talent, but it’s happening damn near across the board, which is why A&M has generated as much summer buzz as any program currently outside of a current top three consisting of Clemson, Bama and LSU.

A strong 2018 finish featuring Bobby Brown, Jashaun Corbin, Leon O’Neal, Jeremiah Martin and Glenn Beal among others, plus last year’s top-5 haul set the foundation. The Ags appear poised to make a run at a top 5-7 class this time around. With even a couple of big wins this fall and perhaps a breakthrough nine-win campaign, we’re talking about giving one of the best in the business everything that Texas A&M Football has to offer, unlimited administrative support, second-to-none facilities and, on top of all of that, what would likely be a top-five pre-season ranking to recruit off of throughout the pre-2020 off-season. A strong close to the summer recruiting season (that’s a thing now in case you haven’t been following too closely) and a nine-win season, combined with an absolutely loaded crop of Texas talent in the ’21 ranks would all but ensure Fisher and the Aggies stacking three consecutive classes ranked comfortably inside the top 10, with perhaps two of those three landing inside the top 5. Win enough this fall, and the Ags will surge to the finish line in December/February and probably have most of the Class of ’21 wrapped up before the season-opener thirteen months from now.

…and that, my friends, is where the real fun could begin in College Station.

Imagine a world where A&M wins nine and earns a New Year’s Six bowl game a year ahead of schedule. Let’s say it’s the Aggies and UCF in the Cotton Bowl (our friends in Dallas will have to host a Group of Five team this time around). Nine wins in year one, maybe ten in year two and then we’re talking about the real breakthrough in 2020 and ’21. After all, the Ags should start just one senior this fall, and only Justin Madubuike looks like a sure thing to leave early for the NFL. A&M also loses Clemson and Georgia off the schedule following this season and will replace those two juggernauts with Colorado and Vandy. Senior quarterback, nine or ten returning starters on each side of the ball and a couple of classes worth of nationally-recruited talent that will be tough to keep off the field? Fisher’s 2020 and ’21 teams should be loaded for bear…or elephant if we’re being specific.

And if you’ve managed to stack three straight elite-level classes before entering that stretch, then you’re talking about the type of extended dominance on the recruiting front that has historically led to multi-year title contention.

In order to get there, Fisher and the Aggies are going to have to navigate what looks on paper like it could very well be a ‘bridge’ season. One that sits between a tone-setting 2018 finish and A&M finally establishing itself as a top ten program. That’s what the schedule and all of the national experts are going to tell us tomorrow and between now and when the Aggies and Tigers kick it off in Death Valley on September 8, anyway.

Though 2020 is the year everyone – including those outside of the College Station bubble – is pointing to for the Ags to threaten Alabama, the players and coaches are definitely of the ‘Why not us, why not now?’ mindset.
Everyone here in Hoover spends four days every July trying to survey the SEC landscape and handicap the league behind the Crimson Tide. This year feels a little different. Because it seems no one can figure out if the team most likely to crash Nick Saban and Kirby Smart’s annual party in Atlanta is LSU, Florida, Auburn or Texas A&M.


Fisher’s squad, led by a confident and (suddenly very experienced) junior quarterback, an explosive collection of skill talent and a potentially dominant defensive front, believes this year, not next, will be when it all finally falls into place. There are definitely holes in terms of inexperience (linebacker and tight end), depth (the o-line) and proven high-end SEC talent (the secondary still has to show it’s a vastly-improved unit over last season) but the guys Fisher has returning are a very tough-minded bunch brimming with the confidence that comes with winning four straight to close out last season. And the newcomers are as talented a group as I’ve seen A&M welcome. Answer a couple of questions in the affirmative in fall camp or during the first half of the season, win a pivotal game at Kyle Field against Auburn, and the Ags could be as good as anyone from October on Remember, Fisher and Jerry Schmidt did what many thought couldn’t be done and made A&M a fourth-quarter and a ‘November’ team in a matter of a few games last fall.

Look around the conference and take stock of who is ascending and descending. Under Fisher and Dan Mullen, A&M and Florida are at the very top of the ‘ascending’ list, and both have all of the necessary ingredients to challenge the Tide and Dawgs at the top. Moving past this fall, it really is all there for the taking. A surprising breakthrough in 2019 will all but ensure it happens for an A&M program that has gone ‘all in’ in terms of doing everything it takes to earn a seat at the big boy table. That’s why Tuesday’s focus should be on the Ags’ ability to shake things up this year and not on what happened in the past or could happen a couple of years down the road

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