Texas A&M Football: Aggies’ freshman quarterback makes Mond-umental gains

A very rough first outing – UCLA

I’d very much like to forget what happened in the waning hours of Sept. 3, 2017. But for the sake of this piece, I had to suck it up and reread a recap. Everything was going so well and then starting quarterback Nick Starkel got injured.

This was huge because the next man up ended up was Kellen Mond: a superbly talented but extremely raw true freshman. Starkel was a redhisrt Freshman. Mond has only been with the team since August.

Mond had actually taken snaps in the first half of that game, but it was made clear very early on that he was a better runner than passer. He finished with 55 yards rushing on 15 carries which isn’t too bad for a true freshman quarterback getting his first snaps on the road. He made some pretty good runs in the first half, too.

Now having said that, Mond’s passing line was … not that great. Let’s see, 3-of-17 for 27 yards. If we’re being honest, I was ready for A&M to go 0-12 that night. Those numbers were not encouraging. For the sake of spoilers, I’ll just say that Mond’s role against UCLA was just a baptism by fire that came at the worst possible time for the worst possible reason. He is a true freshman and he had more growing to do.