Texas A&M Football: Predicting Isaiah Spiller’s 2021-22 stats

The Texas A&M Football team has a mixed bag returning to play on offense in 2021. On one hand, Jimbo Fisher has some experienced players who should produce at a high level. At the same time, however, the same team is filled with players who will be making one of their first starts.

As a result, the Aggies will need their experienced leaders to step up. Those experienced leaders include Jalen Wydermyer, Kenyon Green, and, notably, Isaiah Spiller.

Spiller is the SEC’s leading returning rusher over the past couple of seasons, accumulating just under 2,000 yards in the past two seasons combined. The Aggie rusher will look to surpass the 1,000-yard mark for the second year in a row.

What will Texas A&M Football RB Isaiah Spiller’s stat line look like in the 2021-22 season?

After 2020-21 and the Aggies’ 2021 spring game, there isn’t much left to do outside of hypothesizing. Hypothesizing Spiller’s stats and production, which should see a significant uptick in a season where Texas A&M will have a new-look quarterback and young offensive line.

Spiller will be the backbone of this offense, one way or another.

While the Aggies have a handful of reliable players, most of those players will rely on the quarterback for production. Returning pass-catchers like Wydermyer, Ainias Smith, and Chase Lane will help the team’s new quarterback, but nobody will lift a weight off of Haynes King or Zach Calzada’s shoulder like Spiller.

In the 2020-21 season, Spiller’s stats technically decreased in most categories. This can be chalked up to a resume that included three fewer games than a season prior. That said, the Aggie still increased his yardage on the ground from 946 to 1,036. He scored 9 rushing touchdowns compared to 10 from a year ago. His yards per catch increased, pulling in almost 200 yards from the air.

In 2021-22, a huge step forward seems inevitable. If Spiller was able to see such drastic improvements with a smaller sample size, he should put up All-American numbers in his first full season since 2019.

In his freshman season, he rushed for 72 yards per contest. In his sophomore year, he rushed for 103.6 yards per game. In year three, he’ll be rushing the ball more frequently on a team without an established quarterback. Assuming he increases on his yardage per game, he should rush for more yards next season.

2021-22 rushing yards: 1,650

Because Spiller isn’t an elite pass-catcher, he should be dominant on the ground, while we may see a larger total through the air from Ainias Smith.

2021-22 passing yards: 350

Even so, Spiller does make plays through the air. He accumulated around 200 in each of his past two seasons. In a full season, he would have likely pulled in over 300, which will show up on the stat sheet this coming season.

If the third-year Aggie runningback was able to put together a season like this, it would give him his first 2,000-yard year. TAMU fans will hope that he comes close.