The Texas A&M football team will officially be losing another player to the NFL Draft. Earlier this month, DeMarvin Leal announced that he would be departing A&M for the 2022 NFL Draft, where he will likely be a first-round pick.
The second domino has fallen.
In a sense, talented players leaving for the NFL Draft shouldn’t be considered “dominos.” After all, Leal played three years of elite football — he deserves to get a bag. To add to this, however, runningback Isaiah Spiller has officially declared for the NFL Draft. Here are three implications aligned with his departure.
No. 1: The Texas A&M football team will be experiencing a total backfield reset
For the entirety of the 2021 season, Aggie fans watched two guys march out onto the field night in and night out — Zach Calzada and Isaiah Spiller. While Calzada was thrown in due to an injury to Haynes King, Spiller was always the plan at runningback.
But due to unknown reasons, Aggie starting quarterback Zach Calzada decided to transfer, insinuating that the QB spot in College Station was already destined to turn into a battle between Haynes King and Connor Weigman.
With Spiller declaring for the NFL Draft, Texas A&M’s backfield will have an entirely new look from what we watched from a season ago. The Aggie RB1 didn’t have the Heisman-contending season that many were expecting but he surpassed the 1,000-yard mark and averaged a new career-high in yards per carry.
Devon Achane will return — in that sense, there will be some stability stemming from the potential 1,000-yard rusher (pending bowl performance). This leads me to my next point.