Three biggest losers from Texas A&M’s awful showing against Tennessee on Saturday
Marcel Reed
After two of his best games throwing the ball so far this year (a relative measure!), Marcel put up a real stinker against Tennessee. That should have been expected, in some measure, since this was the best pass defense the Aggies had yet faced this season, but it was worse than it should have been.
That’s because Reed was a complete non-factor on the ground in this one, which makes him highly ineffective when he’s also not throwing it well. Mike Elko mentioned that Tennessee had been doing a good job of taking that option away, but Reed also was refusing to scramble— if you look at the final interception, you can see that he had some room to work but simply did not take it.
Will the Aggies finally make a change at signal caller when they head up to play Oklahoma this Saturday? It seems more possible than ever, but I’m not sure it’s going to end up mattering a whole lot for the final two results of the season.
Mike Elko
I’m not of the opinion that Elko did anything particularly egregious in this one that set it apart from the other games this season, but every game sets into sharper relief the fact that he made some mistakes this past offseason. That is manifesting as growing discontent among the fanbase and continued calls for his job.
He’s not going to be fired, of course, so let’s get that out of the way. From a practical standpoint, the buyout combined with what the program is already paying Jimbo Fisher means Elko is guaranteed another year or two— but it would also just be inadvisable from a strategic standpoint. First, on the negative side, it does not send a good message to prospective coaching hires— make the playoff one year and then you could be fired the following season?
On the positive side, there is still a lot of reason to believe that Elko can turn things around. The portal is a real factor, and we’ve seen him make some great hires (especially from 2024 to 2025) that pushed the ceiling of this team way higher; this is a problem that was created this offseason, and it can be fixed this next offseason. For now, though, Elko is clearly in a bad spot in the eyes of the fanbase.
Holmon Wiggins
The Aggies’ OC now holds the ignominious distinction of captaining one of the worst offensive performances in the program’s history. His fate is all but completely assured, whether or not Mike Elko tells fans at a Monday press conference, as is the fate of most of the rest of the offensive staff.
Wiggins has had some good play designs, but where he has fallen short this season is the ability to form his play calls around what the players actually do well. Marcel has not shown the ability to execute on a lot of the plays that Wiggins calls, and yet there is no change in scheme.
This is an offensive staff with problems that go way deeper than the OC, but he’s going to be the focal point of the criticism. Maybe Wiggins can find a landing spot somewhere he will be able to develop the skills necessary to be an elite OC someday, but it’s looking like it won’t be here.
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