Texas A&M offensive coordinator Collin Klein met with the media today following practice, and he had no shortage of interesting things to say about his unit for the upcoming year. He dropped a hint about a guy who could possibly be the next household name for the Maroon and White faithful, but he overall seemed much surer of himself than he did at this time last year.
At this point in 2024, there was a whole lot of expectation management going on by the Aggie coaching staff, especially on the offensive end. The coaches were a lot more noncommittal, stressing how new everything was for the players, especially given that many were here from the portal.
Collin Klein bullish on Texas A&M's offensive explosiveness for 2025
Contrast that with Klein's comments about the scrimmage from today:
"First and foremost," he began, "I thought our operational tempo was really, really good through all the units, through all the different substitutions. I thought the mentality, start to finish, in the scrimmage was a really, really good step in the right direction. I think our penalties [from] procedures and turnovers were down."
That's good news for a team that ranked 118th out of 134 teams last year in penalties per game, giving up nearly 67 yards per game thanks to errors like that. Klein did mention that "[t]here were some things situationally that we've got to improve at," but emphasized that his main takeaway was that "it was some really, really good learning and really, really good experience there."
But it was this that got Aggie fans excited: "I thought our guys competed and played really hard. We had more explosive plays in that scrimmage than we've had since we've been here. I think they were getting excited with each other watching each other make big, explosive plays, and I think that was really, really cool to see." (emphasis added).
Uh-oh... there's that 'e'-word again. Explosiveness was the Achilles' Heel of Texas A&M's offense last year without question. Down to down, they were really solid in the stretch run, but their inability to create big plays was what weighed them down.
Could they live up to these expectations? I know it's the preseason and everyone has endless optimism, but I really think they have a chance. With the season now only a couple of weeks away, we'll see soon enough.