Breaking Down Marcel Reed's Heroic Performance for Texas A&M Football

Analyzing Marcel Reed's Valiant Performance in Close Loss for Texas A&M Football

Among other takeaways, Texas A&M football fans have to be extremely pleased with the way that the young freshman Marcel Reed played in this bowl game. Aggie fans went into the game hoping that they wouldn't have to see Reed pressed into action, but after just one play, Jaylen Henderson was out of the game. That meant it was time for the young gun to step up.

He didn't start off extremely strong, throwing a pass behind Max Wright that could have been intercepted. After that, though, he settled right in. I think one of the things I was most impressed by was his ability to actually hit open receivers when they were running free downfield. Too often, I feel like we've seen Aggie quarterbacks throughout the years have missed the easy pass to an open crosser, but Reed found his guys when they ran into holes in the zone.

Okay, ready for this stat? It's pretty crazy:

What a weird and telling way to bookend the Jimbo Fisher era here (Northwestern State notwithstanding).

Reed executed well on the clever plays that Coley had drawn up, too. I'm thinking specifically of one play action rollout in short yardage that he got to Jaden Platt running behind the secondary.

Let's not forget how well Marcel was able to use his legs in this one, either. He scrambled for a 20-yard touchdown (the only one on the ledger for him, as Amari Daniels' fumble near the goal line robbed him of one more) and showed exhilarating acceleration in doing so.

Reed averaged 10.9 yards per attempt against a defense that had averaged allowing only 8.5 YPA on the year. That in itself is impressive. This is a guy that, though being thrown to the wolves a bit, just settled right in and made good decision after good decision; importantly, too, he executed on those decisions. This guy has a really bright future ahead of him, and Texas A&M football is lucky to have him on campus.