Why Texas A&M football will have the most successful defense in the SEC in 2024

Texas A&M football looks to bring an intimidating defense to the table in 2024 behind experience and improved coaching

Coming into 2024, there’s not a whole lot of talk about Texas A&M football boasting a top unit in the SEC on either side of the ball. There’s probably some good reason for that on the offensive end, at least; the Aggies’ struggles to move the ball up and down the field under Jimbo Fisher are well documented, and though the offense should be significantly better under Collin Klein, that poor impression still reflects on the personnel in Aggieland.

The defense, though, is a different story. Texas A&M football had an absolutely ferocious defense for much of 2023. There were a few black eyes, to be fair—Miami, Alabama, and LSU all took advantage of the aggressive A&M D with potent downfield passing.

However, this still should be an Aggie unit that is getting more buzz than is happening at the moment—especially when you consider how experienced the unit is as a whole. Though the Aggies lost some major contributors, the replacements they brought in through the portal look to pick up the slack without losing a step—or perhaps even improve.

Here’s a handy chart that illustrates just how rosy the outlook is personnel-wise for the Aggies. The y-axis shows defensive efficiency, while the x-axis shows experience.

To put this into words, this shows that the Aggies bring in the most efficient and most experienced personnel in the entire conference. That’s a pretty good combination, if you ask me!

Especially accounting for the jump in coaching from Durkin to Elko, this should be one of the country’s leading units next year. If the Aggies can get things in place at the corner position and remain relatively healthy, I think this is a top-5 defensive unit in the nation in 2024. And if that’s the case, then there’s no telling how high the Ags can fly.