The transfer portal is all the rage in modern college football, and it's something that Mike Elko has already used to great effect in his tenure with Texas A&M. There were numerous portal starters for the Aggies last year, especially on the defensive side of the ball, and for the most part, they were highly effective.
The Aggies hit the portal to fill some needs in the winter window this season once again, but their activity was diminished compared to last year. Gone was the time where Elko was having to rebuild a roster that was down to 47 players when he took over; now, he's got things going pretty well both on the high school recruiting front and with returning players.
The additions he did make were valuable ones, though, especially at receiver and defensive line. Fans still saw a few holes in the roster, though, and they thought that those would be remedied in this recent spring window— but what happened next was unexpected.
Texas A&M takes no players in spring portal window, signaling ultimate confidence in roster and development
Not a single player was taken from this portal window by the Aggies. In fact, A&M hardly had any visits come through at all, and only saw three (really, two) players depart in Eric Karner, Ernest Campbell, and Micah Hudson.
This shows a couple of things: first, it looks like the Aggie coaching staff is more impressed than they had anticipated with the progression at receiver and defensive line. KC Concepcion and Mario Craver were great additions out wide, but the emergence of Ashton Bethel-Roman and the flashes from Izaiah Williams look like they've gone a long way as well.
On the defensive line, Cashius Howell is holding down a unit where guys like TJ Searcy, Dayon Hayes, Tyler Onyedim, and others will have a big chance to contribute. They looked positively ferocious in the spring game, and hopefully that level of play will continue into this year.
The other thing that this move shows is that the Aggies are not willing to go out and overpay in order to halfway address a need. This is a big positive long-term for the locker room and roster building in general; if there's a DT in the portal whose asking price is three times what it should be, sometimes he can have that offer met due to scarcity in the portal at his position and the consequent desperation by teams to fill their needs.
When you do that, though, the demands of your other players could easily begin to go up, leading to some off-the-field tension overall. It's just the smart decision to avoid this kind of overpayment, especially if your own roster is already developing so well.
This is a bit of a gamble in this day and age of college football, but given that Elko is far from afraid to use the portal, I think this speaks more to the strength of the roster and culture than anything else. That gives me confidence headed forward into this year.