It's no surprise that the sentiment floating around Texas A&M's football program this offseason was the need to finish strong: that coming after the Aggies ended their 2024 campaign on a 1-4 skid — including two fourth-quarter collapses.
"At the end of the season, when everyone's a little beat up and a little tired, that's when it gets hard to finish," offensive tackle Trey Zuhn III said today in media availability ahead of fall camp.
It takes a full team effort to push through late in the season, but things got especially rough for the Aggies' defense; a unit that allowed three of its final five opponents to put up 35 or more points. After racking up 18 sacks and 11 forced turnovers in their previous six bouts, the Aggies saw those numbers drop to just six and five, respectively, down the stretch.
Zuhn, Williams emphasize importance of finishing strong in 2025
"We started off 7-1 last year and ended up 8-5, and a lot of us feel like that was on us as a defense," linebacker Scooby Williams said.
But you can't just simply turn the page to a new season without remembering how the last one ended. It's important to learn from your shortcomings, pinpoint your areas of weakness and implement a plan to avoid it becoming a systemic issue. For A&M, that system began in the offseason weight room.
Trey Zuhn III: "At the end of our workouts this offseason, we've talked about finishing the workouts and finishing the hard parts because we want to be able to do that throughout the season."
— TexAgs (@TexAgs) July 29, 2025
With an emphasis on bully-ball and the need to finish strong, the Aggies can't wait to get their shot at rectifying the blemishes from a season prior. For the defense, a group that's seen a much stronger presence from its head coach in positional meetings, that starts with a relentless effort on every single snap.
"Being violent and being one of the premier defenses in the country is something we're going to focus on and attack this fall camp," Williams said.