BATON ROUGE — THe 2026 Texas A&M Aggies football team is just flat bad. It’s stunning, it’s depressing and it’s 100% true.

A program that Mike Elko and the Aggies had battered the last two seasons got revenge with the most disgusting individual in college football at the helm, as LSU stomped A&M 35-6 Saturday night in Baton Rouge. It was an embarrassment in every imaginable way and easily the worst performance by any Aggie team this decade.

Offense

Right now, the Aggies are trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole. Holmon Wiggins wants to run the offense he worked with at Alabama. The Aggies have a roster of players better suited to Collin Klein’s system. The hybrid is bad enough that Frankenstein would shriek.

The Aggies have to make a change at quarterback. Period. Marcel Reed was a disaster Saturday night, and looked like the worst quarterback in the conference. His regression under Wiggins and quarterback coach Joey Lynch is alarming.

Reed was 10-26 for 106 yards and an interception Saturday night. He was was sacked four times and frequently looked completely lost. It’s hard to point to a good throw because there weren’t any. And, when he did put the ball on target, it was dropped. Reed looks like he is pressing, looks like he has lost his confidence and his teammates probably are losing faith in him. Saturday night was the worst performance by an Aggie quarterback since Kyle Allen was trotted out with an injured shoulder against Ole Miss in 2015 — a decision that should have had Kevin Sumlin fired the next morning.

I don’t know how you keep sending Reed out there at this point. It’s gotten that bad. If Brady Hart was your future in 2027 come hell or high water, you may as well get him out there now. This offense needs a spark and there was no hope, no belief, tonight.

The shuffling of the offensive line was a panic move. It’s not one that I oppose, honestly, because they actually could run block. But they were horrible in pass protection, which didn’t help Reed at all. But Reed is also seeing ghosts. He’s reacting to pressure that isn’t there, doesn’t know what to do when it is there and isn’t playing with any confidence. But I’d keep Lamont Rogers out there at right tackle. Like Hart, if he’s your future, you may as well play him.

Rueben Owens actually looked good tonight. Like I said, the line actually played physical football and the running game worked for the most part. They just stopped using it, then it got to the point where they had to throw. But I don’t understand why KJ Edwards didn’t get any carries — then again, I don’t understand a lot about what’s going on right now.

It’s hard to grade the wide receivers because they had so few balls thrown their way, and it wasn’t like they weren’t open.

Reed’s not getting any help from Wiggins and the play calls and he’s not helping himself, either. If your quarterback play is terrible, the offense is terrible. And that is where A&M is right now.

Defense

There’s absolutely no excuse why this unit is so bad. They gave up 506 yards of total offense, including 312 through the air to a quarterback on one leg. And did they blitz? No. They remained in that rush four setup that has been terrible all season long.

For the second straight week, this group quit. They got pushed around, played undisciplined and got outright embarrassed. LSU was giving up 7.33 tackles for loss per game this season. The Aggies had three. They didn’t sack Sam Leavitt at all, and they now have as man sacks as games played. That’s pathetic.

Noah Mikhail led the team in tackles, but he was frequently lost. I didn’t hear Ray Coney’s name at all. Daymion Sanford is clearly not 100% still, which wouldn’t be a problem if the other guys were doing their jobs.

The reliance on Anto Saka and Marco Jones to get to the quarterback on their own is a mistake and A&M keeps making it. One of the reasons that Cashius Howell was so successful last year was because he got help from blitzers, causing opponents to have to make a choice on what they should do. They couldn’t double him. Nothing’s stopping an LSU or anyone else from doubling any of A&M’s pass rushers because there’s nobody coming to make them pay for it.

The play fo the safeties has been just terrible. If Reed has taken a step back on offense, Dalton Brooks has taken a leap backwards on defense. He is repeatedly getting burned, and he’s just not picking things up. The recognition is slow, if it happens at all. Tonight, he allowed another two deep balls to get past him, including that same very deep crossing route that Arizona State and Kentucky hit on. Then, of all things, a wheel route?

A WHEEL ROUTE?

The lack of discipline was clear on the 4th and 1 where LSU hit on a 57-yard touchdown. The Aggies were totally confused by LSU’s movement, but didn’t call timeout. Instead, they let the play go and nobody even figured out it was a pass until it was way too late. I think that one is on Mikhail too.

Nobody throws at Dezz Ricks because they don’t have to. Julio Humphrey and Rickey Gibson are sufficient to throw at, because they’re getting beaten repeatedly.

The Aggies actually held the running game down while the game as in doubt. But it didn’t matter because Leavitt, on one leg, lit them up from a perfectly clean pocket.

It’s an absolute embarrassment. This may be Elko’s defense, but this isn’t Elko’s scheme.

It’s sickening.

Special teams

Tyler White and David Olano did their jobs. Good for them. Nobody else did.

Coaching

I think it’s pretty clear that the promotion of Wiggins and Lyle Hemphill was a mistake. It’s always a risk when you put assistants into their first coordinator job, and that’s certainly the case in the SEC. But this team has way too much talent to be playing this badly. They’re playing confused and lacking intensity. Reed is not Tua Tagovailoa and the Aggie receivers aren’t DeVonta Smith and company, especially now that Terry Bussey’s out for the year and Ashton Bethel-Roman is banged up. This offensive line has not meshed. Everything is in full reverse.

Hemphill and Elko seem to be convinced that they can play soft and rush four and get away with it. That hasn’t happened yet and probably won’t at any point this year. It bears absolutely no resemblance to the defense we saw last year. The people who were on Jay Bateman’s butt probably should be lining up to apologize to him.

The defense misses Taurean York, in spite of his flaws. He could at least manage the defense. They clearly miss Tyler Oneydim and Albert Regis, to say nothing of Howell. The safeties have gotten worse, and those players are Hemphill’s specific responsibility.

Elko has made bad decisions on fourth downs two straight weeks. And this week’s blunder was a microcosm of the game. The Aggies struggled to line up, tried an exotic look and got completely stuffed.

That’s what the season has become. Completely stuffed.