Let’s get this out right at the top: there is no reason whatsoever the Texas A&M football team has been playing this badly.

None. Zero. Zilch.

This is beyond confusing. Players that were very good last year have regressed significantly. The offensive line wasn’t expected to be a strength, but it’s been a disaster. Quality wide receivers aren’t getting open. Tight ends have been non-existent beyond blocking. And Marcel Reed has gotten a whole lot worse year-over-year.

On defense, basic coverage breakdowns have been abundant. The pass rush has evaporated. Linebacker play has been, generously, inconsistent. The safety play has been atrocious.

These things were supposed to be strengths. I thought they were going to be, but what I expected is irrelevant. Mike Elko thought they were strengths, and those strengths have, thus far, betrayed him.

No, I’m not happy with the coordinators anymore. Like I said Monday, I like what Holmon Wiggins is trying to do, but it’s not working with what he has. And the lack of adjustment to what he has is frustrating. Lyle Hemphill’s scheming has been flat out bad.

But I think there’s something else at play here. This is a talented football team that doesn’t believe in itself. Reed is the one everyone is going to point fingers at, but he’s not the only one. You can’t tell me Dalton Brooks and Marcus Ratcliffe are playing with confidence. I’m not sure any lineman on either side of the ball is playing with confidence. They have not responded well to adversity, as opposed to last year’s team, who seemed to thrive on it.

This team seems to be proving an adage from Mike Tyson: “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

The 2025 Aggies would get punched in the face and piledrive the puncher. These guys curl up in the fetal position. They don’t handle adversity well at all. And that’s something Elko has admitted.

“The struggles in the LSU game I think were really deep,” he said Monday.

Yeah they were. A&M started off well, but the first time a break went against them, that was it. The Aggies had plenty of breaks go against them last year in Baton Rouge, shrugged them off and ran LSU out of their own building. There was never a chance of that Saturday night.

I don’t know how you have a team exorcism, but they need one. Or group shock therapy. Whatever gets this mindset of negativity and situations where, as Noah Mikhail put it, they’re “too distracted”.

I also think the Aggies miss Taurean York, Trey Zuhn and Ar’Maj Reed-Adams. People gripe about York’s play last year, but that young man knew how to lead. He got guys to follow him. Zuhn earned the respect of his teammates with his willingness to play through pain without complaint and, when he spoke, you damn well listened. Reed-Adams was more vocal, and you didn’t want to cross him. Ever.

This year, the Aggies have five captains, but I don’t know if they generate the same level of respect that those three did in the locker room. Something is missing.

I’m not saying that this is a Jimbo situation where you have guys pot vaping on road trips, sneaking of to Prairie View for parties the night before games or playing GTA V in parking garages. I am saying that we haven’t seen this team pick one another up like last year’s did. If the defense was bad (Notre Dame), the offense attacked. If the offense was bad (Mississippi State), the defense had their backs. This year, if anything goes wrong, it snowballs.

“I think you have some kids that are pressing and wanting it so bad that it’s not coming the way they want. You have some kids that need to learn a little bit more what it takes to strain to the level you need to strain to. I think you have some kids that you need to practice better. Like it’s there’s a lot of layers to each kid as to where performance needs to improve to get the result that they want on Saturday,” Elkos aid. “But if you’re asking like big picture, we have a team that showed up on time for the team meeting this morning, wanting to figure out what it’s going to take to fix this thing, change this thing, and move it in a different direction. Again, those are words, right? We have to go do it.”

They’re words. But they’re at least good ones. Maybe they’re a sign the team is getting up off the mat and will show some resilience. They haven’t yet, but sometimes teams grow up after they get their nose bloodied a few times. We’ll see what happens the next time they take a punch.