With the College Football Playoff expanding from four to 12 teams this season, the odds to make the tournament just got a whole lot better for plenty of programs.
On his most recent episode of the Always College Football podcast, ESPN's Greg McElroy took some time to identify a few dark horse programs that might be able to use the expanded field to sneak into the postseason tournament.
McElroy named four teams that could be surprise contenders in 2024 for the CFP, and from the SEC he identified Texas A&M as a sneaky threat.
“Texas A&M is actually 18th in returning production in 2024, which is surprising too. When I’m thinking about when Jimbo Fisher was fired and they had some turnover? Man, it felt like they lost a lot of guys in the portal, didn’t it?” McElroy said. “It felt like they had so many guys jump into the portal – Walter Nolen, a few others, Evan Stewart. A bunch of guys that decided to jump in the portal. It’s like, shoot, who’s going to be on the field for the Aggies? Well, yeah, they lost 20 transfers in the portal but a lot of those guys were backups.”
Texas A&M will be breaking in a new head coach in Mike Elko, who leaves his post at Duke and replaces Jimbo Fisher. Elko is inheriting a roster that was heavily depleted with outgoing transfers, including five-star players Walter Nolen and Evan Stewart.
"The roster that he’s inheriting at Texas A&M is far more talented than the roster he inherited at Duke. You think combination of a really, really strong schedule last year? They were also 0-4 in one-score finishes. Meaning you look at the 7-6 record? They were probably even a little bit better when you take into account some of the metrics that you would use when considering a jump up the following year. So I think Texas A&M has a chance to be very dangerous this year."
The Aggies' schedule includes a season-opener against Notre Dame, plus tough games against LSU, Missouri and Texas. Fortunately for TAMU, all those games will be played at home.
