| 47. Texas A&M Aggies |
| #8 in SEC |
What’s the answer when your plan is to spend your way into being a top flight program, and the plan isn’t working? Spend more! That’s Texas A&M’s mentality. When Kevin Sumlin went 11-2, and finished #5 in the nation in his first season at the school, the plan with the jump to the SEC seemed to be going swimmingly. The problem was over his next 5 years, he went 19-21 in SEC play, going 3-5 or 4-4 every year, never finishing higher that 4th in his division. In essence, Texas A&M was being Texas A&M, solid, but not special. So they are now spending more to be special. They didn’t bring in the hot mid-major coach, like they did with Sumlin, they hired away a coach from Florida State who won a national championship 4 years earlier. The first job for Jimbo is settling a quarterback controversy. Nick Starkle returns after being the starter to finish 2017, however, the guy he replaced, Kellen Mond, also returns. On paper, there’s no reason not to give Starkle his job back. He had the better numbers, by far. But Texas A&M also went 2-5 in the games he played, and it’s clear the ceiling on Mond is much higher. Plus, by now it’s clear that Jimbo has a type. He’s going to hedge towards a more mobile quarterback. At Florida State the last few years he went from Winston to Golson to Francois to Blackman, all mobile quarterbacks. Even in his first class at Texas A&M, he made a late addition with James Foster, the #12 dual threat QB in the nation, and had Grant Gunnell, the #3 pro style QB in the 2019 class decommit. So while the smart money right now is on Starkel, it’s clear that the coaching staff would love Mond to go out there and win the job. Defensively the front is sound, as it seemingly has been forever in College Station. The secondary still needs work. They surrendered nearly 60% passing, second worst in the SEC, and that was with a really good pass rush.
Key Players| QB | | Nick Starkel, Sophomore |
| RB | | Trayveon Williams, Junior |
| WR | | Jhamon Ausbon, Sophomore |
| . | |
| DE | | Landis Durham, Senior |
| LB | | Tyrell Dodson, Junior |
| LB | | Otaro Alaka, Senior |
| 46. Missouri Tigers |
| #7 in SEC |
The story of Missouri football seemed to have been written. They entered the SEC at the perfect time, on an uptick, while the entire SEC East was down, and lucked their way into a couple of SEC Championship Games. Since then, they had lost 20 of 27 FBS games, and were off to a 1-5 start which included a blowout loss at home to a Purdue program that had seemingly been down forever. There were assistant coaches being fired, and players quitting or getting kicked off the team. They were to be a permanent afterthought. It’s funny what a little winning will do. The Tigers finished 2017 on a 6 game winning streak. No the opponents weren’t impressive, but aside from a 3 point road win at Arkansas, the margins weren’t close either. They won their other 5 games by 47, 40, 29, 33 and 28, 3 of those being SEC wins. So what now? With 9 returning starters on offense, including quarterback Drew Luck, the conference’s top scoring offense, and 2nd most prolific passing attack looks to really be ready to roll. One of the losses was tailback Ish Witter, but Larry Roundtree, who spelled him last year as a freshman, should actually be even better. The problem continues to be on defense, which has to kill head coach Barry Odom, who played linebacker for Missouri in the 90s, and has spent his whole coaching career on the defensive side of the ball. That’s why he fired defensive coordinator Demontie Cross after two games last year, including giving up 43 to FCS Missouri State. The SEC bowl teams they played continued to put up points, 51 by Auburn, 40 by Kentucky, and 53 by Georgia. Against the Florida, Tennessee and Vanderbilt of the world they did ok, but lest anyone believe that was a product of anything other than schedule, they finished by giving up 45 to Arkansas. After taking over command of the unit himself for the balance of the season, Odom handed the coordinating job off to Ryan Walters, who had been defensive backs coach. It’s a quick rise for Walters, who was still playing at Colorado a decade ago, and was a mid-major position coach just 3 years ago. But the coaching turnover didn’t just hit the defense, that potent offense has to continue without coordinator Josh Heupel, who was hired as head coach at Central Florida, where the sole hiring criteria seems to be “turn of the century Big XII QB turned OC.” Instead of promoting from within there, Odom hired Derek Dooley away from his 5 year stint as receivers coach for the Dallas Cowboys. It’s Dooley’s first shot back in college football since being run out of Knoxville in 2012. The talent remains in Columbia, but the Heupel to Dooley transition is a major downgrade in my book. For a team that is going to have to win shootouts, that uninspired hire will be enough to prevent any meaningful step forward.
Key Players| QB | | Drew Lock, Senior |
| RB | | Larry Roundtree, Sophomore |
| TE | | Albert Okwuegbunam, Sophomore |
| . | |
| DT | | Terry Beckner, Senior |
| LB | | Cale Garrett, Junior |
| CB | | Adam Sparks, Sophomore |
