Well it’s down to less than a week until football season and every football fan is on edge. The first big game of the season comes on the first night, when Texas A&M travels to Columbia, South Carolina to take on the Gamecocks. It will be the first game the Aggies will have without Johnny Manziel at quarterback since joining the SEC.
Many people have written off the Aggies already simply because Johnny Football will not be the Aggies quarterback, and as Lee Corso would say, “Not so fast my friend.” Texas A&M may not have a Heisman quarterback to help out anymore, but they do have a rock solid recruiting class coming in, including 4-star quarterback Kyle Allen, who is said to be just as good as Johnny ever was. A&M may have lost Johnny Manziel, but that doesn’t change how good their offense is. In fact, I believe the offense will be better. With 5-star recruit Speedy Noil and 4-star recruit Frank Ihenacho already enrolled and ready for this year, they will join last year’s 5-star recruit Ricky Seals-Jones at WR. And then of course 4-star recruit Kyle Allen will make a huge impact on the Aggies offense. That is just a portion of the stars they have on offense. The defense is even better with recruiting, as they have 5-star recruit defensive end Myles Garret, 4-star cornerback Nick Harvey, 4-star defensive end DeShawn Washington, 4-star outside linebacker Otaro Alaka, 4-star defensive end Qualen Cunningham, 4-star safety Armani Watts, and 4-star outside linebacker Josh Walker making a huge impact on the defense. This will help the Aggies out big time because of how terrible the 2013 defense was. I’m not saying that A&M is going to be the best team, and I’m not even saying that they are going to beat South Carolina, but they won’t be a .500 team just because Johnny Manziel isn’t the quarterback any longer.
Texas A&M-South Carolina
Now, for South Carolina, the recruiting class may have gone unnoticed to many people. South Carolina has 11 out of the top 300 4-5 star recruits coming in. That doesn’t seem like a lot, but newsflash, it is a huge number. The Gamecocks are ranked 8th among the top 40 teams in the nation for 2014 recruiting with 25 recruits, the second most only behind Mississippi State with 27. South Carolina has so many recruiting weapons coming in for their defense it’s not even fair. South Carolina is ready for A&M. Now, here is what I think is what will happen on August 28th. This game is being played in South Carolina, so that’s going to make it tough already for the Aggies because South Carolina is almost unbeatable at home. When A&M is on the field, get ready for a 70-point game at least, unless defensive coordinator Mark Snyder makes something work, but honestly I don’t think that will happen. South Carolina will jump out to an early lead just because it is at home and they, like everyone else, will be fired up. By the end of the first half it will be 28-24 South Carolina. Texas A&M will come out in the second half and take a better angle at the Gamecocks. Fast forward to the end of the game and my final prediction is: Texas A&M 48, South Carolina 45.
Yes, South Carolina looks like the much better team, and they might be, but A&M will find a way to win. They do not want everybody saying they can’t win without Johnny. That will motivate them enough to go out and find a way to win this game and play well during this season. South Carolina has a lot of great recruits, and they will be fine. I look for them to finish the season in the top 15.
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