Brian Kelly says youth is hurting Texas A&M

LSU faces Texas A&M this weekend in a battle of two teams that bookend the SEC West division, as the Tigers sit at the top of the division with an SEC title game birth and the Aggies are in last place with just one conference win on the year. Tiger’s head coach Brian Kelly was asked why he felt Texas A&M has struggled this year, which he attributed to their lack of experience.

“It’s a young football team, it’s a very talented football team, but it’s young,” Kelly said.

Jimbo Fisher and Aggies did secure the No. 1 recruiting class in the nation in 2022 according to On3 Consensus, landing nine 5-star recruits in the process. But that has not necessarily translated to wins for the Aggies, as they entered the season ranked the No. 6 team in the nation with high hopes, but have only won four games this season.

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“And so you can see at times it is really scary and then sometimes there’s a loss there of maybe some focus,” Kelly said.

The focus for Texas A&M has surely been on and off this season, suffering an upset loss to Appalachian State early in the season than taking a team in Alabama that was ranked No. 1 in the country at the time down to the wire in a game that was decided on the final play. The Aggies snapped a six-game losing last week with a underwhelming 20-3 victory over UMass, and it will definitely be interesting to see how they perform in their season finale.

“But if they put it all together, this is not a team you want to be around when they put it all together,” Kelly said. “It’s a very talented football team.”

The Tigers have put it all together more often than not this season, only suffering one conference loss this season to Tennessee which they followed with five straight victories, two of which were over ranked, conference opponents. They’ve been seeing tremendous play from dual-threat quarterback Jayden Daniels lately and their defense, who has held opponents to just 10 points in each of their last two games.

It’s safe to say that the Tigers have been a surprise this season in their first year under Brian Kelly exceeding expectations, and will ironically face a team that underachieved regarding their expectations in their regular season finale, which kicks off at 7:00 p.m. in College Station and will air on ESPN.