Texas A&M's blowout of Missouri is reason to pay attention to these Aggies in the SEC

When the sun came Saturday morning, Texas A&M was a fringe top-25 team with an injured starting quarterback and an unclear future. 

By mid-afternoon, following a dominant 41-10 win over Missouri at Kyle Field, Texas A&M had its quarterback back, a (perceived) quality win over a top-10 SEC opponent and a completely different outlook on what it can accomplish this season.

What a six-hour transformation.

Texas A&M can start considering a future with a College Football Playoff berth. That’s not just an overreaction to a single blowout win over what could turn out to be an overrated Missouri team. Texas A&M now absorbs everything we thought about Missouri and heads into the back half of its schedule with momentum.

Here’s the idea: Through the first six weeks of the season, Mizzou had been the trendy pick for the Playoff. The Tigers returned a big chunk of a team that won 10 games a year ago — including quarterback Brady Cook and star receiver Luther Burden III — and it had one of the more manageable schedules in the SEC. After a 4-0 start, you could talk yourself into the Tigers finishing with one or two losses and cracking the 12-team field, especially because outside of Alabama, every other team on its schedule is beatable. Winning them all will be hard, but it’s not impossible.

Because Texas A&M lost to Notre Dame in the opener, is being led by first-year head coach Mike Elko and the Aggies came into the season as somewhat of an unknown, it was easy to lose track of them. It got worse after Notre Dame lost to NIU. Why would anyone give Texas A&M a second thought after the team who beat it lost to Northern Illinois?

Results change perspective. Now is the time.

Kindly look up Texas A&M’s schedule. Conveniently not listed are Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. Here is who you’ll find: Mississippi State, LSU, South Carolina, New Mexico State, Auburn and Texas. Of course, there’s Texas. But that’s a rivalry game held in College Station in an atmosphere that could set college football decibel records Nov. 30. Winning the rest of its games before Texas will be hard, but it’s not impossible.

It’s easy to say right now Texas will beat the Aggies, but what if they are who they were Saturday? In a rivalry game that hasn’t been played in 10 years? At Kyle Field? That’s a hell of a cocktail that could lead to weirdness.

Who is this Texas A&M team?

Let’s start with Conner Weigman. When he was out for three weeks with a shoulder injury, the Aggies turned to backup Marcel Reed. He played his role as backup quarterback perfectly, so well, in fact, there were plenty of Aggies fans who questioned if going back to Weigman was the right move. Texas A&M did go 3-0 under his leadership, including wins over Arkansas and Florida.

With Reed at the helm, though, Texas A&M’s passing attack wasn’t good enough to win a bunch of SEC games consecutively. Texas A&M’s passing game came into the Missouri game last in the SEC, averaging only 162 yards per game. The team’s leading receiver was Cyrus Allen, who had 11 catches for 203 yards. 

In the first half of the blowout of Missouri, Weigman was 15-for-19 for 193 yards. He finished 18-for-22 for 276 yards. It wasn’t just the statistics. Weigman looked calm, poised and delivered strike after strike. He looked like there shouldn’t have been a doubt who the starting quarterback is. He made you question how good this offense could be if he turns into the player his five-star recruiting profile promised.

Couple that with Texas A&M’s two-headed rushing attack led by Le’Veon Moss and Amari Daniels — who combined for 172 yards and 5 touchdowns against the Tigers — and a young, exciting talent at wideout in Terry Bussey, this team could be dangerous.

Oh, and Texas A&M has one of the best defensive lines in the country, led by Nic Scourton, a transfer from Purdue who returned home this offseason after growing up in Aggieland.

We may find out Missouri just isn’t that good. This could be fool’s gold. But there are two unquestionable things here. One, Missouri has some really good players. Two, blowouts like that just don’t fall out of the sky. This is the largest victory over a top-10 opponent in Texas A&M history.

Elko, who replaced Jimbo Fisher with the promise of bringing relentless competence to College Station, may have some things working here.

This win won’t tell the entire story of this Texas A&M season.

But this win made it clear the Aggies deserve our attention moving forward.