10 Things for Tuesday, sponsored by Ekdahl Nelson Real Estate

During his comments at the Brazos Valley Coach’s Night tonight, Jimbo Fisher said he expects the offensive and defensive lines to be the strength of the 2023 Aggies. The defensive line almost certainly will be — it should be one of the best in the nation, period. But the offensive line?

That would be something. Or would it?

It depends on health, of course. Last year, Bryce Foster was healthy for about two games and Layden Robinson was never healthy. Trey Zuhn played hurt all year. Having all of them at 100% would make a massive difference.

Robinson and Foster, when they’re right, are two of the elite players at their respective positions in the nation. Kam Dewberry is heading in that direction. Deuce Fatheree is still a guy who stonewalled Will Anderson in two games, even if he didn’t have a great 2022. And if Chase Bisontis is close to the hype generated this spring, he’s going to be really good too.

All of this depends on one thing beyond health: working as a unit. Last year, the line looked like five individuals and, as a result, was terrible. If they work as a group, they can be really good.

A&M fans wanted Josh Henson run out of town on a rail after a horrible 2019 season by the offensive line. The same group went out in 2020 and dominated. Hopefully the same thing will happen this year.

One of my best-connected subscribers, who shall remain nameless, texted me this weekend and said he’s been told that the vibe in the locker room is “110% different” from last year, that there’s a work ethic and a drive that not everyone had last season.

Jimbo has said this repeatedly on the banquet circuit, but hearing it from other people reinforces it. It may even mean more (SEC, SEC, SEC).

Hope always springs eternal, but if there’s greater accountability in the locker room this time around, this team really can be good. And it also would show what level of poison had accumulated in their last season that caused real problems.

I don’t need to name names. You can figure it out.

The transfer portal makes things difficult to really lock things down, but I’m expecting the total to be somewhere between 25 and 28 players. They won’t all be offensive linemen and linebackers, but it seems like they won’t shy away from taking a lot of both.

A&M has offensive linemen Weston Davis, Coen Echols, Blake Ivy,Daniel Cruz, Ory Williams, Nate Kibble and Waltclaire Flynn all scheduled for official visits in June. They’re trying to get Jordan Seaton to come visit as well. That’s a lot of quality offensive linemen, especially when you add commit Ashton Funk to the group. Will A&M get all of them? I would say the chances of that are slim to none and slim is packing up to leave town. Can they get quite a few? Yes, that can happen. And they will be quite happy to take as many as possible.

The Aggies have the commitment of LB Tristan Jernigan. They’re doing very well with TyAnthony Smith and Deebo Atkins. But they also have Jordan Lockhart and Jamonta Waller visiting. All of those guys are absolute takes. Considering A&M’s limited depth at linebacker as it is and the likelihood both starters will be gone after this season, getting as many linebackers as humanly possible would be good.

The Aggies have reached the 30-win plateau. That’s good. A 12-15 conference mark, however, is not. A&M could reach .500 this weekend with a sweep of Mississippi State (26-24, 9-18 SEC).

Looks like a pretty good matchup, even on the road, right?

State just took 2 out of 3 from LSU in Baton Rouge.

Gulp.

Bluntly, A&M needs to stop the Jekyll and Hyde stuff and play their best baseball for three games in a row. Their inconsistency is borderline infuriating.

It’s only been about 13 years since Texas A&M nearly committed athletic seppuku by following Texas to what was then the Pac-10. The idea of former Texas AD Deloss Dodds, which was fully endorsed by A&M AD Bill Byrne, was to take A&M, Texas, OU, Oklahoma State and (if necessary) Texas Tech and go west.

To the conference that, today, can’t find a TV contract and is at risk of being annihilated by the very conference Dodds and Byrne wanted to leave.

Thankfully, A&M had enough people in positions of leadership to kill that idea dead and, a year later, led the Aggies to the SEC.

And now, Texas is following A&M.

Texas fans will never admit Dodds screwed up with that attempt and the Longhorn Network. But he deserves outright contempt. So does Byrne, for not working in the best interests of his employer.

If — and this is still a big if — the ACC is pulled apart over its poor TV contract(s), which teams would you want the SEC to pick up?
There are seven teams currently wanting out: Virginia Tech, Virginia, Florida State, Clemson, Miami, North Carolina and N.C. State. I don’t think the SEC would take seven, though they may just decide the heck with and go for broke.

So let’s say they want four to get to 20 teams. Who would you take? Personally, I would take Virginia Tech, N.C. State, Clemson and FSU. Tech and N.C. State get the SEC into new media markets it wants; Clemson and FSU bring high levels of competition nearly across the board.

But that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

That last line in #8? Bob Costas will never say it. Because Bob Costas has never been wrong in his life — at least, not that he’ll admit.

The former voice of the NBA and NFL is still doing some work in baseball, where — honestly — he’s not very good as a play-by-play guy. He likes to show how much he knows, and doesn’t emphasize the game.

Right now, he knows football is bad, due to the large number of traumatic brain injuries. It’s hard to argue the point, because he’s right. It’s the preachy nature of his complaining that is annoying. But complaining about the NBA because too many players take 3s? Does he want the game to go back to the late 80s and early 90s, where assault and battery was essentially legal?

Costas has always had a habit of being a little pretentious and pompous. That was ok when he was good at his job. Now, he’s just coming across as a bitter guy who wants you to get the hell off his lawn and hate the sports you’ve grown up watching.

We are two months away from the start of SEC Media Days in Nashville. A mere 60 days. You can start putting together your three-deeps and trying to figure out who will be representing each school at the big show. And, after that, it’s just seven weeks until kickoff.