looking ahead to the Aggie football future

I was going to title this post "season wrap-up", but what's the point in looking backwards? Everyone knows the Aggies had a very disappointing season. Hell, I would have been disappointed at 7-4 heading to a crappy bowl game. It makes much more sense to me to look ahead. From this point forward, please take everything I write, knowing that I am fully aware of the similarities to the optimism of this time last year.

Offense: Things could look much worse, especially faced with the loss of the TAMU career passing leader. The fact is, Reggie was exciting, but his stay in Aggieland was ill-timed with the change of coaches and demise of the Wrecking Crew. Stephen McGee showed some great leadership and grit during the final six quarters of the season. He runs the option like Bucky, but believe it or not, was recruited as a passer! Get that passing shaped up, and he may be the best we've seen in a while.

We should return a nice stable of receivers (Riley, Schroeder, E. Taylor, Morrow, Brown, Franks), an incredible tight end in Martellus Bennett, and a solid group of running backs in Courtney Lewis, Jorvorskie Lane, and Brandon Leone. The offensive line will also be much better, with a more stable, more experienced group.

Defense: The weak spot will continue to be at linebacker. Hard to believe we used to get away with calling A&M "Linebacker U". We are not even a shadow of our former selves at this position. Justin Warren returns, and that's about it. The defensive line should be very good, with Michael Bennett, Chris Harrington, Jason Jack and Red Bryant, and hopefully dominant enough to take some pressure off the defensive backs, who certainly can't go anywhere but up from 2005. Danny Gorrer improved in the last 2 games, and will hopefully continue that trend, along with the late additions of Marquis Carpenter at CB, and Devin Gregg and Alton Dixon at safety. This is not the same defensive backfield as 2005 by any stretch!

Overall, I have a great outlook for next year. I realize that these things sometimes don't work out the way you expect, but that's no reason to lose hope. Expect a much improved Aggie team surging back into the national picture in 2006!

I have to go now before my maroon kool-aid gets warm.