+Reed returns as an established multi-year starter
−O-line returns just 1 starter, already allowed 2 sacks
−8 penalties for 80 yards in the opener
−Elko said the offense sputtered despite the final score
Mike Elko's team spent last season becoming one of the best stories in the sport, ripping off an 11-0 start that ended in Texas A&M's first playoff appearance since 1992. The Aggies picked up right where they left off with a 50-0 rout of Missouri State to open this season, with Marcel Reed throwing for 233 yards and 2 touchdowns. Waiting for them on Saturday, September 12, is a very different kind of problem: Arizona State's brand-new starter just had one of the best debuts any quarterback has had anywhere.
Cutter Boley, the Kentucky transfer who won ASU's open quarterback competition after Sam Leavitt left for LSU, threw for 387 yards and 6 touchdowns in a 70-7 win over Morgan State, spreading the ball to Reed Harris, Grayson Rigdon, Omarion Miller and AJ Ia before getting pulled early in the third quarter. Texas A&M's own line, though, returns just 1 starter up front from a group that lost 4 players to the NFL Draft, and it showed: 2 sacks allowed and 8 penalties for 80 yards, even in a blowout. The board still has the Aggies as a heavy favorite here.
That's the tension in this one. Texas A&M is the more complete, more proven team by any reasonable measure, and its defense just pitched a shutout. But Arizona State's roster carries barely 100 combined career starts, and the version of this team that shows up in College Station has never played a snap against a real Power-conference defense — for better or worse.
Elko wasn't shy about the warts underneath the final score, saying afterward that the offense sputtered and didn't play up to its capability for stretches — a fair notice with SEC play 2 weeks away. Arizona State has no such history to lean on yet; Kenny Dillingham's group is starting over at the position and finding out in real time exactly what it has.
Whatever happens Saturday, it's an early measuring stick for both programs — a ranked SEC contender defending last year's breakthrough against a Big 12 team hoping its new quarterback is more than a 1-week mirage.
