More opportunity awaits Texas A&M in Las Vegas Bowl vs. USC

Click HERE to view Texas A&M’s Monday press conference.

Texas A&M football coach Mike Elko is out of options … and that’s a good thing.

Elko on Tuesday said he expects just three A&M players to opt out of playing in the Las Vegas Bowl against USC on Dec. 27.

Defensive linemen Nic Scourton, Shemar Stewart and Shemar Turner are entering the NFL draft. Presumably they will sit out the bowl game to participate in the Senior Bowl and begin training for the NFL combine.

“The three main guys — Shemar Turner, Shemar Stewart, Nic Scourton — it’s pretty well known that those three won’t be playing in the bowl game,” Elko said. "We don’t anticipate there being others.”

The defensive line opt outs, especially defensive end Scourton and Stewart, offer backup ends Cashius Howell and Rylan Kennedy more opportunity to demonstrate their abilities.

Only three opt outs is minimal these days. Teams not involved in the College Football Playoff commonly have significant numbers of players that don’t play in bowl games.

Players enter the transfer portal or don’t want to risk injuries, which could affect their NFL draft status. Therefore, the teams in bowl games often hardly are representative of the team from the regular season.

Elko said A&M having so few opting out speaks to the culture he has strived to establish.

“When you’re trying to build a championship program and you’re trying to build a championship team that journey doesn’t stop,” he said. “In order to become a really good football team you have to play football really well consistently over a long period of time.

“The Las Vegas Bowl is another opportunity for our team to go through game preparation, go out on the field to play another opponent. Play for a trophy. All those things. Just because it’s a bowl game doesn’t mean the journey stops.”

The fact the game is played in Las Vegas against a well-known opponent who’s now in the Big Ten doesn’t hurt, either.

“Obviously, it’s a great opportunity to go out and play a big school on the West Coast and it’s a Big Ten-SEC matchup,” Elko said. “Those matchups mean stuff.

“It’s kind of, in our opinion, the first game moving forward to the 2025 season and it will kind of launch the offseason one way or the other.”

Grinding away

The Aggies have been working hard to upgrade through the transfer portal.

On Tuesday, they added receiver Mario Craver from Mississippi State. He joins a portal group that includes receiver Micah Hudson (Texas Tech), tight end Micah Riley (Auburn), cornerback Julian Humphrey (Georgia) and quarterback Jacob Zeno (UAB).

Elko indicated the work is far from done.

“It is the epitome of putting your head down and grinding until the finish,” Elko said. “At the end of it, we’re going to put one group on one scale and one group on the other scale and hope our side comes out on top.

“It is a constant effort every single day to make sure that’s how this thing finishes up. To keep score right now would not be smart.”

Viva Las Vegas

Redshirt freshman quarterback Marcel Reed had the first extended action of his career last year in the Texas Bowl.

Reed was forced into action when Jaylen Henderson sustained an injury on the first play against Oklahoma State.

He came on to throw for 361 yards and run for a 20-yard touchdown in a 31-23 loss.

Reed said he’d want to play in any bowl game, but admitted there was an extra jolt of excitement to play in Las Vegas.

“I’m not going to sit here and lie and say it’s not exciting to be in Las Vegas playing a game,” Reed said. “But if we got to play anywhere else at a site I didn’t like … I mean, I’m not going to complain because we’re playing in a bowl game.

“It’s just very exciting that we got the opportunity to be in Las Vegas and not end up in Houston again.”

NOTES

• Elko expressed gratitude to Dave Clawson, who on Tuesday resigned after 11 seasons as Wake Forest’s head coach. Clawson hired Elko for jobs at Fordham, Richmond, Bowling Green and Wake Forest. “Anybody that knows me knows how important Dave has been and how much he’s impacted me and my family’s life,” Elko said.
• The Aggies will face former offensive line coach Josh Henson in the Las Vegas Bowl. Henson left A&M in 2022 to accept the same position at USC.