Marcel Reed may be the SEC's most overlooked quarterback, but Texas A&M believes

New York Times

5 hours ago

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Among SEC quarterbacks this season, LSU's Garrett Nussmeier is the experienced pocket passer whose methodical development could land him in the first-round of next year's NFL Draft. There is LaNorris Sellers, the dynamic athlete who seems primed to take a big leap forward in Year 3 for South Carolina. At Florida, DJ Lagway was so good as a freshman last year he helped save his head coach's job. Oklahoma's John Mateer is the flashy incoming transfer. And, of course, there is Arch Manning, Texas' first-year starter and cultural phenomenon.
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Texas A&M's Marcel Reed has neither the name nor the narrative to be mentioned with the SEC's upper-tier QBs, but the numbers suggest he should be in that conversation.
'The challenge that he's battling is just the most high-profile game he won was against LSU, and he won it with his feet,' Texas A&M coach Mike Elko said.
Ask an average college football fan about Reed, and there is a good chance that late October night game at Kyle Field will come up. The Texas A&M quarterback came off the bench to start the second half and ran wild on the Tigers in a 38-23 victory that propelled the Aggies into November as SEC championship contenders.
Reed had already started three Aggies victories early in the season when preseason QB1 Conner Weigman was injured, and he was good enough down the stretch — despite the team's 1-4 finish — that Elko felt no pressing need to go portal shopping for a replacement.
'We were committed to Marcel the whole time,' Elko said.
But in his breakout performance on a big stage, Reed beat the Tigers throwing just two passes, leaving lingering questions about that part of his game.
'Then you look at Auburn, where he brings us back from a 21-0 deficit, drives us down the field to give us the lead late in the fourth quarter,' Elko said. 'You look at the bowl game, where he throws for (292) yards, drives us down the field to take the lead late in the game. But I think all of that gets trumped by the most-high profile game he plays, which is LSU, where the rhetoric on the entire broadcast is his feet, his feet, his feet. And so that just becomes the easy national narrative to pick up because nobody really wants to do the research to dig into statistically what it looks like.'
Heading into Year 3 in College Station, Reed, the former four-star recruit and Tennessee Mr. Football, is embracing his first time being the clear QB1 since high school.
'It's a lot more comfortable coming into the offseason,' Reed said as the Aggies wound down spring practice. 'But you know, there's a lot of pressure, and there's things that are gonna be thrown on my shoulders, and I gotta take it and run with it.'
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Statistically, Reed looks a lot like those far more heralded quarterbacks in the SEC. His completion percentage last season was better than Lagway's (61.3 to 59.9). His yards per pass and efficiency rating were almost identical to Nussmeier's, albeit in far fewer passes. Reed's interception (2.5) and touchdown (6.25) percentages are right in line with those of Sellers.
'I feel like everybody has their perception on who's a good passer and who isn't,' Reed said. 'You can go look at the stats and the percentages all you want. I feel like I'm up there. Actually, I know I'm up there.'
And the 6-foot-2, 185-pound Reed ran for 543 yards and seven touchdowns, averaging 4.68 yards per carry. That's the same number of rushing touchdowns as Sellers and one fewer than Vanderbilt's Diego Pavia, with a better per-carry average than both.
Texas A&M offensive coordinator Collin Klein said Reed stepped into an offense that lacked explosiveness last season, with limitations at receiver and injuries at running back.
'Candidly, we were not very sexy on offense last year, right?' Klein said. 'Our explosives over 20 (yards) were not nearly where they need to be. I think some of that from a flash perspective probably affects the perception of him.'
Still, the Aggies did a lot of important things well. In SEC play, Texas A&M was No. 1 in scoring offense (29.4 points per game), No. 1 in red-zone touchdown and overall scoring percentage and tied for first in turnover margin.
'That doesn't happen if you don't play really well at quarterback,' said Klein.
Klein knows all about the value of a quarterback who can make plays with his legs. He ran for 2,485 yards and 56 touchdowns in his career as a 6-4, 225-pound battering ram with Kansas State, becoming a Heisman Trophy finalist in 2012.
Reed is a very different type of running threat.
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'Oh, shoot, he's way the heck faster than I am,' Klein said. 'I wouldn't have gotten hit as much if I had his twitch.'
And there is hope in College Station that A&M has upgraded at receiver through the portal, most notably with the addition of KC Concepcion from NC State.
Texas A&M was one of a host of CFP contenders and hopefuls who eschewed the transfer portal this offseason at the most important position on the field. Instead of seeking out a plug-and-play veteran quarterback, several teams are rolling with less experienced players who are developing the old-fashioned way.
That group includes Julian Sayin at Ohio State and CJ Carr at Notre Dame, both standard redshirt freshmen. Sayin did transfer from Alabama to Ohio State, but he never even made it to spring practice with the Crimson Tide, leaving after Nick Saban's retirement in January 2024. Georgia saw enough from Gunner Stockton in the SEC Championship Game and CFP to roll with him in 2025. Ty Simpson, who has thrown 50 passes in three seasons at Alabama, was leading a three-way competition out of spring practice. At Ole Miss, Austin Simmons takes over for first-round draft pick Jaxson Dart. Simmons' next start will be his first.
Reed has more game experience than all of those players — plus Manning — but look at the Heisman odds at BetMGM and you'll find Reed (+4000) behind most of them.
There is some irony to Reed being viewed as more of a runner than a passer. At Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville, he directed what he described as a pro-style offense.
'I'd say more than 50 or 60 percent of my snaps were under center back in high school,' Reed said.
Thomas Morris of QB Country trained Reed for several years and still stays in touch with his former pupil. Morris said although Reed was well-coached in high school, MBA's offense didn't highlight his athleticism.
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In a 2023 recruiting class headlined by Manning and Nico Iamaleava, who recently transferred from Tennessee to UCLA, Reed was ranked No. 20 among quarterbacks by 247Sports.
'If it was a different offense, I think he probably would have been a five-star, and probably, I think, he would have been the top dual-threat in the country,' Morris said. 'Because he flashed this little Lamar Jackson, kind of Deshaun Watson-type thing, and you could see it, but it just wasn't the offense for it, so he didn't get to put it on display as much as he needed to.'
The transfer portal flows both ways, so as important as it was for Texas A&M to be committed to Reed, he needed to reciprocate.
'Quarterback situations around the country are just incredibly fragile all the time, right?' Klein said. 'You think you know one thing one day, and then all of a sudden it changes the next day.'
Reed was recruited by the previous staff, but Klein and Elko won him over as they started anew after the fiery collapse of Jimbo Fisher's tenure.
'I think he respected how myself and Coach Elko handled some of the situations last year, with honesty, transparency, fairness,' Klein said. 'Obviously, most of it went in his favor.'
Waiting his turn behind Weigman paid off for Reed, and there was no reason to bail on a good situation after showing he could play.
'Obviously, when it comes to hitting the portal and going other places, then you have to meet a whole new roster, all new coaches. You've got to build different relationships,' Reed said. 'And I think the relationships that I built here are the ones that I want to have forever. So there's really no reason for me to leave.'