Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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34 SEPT. 13, 2025 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED GAME PREVIEW: TEXAS A&M ball carriers to the ground. Several of the team's standouts didn't even play in it, with Moss being among the bystanders. The ploy worked well in preseason in minimizing injuries but not eliminat- ing them. On Aug. 25, Elko announced backups Isendre Ahfua, an offensive guard, and Jerome Myles, a wide re- ceiver, had been lost for the season with lower-leg injuries that required surgery. Sidelined for the first "several games" will be backup offense tackle Reuben Fatheree II, also with a lower-leg injury. For those who made it through the preseason unscathed, will there be a price to pay for not having full-speed work once the difficulty of Texas A&M's schedule ramps up with Notre Dame Sept. 13 followed by the SEC portion of the Aggies schedule? Notre Dame head coach Marcus Free- man, meanwhile, leaned into his sports science team to balance the needed physicality of August practices with not taking unnecessary risks and overwork- ing the team in that regard. The Irish have the added benefit of a bye week ahead of the seventh-ever football meeting between the two pro- grams and fifth in which both of them were ranked. Notre Dame is 19-2 in its last 21 games coming out of a bye week, including 5-0 under Freeman. It will be the third time Elko and Freeman have faced each other as head coaches, with the two also clashing in 2023, when Elko was the head coach at Duke and the Irish rallied late for a 21-14 road victory over a Blue Devils team that came into the matchup ranked 17th. The winning touchdown and ensu- ing two-point conversion came with 31 seconds on the clock in Durham, N.C. The now-48-year-old Elko served as Fisher's defensive coordinator for four years (2018-21) after leaving the Irish and ahead of landing the head coaching job at Duke for the 2022 sea- son. Although Fisher is being paid to keep an eye on and comment on ACC games, it's hard to believe he won't be taking this one in from a distance — somewhere. "When I got hired, we talked an awful lot about building a program that would help our young people develop into the best version of who they are, both on and off the field," Elko said back at SEC Media Days in July. "I think people sometimes get so lost in the X's and O's and the play calling that they lose sight of what that culture can really do to im- pact and affect our program. "I think as we continued into this off- season, the challenge for us has been to elevate that culture to a championship- level culture, so that we are acting in our lives every step along the way as champions." ✦ 1. Much Is Riding On The Evolution Of Marcel Reed When Marcel Reed took over for a struggling Conner Weigman at quarterback against LSU last season, he electrified. No doubt about it. The shockwaves were sent with his legs, though, not his arm; he ran 9 times for 62 yards and 3 touch - downs. He only threw the ball twice, both completions, for 70 yards. For Texas A&M to be a complete football team offensively in 2025, Reed's got to mature as a passer. He threw at least 1 interception in each start he had fol - lowing the LSU game. Against the best passing defense he faced, that of Texas, he had a season-worst adjusted yards per attempt of 4.39. Notre Dame's 2024 defense was a lot like the Longhorns', and it's expected to be very similar this season. The Irish would be wise to make Reed beat them as a thrower. Contain him on the ground and see if he's improved as a passer. Reed believes that he has made that improvement. "I feel like I've had tremendous growth in my passing this offseason," Reed said. "We've had some great receivers come in, and having the great O-line that we have, they've made it easier for me to sit back there." 2. The Injury Bug Hit The Aggies Early Texas A&M will be without the No. 1 recruit from the state of Texas in the class of 2025, five-star wide receiver Jerome Myles. In his Week 1 press conference, head coach Mike Elko ruled Myles out with a lower-leg injury that required surgery. Elko also ruled out redshirt freshman offensive lineman Isendre Ahfua, a top-200 four- star recruit in the class of 2024, with the same injury designation. Fellow offensive lineman Rueben Fatheree II, who has 41 games of experience at A&M, was also expected to miss the start of the season with a lower-leg injury of his own. Even with the O-line injuries, A&M has a veteran offensive line comprised of three redshirt seniors, a redshirt junior and a true junior. The group is led by fifth-year left tackle Trey Zuhn III. "There's nothing really that we're going to see on a Saturday that we haven't seen before," Zuhn said. "We're going to be ready for everything." 3. A Defensive Line Flying Under The Radar It had to have been nearly impossible for the Texas A&M defensive line to live up to expectations in 2024. The amount of praise heaped onto Nic Scourton and Shemar Stewart was suffocating. This year, the Aggies don't have either of them around. Instead, they have three defensive line starters who played in all 13 games last year and a Florida transfer who played in 12 games for the Gators. So, the experience is there. And there is an expected but not overdramatized improvement coming from all four players, especially redshirt senior Cashius Howell. ESPN NFL Draft analyst Jordan Reid listed Howell as a "huge breakout candidate" in 2025. It's not Scourton and Stewart levels of hype, but it's something. And Howell is certainly someone for Notre Dame to keep in check. "Remember the name," Reid wrote of Howell. "You won't find his name on many preseason watch lists. Waited his turn behind Scourton and Stewart. Turn on the USC tape. Explosive, natural pass rusher. Effective spin move." — Tyler Horka Texas A&M defensive end Cashius Howell compiled 40 total stops with 9 tackles for loss and 4 sacks in 2024. PHOTO COURTESY TEXAS A&M ATHLETICS Three Things To Know About Texas A&M