COLLEGE STATION — Marcel Reed knew he hadn’t done enough after the Texas A&M Aggies fell to the visiting Texas Longhorns in the first iteration of the renewed Southwest Classic.

He knew how bad it looked, especially with his offense failing to reach the end zone despite several chances in the red zone. He just didn’t know What that’s what went wrong.

“I have to go back and watch,” he said after the match. “I don’t know where we missed, where I missed. I feel like the defense played a great game…we didn’t execute.

A veteran “sideline minder” watching from the end zone at Kyle Field might have said that, too.

During the fourth quarter – when Mike Elko was debating his fourth-and-goal after a blocked punt – the aggressive fan was the one calling for the Maroon & White to run the ball up the middle. Little did he know that he was about to get his wish.

And it wasn’t going to work.

“The game we announced didn’t work at all,” Elko said. “It wasn’t good enough…I stand by the fact that if we’re going to be the team we need to be, we have to be able to convert on fourth-and-1s.

“We have to, and obviously we haven’t.”

Was the fan wrong to suggest such a play? For Elko, not at all. For now, this seems like the best option, although the jury is out on whether a more “creative” piece would have worked better. Reed himself, however, chose not to jump into the fire with this debate.

“We practice things like this all the time,” the quarterback said. “I’m not going to say we should have organized something different. I’m not the one making the calls. We didn’t get it. That’s the main thing.

Whether it’s a decision as big as trusting the play call for the second time on fourth down, despite a previous failure on the Aggies’ first offensive possession, or a smaller decision like tying his feet in the backfield to signal a running play, Reed failed to bring Texas A&M to victory.

Since he was named a full-time starter, this result was subtly written on the walls.

When Reed was the No. 1 option for the Aggies early in the season while Conner Weigman was sidelined with multiple injuries, it was a mix of surprise and facing lesser teams that inflated its success.

Reed took down a then-struggling Florida team (the Gators were still figuring out what to do). their what the quarterback situation looked like), did just enough to fend off Bowling Green at home and took care of business in Arlington, Texas, in a very competitive contest against Arkansas.

None of those wins — beyond Florida, which finished bottom two in the SEC in opponent yards per game and touchdowns per game — seemed completely convincing.

At that point, it was Weigman’s turn to return as the Aggies’ No. 1 quarterback option. On his own, he handled Missouri and Mississippi State brilliantly, but had to be saved by Reed, who was seemingly unstoppable as a mobile quarterback, when he struggled against LSU.

From that point on, it was clear that Texas A&M had two options: stick with Reed or play him and Weigman in different ways. He opted for the former and made it to the final three SEC contests.

“He’s a starter now,” Elko said of Reed after the win over LSU. “(Now) we’ll see where we go.”

He lost all three of them.

With Reed in the film, teams were no longer surprised by his mobile style of play. Add to that the fact that they had better defenses – with the exception of Auburn, whose victory was more a testament to the Aggies’ total offensive stagnation than to his own defensive prowess – and he wasn’t able to implement consistent workouts.

Against South Carolina, that started to become clearer. But against Texas?

It could very well have been featured on the Jumbotron.

“It’s hard to run a passing game when the other team knows you can’t run a running game,” Reed said. “It killed us tonight.”

Elko explained that the Aggies’ offensive struggles weren’t the result of incompetent personnel, and he’s not wrong. Reed is likely to be a major threat for the Aggies starting next season, especially with an offseason to work on his arm, and Texas A&M will work to develop the weaponry around him in order to create a unit much more complete next season.

Unfortunately for the dreamers who saw the Aggies 5-0 atop the SEC in November, they just weren’t there this year.

“We didn’t get where we wanted to go,” Reed admitted, “but we made huge progress from last year…we’ve come a long way.”

Although an 0-3 finish to their conference slate will “haunt” the Aggies, they have made progress from the previous year. Elko proved to be a voice of reason throughout the season and helped change the culture around the program that was lacking under Jimbo Fisher.

Now he has a budding leader in Reed who is poised to make as much of an impact off the field as he does on it.

“Being able to be a leader and be followed by the team,” Reed began. “As the season went on, more and more people felt comfortable with the position I was in. I feel like I made progress this year in that area. “

As the Texas A&M bowl game approaches, he’ll continue to do so. The version of him on display Saturday night may be front and center again, but it gives him a foundation to build on.

When next season rolls around, the best-case scenario is clear: Marcel Reed will be a dangerous dual threat and the Aggies will have a cohesive offense. Maybe then Reed will keep his promise to bounce back.

And he hopes that’s the only predictable thing about him.

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