Last season, Texas A&M football came out of the blue and nearly made it to the College Football Playoff. Many people wrote the Aggies off after an early-season loss to Notre Dame, but Texas A&M found itself right near the top of the rankings before a pair of late-season losses against Auburn and Texas doomed those national title hopes.

One of the big moves that helped Mike Elko and company steady the ship in the middle of the season was the bold move to bench quarterback Conner Weigman in favor of Marcel Reed. Weigman came into the 2024 season as a potential NFL Draft pick, so this was a decision that took a lot for Elko to make.

While Reed has some strides to make as a passer, he added an extra dimension to the running game that made the Aggies much harder to defensively. Now, this offseason, he is taking some tips from Texas A&M legend Johnny Manziel to help him improve, via Alex Byington of On3 Sports.

“It’s great,” Reed said of his relationship with Manziel. “When you grow up watching college football, you think of Johnny Manziel for sure. And I’m just blessed to be able to come to this college and be able to speak with him. He gave me a little bit of knowledge on how him and Mike (Elko) connected, how they became so good.

“Like he mentioned, he watched a little bit of routes on air and he gave me some tips going into this season,” Reed continued. “I texted him back the other day ‘we’re slinging it out there,’ so what he told me helped a little bit. So we kind of took it out to routes on air, just trying to build a little connection a little bit stronger.”

Reed and Texas A&M football came in at No. 19 in the preseason AP poll, so expectations are high once again in College Station. Elko will be depending a lot on his veteran quarterback to make plays both on the ground and through the air, and Reed is hoping that the lessons he has taken from the former Heisman Trophy winner can help him take a big leap in 2025.

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