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As we all know its never too early to start boning up on your college football knowledge, especially with spring ball right around the corner. With that in mind Collegefootballnews.com is running down some 2009 lookbacks and early 2010 lookaheads and I thought it'd be good for us all to join them. And just to show I'm a good sport we'll finish the week with everyone's favorite in the greater Bryan/College Station area: the Texas A&M Aggies. Hullabaloo

Texas A&M Aggies

2009 Recap: The Aggies started out well with three offensive explosions against New Mexico, Utah State, and UAB, and then reality, and the schedule, kicked in. The offense wasn’t great against the better teams, for the most part, but the defense was worse as A&M struggled even more with its consistency. Arkansas, Oklahoma State, and Kansas State went ballistic in wins, and then the Aggie attack got its groove back and obliterated Texas Tech to start a run of five games in six scoring 34 points or more. But as explosive as the O continued to be, the defense was never able to hold up its end of the bargain allowing 65 points to Oklahoma and 49 to Texas as part of a rough November losing three of the final four games of the regular season. The defensive troubles continued in the Independence Bowl getting run over by Georgia to cap off the slide, but as bad as things might have been, it was a fun, interesting year that showed that things are going in the right direction.

Offensive Player of the Year: QB Jerrod Johnson
Defensive Player of the Year: DE Von Miller

Biggest Surprise: Texas A&M 52, Texas Tech 30. The season was starting to go into a nosedive after losing three straight including a 62-14 clunker to Kansas State. And then everything came together in the team’s best performance of the season as Cyrus Gray scored four times and the defense forced five Red Raider takeaways. Tech threw for 456 yards and two touchdowns, but it wasn’t nearly enough as the Aggies overcame a 14-7 first quarter deficit to win the final three quarters 46 to 16.

Biggest Disappointment: The defense never got better. It wasn’t expected to be a brick wall, and it wasn’t as it struggled to find any one area that worked other than getting into the backfield. The run defense gave up 208 yards or more in three of the final four games, allowed 200 passing yards or more in nine games, and was never consistent. If the defense could’ve been just a little bit better and a little more productive, and wasn’t the worst in the Big 12 in total D and scoring defense, the season might have been far different.

Looking Ahead: The Aggies will be entertaining again, if nothing else. The fun-bad team of 2009 will put up a ton of yards and a bazillion points against the average defenses with QB Jerrod Johnson about to break out into national stardom and a tremendous group of playmakers around him. The offensive line needs work, but the attack will still be among the nation’s best. The defense won’t stop anyone again, but it’s experienced and it should be camped out in opposing backfields again with Von Miller leading the way. Expect a lot of 45-40 shootouts.

Why to get excited: Johnson and Miller might be the two best players in the Big 12, or at least they’ll be the two most exciting. Johnson will almost certainly lead the conference in passing and total offense, while Miller could end up leading the country in sacks. Everything will be working around these two playmakers as the offense will almost certainly be among the top five in the nation, and the defense will likely be one of the best in college football at getting into the backfield and to the quarterback.

Why to be grouchy: After a light and breezy start, the schedule gets extremely nasty in a big hurry. In a six game midseason stretch, the Aggies face five teams that went bowling last year and the sixth game is at Kansas. Throw in games against Missouri and Nebraska from the North, and a road trip to Texas to close things out, and there will be no margin for error if the Aggies want to go bowling.

The number one thing to work on is: Find a defensive strength. The pass rush will be great once again, but the production into the backfield didn’t matter last year when it came to the pass defense, and the front seven was ripped through by anyone who could run with any skill. The Big 12 passing games should be ahead of the running games again, so the key might be to do more to protect against the short to midrange passes and take the chance that teams won’t be able to rock with the run. The D has to try something new and will have to take more chances.

Biggest offensive loss: OT Lee Grimes
Biggest defensive loss: FS Jordan Pugh
Best returning offensive player: QB Jerrod Johnson
Best returning defensive player: DE Von Miller

Top Five Prospects
OL Luke Joeckel 6-6 280 Arlington, TX
OL Jake Matthews 6-5 275 Missouri City, TX
RB D.J. Jones 5-11 210 Denison, TX
OL Cedric Ogbuehi 6-5 270 Allen, TX
DT Jonathan Mathis 6-3 292 Brenham, TX