Former hot recruits meet again
Mond, Stidham share similar paths to current roles
COLLEGE STATION — Texas A&M’s Kellen Mond will take on Auburn’s Jarrett Stidham on Saturday at Auburn, the simplest thing about the quarterbacks’ intricate relationship and entangled past.
Keeping up with the twists and turns of Mond-Stidham is akin to catching A&M receiver Quartney Davis following a completion on a slip screen. It’s not easy, but here goes:
Stidham was enrolled at Baylor as a freshman when Mond pledged to play for the Bears in the summer of 2015. A year later and with Baylor engulfed in a sex assault scandal that cost coach Art Briles his job, Mond backed off his commitment to the Bears and instead chose the Aggies. Over Auburn.
“I had a really good relationship with coach (Gus) Malzahn, and pretty much all of the guys that played over there,” Mond said of his multiple visits to Auburn.
About a week after Mond’s verbal commitment to A&M, Stidham announced he was leaving Baylor, and the Aggies and thencoach Kevin Sumlin also began recruiting the former Stephenville High star. Sort of.
“Honestly, I probably recruited myself to A&M a little bit harder than they recruited me,” Stidham recalled.
Still keeping up? Mond was asked this week if he would have backed off his pledge to A&M had Stidham also committed to the Aggies in the winter of 2016. “No, not at all,” Mond said. Mond had starred at San Antonio’s Reagan High before playing his senior year of high school at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., with the intent of returning to his home state to play college ball. Stidham had hoped to stay instate all along in both high school and college, but wound up at Auburn as a January enrollee in 2017.
“Everything happens for a reason,” Stidham said.
Bringing us to Saturday, and the second meeting between Mond and Stidham at A&M and Auburn.
“He was getting recruited (to A&M) when I was committed, and when I was committed to Baylor he already was at Baylor,” Mond said with a wry smile this week. “We built a relationship, and he’s definitely a really good player, and an even better guy. It’s going to be fun to go against him.”
Stidham owns the early upper hand, following Auburn’s 42-27 victory at A&M a year ago. In that contest at Kyle Field, Sumlin replaced Mond with fellow freshman Nick Starkel in the second quarter.
Starkel, who had the benefit of a redshirt season while Mond was a true freshman at the time, had won the starting job that prior summer but suffered a foot injury in the season opener at UCLA. He wound up winning the job back in November, with Sumlin trying to do everything he could to save his job.
It didn’t work, and A&M finished the season 7-6.
Around that same time, Auburn and Stidham defeated eventual national champion Alabama to win the SEC West, but the Tigers lost to Georgia in the SEC championship game, and then lost to Central Florida in the Peach Bowl to wrap up a oncepromising season at 10-4.
Had Sumlin opted for the more SEC-ready Stidham over Mond two years ago, it might have saved the coach’s job last November. Still, the greener Mond (he’s a true sophomore while Stidham is a redshirt junior) appears to have more upside than Stidham, so the A&M recruiting choices in the winter of 2016 are still up for lively debate.
Stidham has struggled this season in losses to LSU, Mississippi State and Tennessee — two of those at home — with the Tigers plunging from the Associated Press top 10 to unranked.
Mond at times has looked exceptional (a 28-26 loss to then-No. 2 Clemson and a 26-23 win at South Carolina), and other times average (a 20-14 overtime win over then-No. 13 Kentucky and a 28-13 loss at unranked Mississippi State).
Last spring and with a more even playing field than a year prior, Mond outplayed Starkel in spring drills and then in August camp, to win the starting job under first-year coach Jimbo Fisher.
There’s little chance Fisher will yank Mond should he struggle at Auburn on Saturday, meaning his confidence should be at a much higher level than a year ago when Sumlin was under pressure.
“He’s much improved from last year, you can tell he’s comfortable,” Malzahn said of his one-time five-star recruit in Mond. “You have to account for his feet, and then he can throw it to some big, talented receivers.”
Meantime, Stidham repeated at least three times this week that he “loves to play Texas A&M.” Why is that?
“Because it’s A&M,” he said with a smile.