Mond running out of time
Barring improvement, senior may not be Aggies’ starting quarterback next season
Texas A&M quarterback Kellen Mond described his first half against Oklahoma State in the Texas Bowl as “some of the worst football that I can play.”
Mond will find few to argue his self-deprecating estimation. But the Aggies’ three-year starter, as he’s done multiple times, responded with a solid second half and A&M pulled out a 24-21 comeback victory over the No. 25 Cowboys on Friday night in NRG Stadium.
“When you play quarterback, a lot of times when things don’t go your way perfectly, it’s easy to get frustrated,” A&M coach Jimbo Fisher said. “It’s a great sign of maturity when you don’t. And you do the things each and every play to give yourself a chance to win, when you’re not playing your best.
“I like to measure players when they’re not playing their best. Everybody’s good when they’re playing good. If you’re not playing as good early, and you’re able to battle back, that’s the type of player (I like).”
What Mond, a grinder and level headed leader, managed was good enough against a middling program from the Big 12, and the Aggies (8-5) were favored to beat the Cowboys (8-5) by about a touchdown.
Performances like Friday weren’t good enough during the regular season, however, in the Aggies’ five losses to ranked teams, and they won’t be good enough in 2020 if Mond doesn’t make significant improvement springing into his senior season.
It’s why redshirt freshman Zach Calzada, Mond’s primary backup, is expected to give Mond a fight for the starting job in the offseason. Last offseason Fisher declared all positions up for grabs, including quarterback.
Quarterback, punter (Braden Mann) and defensive tackle ( Justin Madubuike) were the positions that truly were not up for grabs in 2019 — now all three should be with the departures of Mann and Madubuike to the NFL. Why will Mond surprisingly to some have his hands full with a battle at quarterback?
Calzada, who owns the strongest arm of any A&M slinger in memory, has a year of college experience under his belt in Fisher’s system. Mond is intimately familiar with the storyline.
Mond arrived at A&M in January 2017, and didn’t quite have enough time to compete with Nick Starkel, who in 2016 had redshirted as a freshman, for the starting job that fall of ’17. Mond wound up starting eight games as a true freshman, however, when Starkel broke his foot in the season opener at UCLA.
With a year-and-a-half of college experience in the summer of 2018, Mond beat out Starkel, his elder by a year, in a vigorous competition for the Aggies’ starting gig. Mond, one of the top dual-threat quarterbacks in the class of 2017, has since started both seasons under Fisher.
Faced with one of the nation’s toughest schedules and behind a troublesome offensive line, Mond took a step back this season. Last year he threw for 3,107 yards with 24 touchdown passes and nine interceptions.
This year he threw for 2,897 yards with 20 touchdown passes and nine interceptions. Last year he rushed for 544 yards, this time he gained 501 yards on the ground, both times finishing second on the team. The Aggies overall, too, regressed record-wise from 9-4 in 2018 to 8-5 this year.
Fisher, 17-9 in two seasons at A&M, has made it clear he’s a big fan of Mond. He’s also a fan of winning and building a winner, evidenced by his 2013 national title at Florida State and three consecutive ACC titles along the way.
That’s why Fisher will throw open the quarterback job, and give Calzada every opportunity to capitalize on his year-and-a-half of experience in the program as of August. Calzada played in three games this season — Texas State, Lamar and UTSA — and completed half of his 24 passes, while tossing two touchdown passes to go with an interception in limited time.
Calzada, too, will be listed as a freshman in 2020 after redshirting by not playing in more than four games under the relatively new redshirt rule. For those figuring touted incoming freshman Haynes King of Longview will make his way into the quarterback tussle this summer — remember that Jameis Winston redshirted at FSU under Fisher in 2012 behind E.J. Manuel, before winning the Heisman Trophy and a national title the next season.
Fisher is willing to be patient with developing his quarterbacks, and chances are Mond will prevail in August. That doesn’t mean there will be no competition, and Fisher figures a quarterback battle will lead to one thing: The player who gives the Aggies the best chance to finally compete for an SEC title, eight years following their Big 12 exit.