‘Mr. Everything’ eyes comeback
Senior receiver/punt returner Smith missed 8 games in ’22 with leg injury
COLLEGE STATION — A year ago Texas A&M receiver and punt returner Ainias Smith was preparing to enter the season as a senior leader. Much has changed in 12 months, but one thing has not: Ainias Smith preparing to enter the season as a senior leader.
“Coming back is definitely something that I wouldn’t say was unexpected, but it definitely wasn’t part of the first plan,” Smith said of his intentions from a year ago. “I came back, and I’m very excited to be here. Spring is here and I’m ready to get going — ready to get back on the field.”
Smith, the Aggies’ Mr. Everything on offense, started the first four games of last season before he was sidelined the rest of the way with a lower leg injury. He was missed on multiple fronts, and part of the reason A&M dropped from 3-1 at the time of his exit to 5-7 and missing a bowl in coach Jimbo Fisher’s fifth season.
“I really just wanted to get back healthy,” Smith said of opting to use a redshirt last season and return for one more round in 2023, in ideally upping his NFL draft stock along the way. “The first few weeks after I got hurt I just wanted to walk — I wasn’t able to walk, I wasn’t even able to hobble around. … Then once I started walking a little bit, I just wanted to at least go out for a jog or a little run.
“I’m definitely just trying to get better each and every day.”
Smith, a former Dulles High star and younger brother of former NFL and current XFL cornerback Maurice Smith, said he’s been “grinding” to get back on the field this fall. The Aggies open their season on Sept. 2 at Kyle Field against New Mexico before playing at Miami a week later.
“I’m trying to get back right and get my explosiveness back,” Smith said. “It’s definitely been a journey … I feel good.”
The NCAA in the summer of 2021 began allowing college athletes to benefit from their names, images and likenesses (NIL), and Smith, whose nickname is “Sub Zero,” has an apparel line and is paid for extended interviews through the fan website TexAgs.com.
Smith said he did not add any extra NIL deals this winter when he decided to bypass entry into the NFL draft and return for one more season.
“Absolutely not, I haven’t signed anything,” he said. “I’m here on my own free will, and I’m just ready to work and get back on the field. I don’t really care for the money, for real. I’m just trying to ball.”
There was another big reason for Smith’s return and coming off a losing season, although the Aggies were two wins above .500 at the time of his injury: Trying to recapture some of A&M’s magic from 2020, when the Aggies finished 9-1 and No. 4 in the nation in a pandemic-shortened season.
Smith as a sophomore in 2020 led that team with 564 receiving yards, while adding 300 rushing yards on 49 carries. His 10 combined touchdowns through the air or on the ground topped that memorable A&M squad that lost only once: at eventual national champion Alabama early that season.
“The older guys held themselves accountable and to a different standard,” Smith said of what stood out to him about that 2020 team. “To where the younger guys had to hold themselves to that standard, or they were gonna get left behind. … Now that I’m in the shoes of the older guys I’m going to step up and do whatever it takes (to succeed), do whatever is necessary to go ahead and make sure everybody is on the same page.
“That nobody is slacking and making sure the locker rooms are clean — all the little things that everybody was saying last year that we needed to work on. Make sure that that this year we don’t have to worry about that.”
Receiver Moose Muhammad III stepped up in Smith’s absence over the Aggies’ final eight games and led the Aggies with four touchdown receptions. Despite missing two-thirds of A&M’s worst season since finishing 4-8 in 2008, Smith finished third with 291 receiving yards.
A&M returns its top four receivers in Evan Stewart, Muhammad, Smith and tight end Donovan Green, although the Aggies finished 12th in the 14-team SEC in passing yards with 2,633 behind quarterbacks Haynes King, Max Johnson and finally Conner Weigman.
King has since transferred to Georgia Tech and Weigman is expected to be the starter entering his sophomore season, but Fisher has said all jobs are open in the spring as the Aggies try and get back on a winning track.
“I feel like we’re going to make it … a mandatory, necessary standard to be able to ensure that our practice habits are going to be able to show in games,” Smith said. “I feel like that’s going to be different — our practice habits.”
Fisher nodded when relayed Smith’s sentiments about practice habits.
“That’s what it’s about,” said Fisher, who led Florida State to a national title 10 years ago. “That’s what any sport is about — that’s what anything is about. It’s about setting a level and being able to not (just) do it right — but practice it until you can’t do it wrong.”