First of all, Happy New Year! 2026 is the year for Aggie Football, I can feel it. Or at the very least, it will be a year.
But more importantly, the transfer portal officially opens on Friday, Jan. 2, which
means it’s high time we take a look at the departures from the current A&M roster and what they’ll likely need to fill them heading into next season.
Aggies with no remaining eligibility
- QB Jacob Zeno
- RB Amari Daniels
- RB Le’Veon Moss*
- RB E.J. Smith
- TE Nate Boerkircher*
- TE Amari Niblack
- OG Koli Faa’iu
- OG Ar’maj Reed-Adams*
- OT Dametrious Crownover*
- OT Reuben Fatheree
- OT Trey Zuhn*
- DT Tyler Onyedim*
- DT Albert Regis*
- DE Dayon Hayes*
- LB Scooby Williams*
- CB Tyreek Chappell*
- S Jared Kerr
- K Randy Bond*
- K Jared Zirkel
Aggies declaring early for the NFL Draft
- WR K.C. Concepcion*
- EDGE Cashius Howell*
- CB Will Lee III*
Aggies entering the transfer portal
- QB Miles O’Neill
- TE Theo Melin Ohrstrom
- EDGE Rylan Kennedy
- EDGE Solomon Williams
- LB Tristan Jernigan
- CB Jayvon Thomas
- S Bryce Anderson
- S Jordan Pride
*denotes 2025 starter
As you can see, A&M loses a ton off of the 2025 squad, with 13 offensive/defensive starters already departing, including the entire starting OL/DL and their best RB, WR and TE. And that’s with a few more players with decisions yet to be made (most notably, whether or not LB Taurean York departs early for the NFL). No matter how good your recruiting/development is, that’s a lot of production to lose in one offseason, so it will take a pretty impressive effort from this coaching staff to not see this team take a bit of a step back next season.
If there’s a silver lining, it’s that college football has never been better set up to reload quickly than it is right now, thanks to revenue sharing, NIL and the transfer portal. Plugging holes is not just about the next man up on the depth chart, but about what impact players you can get from other programs, whether that be other power programs or the G5 ranks. And with so many top players departing, the Aggies likely have a sizable NIL budget to allocate toward this year’s portal class.
There are several prized players who have already announced they will enter, including Auburn WR Cam Coleman and Utah EDGE John Henry Daley, that the Ags will likely pursue. There are also some familiar names for recruiting junkies like LSU OT Coen Echols and Colorado WR Drelon Miller, one-time A&M commits out of high school that could find their way back to College Station via the portal. And let’s not forget that there will almost certainly be impact transfers that none of us are particularly familiar with at this moment. I for one had never heard of Will Lee, K.C. Concepcion, Ar’Maj Reed-Adams or Cashius Howell until they were rumored to be transferring here, and they obviously played pivotal roles in A&M’s successes over the past two seasons.
The portal is still the wild west in many ways. There are players who announced plans to transfer who will stay at their current school, visits will be scheduled then canceled, players will be a lock to one place before committing to another. All you can do is trust that Mike Elko and his staff have a plan in place to bolster this roster and fill glaring needs for the coming season, and their track record thus far indicates that trust is likely well-founded.
Get ready for portal pandemonium beginning this weekend.
