The head coaches of No. 10 Texas A&M and Arizona State agree on one thing: Both schools face much bigger challenges this Saturday.
One week after thrashing lesser foes, the Aggies and Sun Devils step up in competition when they square off in nonconference action at College Station, Texas.
Texas A&M (1-0) rolled to a 50-0 victory over Missouri State in Week 1 and the 67 yards allowed were the fewest in Mike Elko’s 27 games as Aggies coach.
Arizona State (1-0) smashed Morgan State 70-7 behind quarterback Cutter Boley’s stellar debut. The point total tied for second in school history behind the 79 scored against Colorado State in 1969.
Now the stakes increase for both schools.
“Games like this are important,” Elko told reporters. “I think they matter. I think they matter to our fan base. It’s going to be a huge challenge for us. This is a really talented team. This will be a really big challenge for us.”
Perhaps standing out most to Elko was the play of Boley, the Kentucky transfer who was 21-of-27 passing for 387 yards and six touchdowns in his debut with the Sun Devils.
Boley tied Andrew Walter (2004) and school legend Danny White (1971) for second-most TD passes in school history, one behind record-holder Mike Pagel (1981).
“It’s awesome to see him have success,” said Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham. “I’m glad he’s here. He’s a great person, awesome to coach on game day, and he’s got great energy.”
Boley had mixed results as Kentucky’s starter last season, throwing for 2,160 yards and 15 touchdowns against 12 interceptions.
But there were few problems against overmatched Morgan State as the Sun Devils also had three players top 100 yards receiving for the first time since at least 1996. Receiver Reed Harris led the way with 137, followed by running back Grayson Rigdon (110) and wideout Omarion Miller (102).
Elko certainly took notice of Arizona State’s offensive assault.
“This week will be a really, really big test for us,” Elko said. “We’re going to face a very talented offense.”
Texas A&M quarterback Marcel Reed began his third season as the starter by completing 21 of 30 passes for 233 yards and two touchdowns against Missouri State.
The Aggies are looking for Reed to build on a 2025 season in which he passed for 3,169 yards and 25 touchdowns against 12 interceptions.
“There were two drops, a couple of throwaways that I thought were throwaways and a couple of balls I’m sure he wished he’d thrown it better,” Elko said. “I thought there was a lot of progress in him going through progressions and reads. … Completing a high percentage of his passes was good.”
One of Arizona State’s challenges, in the eyes of Dillingham, is handling the atmosphere inside Kyle Field, which seats 102,733 fans.
“You got to be able to block it out,” Dillingham said. “Block out the noise. Take what you know and execute the play. All the other stuff is noise. It’s the definition of noise. We gotta be able to do our job as many times as we can do it, over and over again, as hard as we can for 60 minutes.”
The Aggies won the lone previous meeting 38-17 on Sept. 5, 2015, in Houston as they compiled nine sacks, including four from Daeshon Hall and two from now-NFL star Myles Garrett. Dillingham was then a 25-year-old offensive graduate assistant on Arizona State’s staff.
“I’ve tried to erase it from memory,” Dillingham said.
