Jimbo Fisher applauds work from young players across the roster

One of the biggest storylines of the offseason was the recruiting success for Texas A&M. The Aggies and coach Jimbo Fisher brought in a highly rated group, and some of the new faces saw plenty of action in the season opener against Sam Houston State in Week 1.

Fisher sure sounded impressed by them, too.

Texas A&M brought in the No. 1 recruiting class in the nation, according to the 2022 On3 Consensus Team Recruiting Rankings. Part of the group were wide receivers Evan Stewart and Chris Marshall — both top-25 prospects, according to the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. Cornerback Denver Harris — another top-25 player — also saw notable action in the opener.

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Fisher had some high praise for his young stars after the game.

“You didn’t realize there were freshmen out there,” Fisher told reporters. “Guys played well. They caught the ball, they covered, they rushed, they blocked. Did the things that, you know, weren’t jumping out at you. … There was a lot of production. There was a lot of nerves early. You [saw] the look in their eyes. But once they got to playing, they were naturally doing things. Very productive. I don’t know how many of them played, but it was quite a few of them, I know that. Maybe as many as I’ve ever played, I would say. I’d have to look that up.”

As for the rest of the year, Fisher’s message for the highly touted freshman was simple: stay ready.

“They’re going to play,” Fisher said. “Freshmen now, the depth it takes to play in this league and building these guys to get them out there playing. Hopefully, they’ll keep playing each and every week.”

Jimbo Fisher goes in-depth with analysis of Haynes King’s performance

The performance of quarterback Haynes King in Texas A&M’s opener against Sam Houston State — a 31-0 win — was destined for further scrutiny. It’s the nature of the position. It was far from a perfect outing, but head coach Jimbo Fisher likes what he saw from the sophomore.

“And I tell him, ‘You’ve got to have aggressive intelligence.’ You’ve got to play aggressively intelligent. Listen, you can sit there and say ‘Don’t throw interceptions’ all day but we hit as many big plays as we’ve hit in a long time, too. There was a lot of balls down the field that were hit, there were a lot of catches down the field. And now we just gotta clean up,” Fisher said.