Spring practice preview: QB
AggieYell.com’s look at the 2026 Texas A&M football team as it prepares for spring practice begins with a look at the quarterbacks.
Returning players:
Redshirt junior Marcel Reed
2025 stats: 232-377 (62.1%), 3,169 yards, 25 TD, 12 INT; 104 carries, 493 yards (4.7 YPC), 6 TD
Redshirt freshman Brady Hart
2025 stats: 5-10, 62 yards
Redshirt freshman Eli Morcos
2025 stats: Did not play
Departures
Redshirt sophomore Miles O’Neill (transferred to North Carolina)
2025 stats: 7-14, 120 yards, 1 TD, 2 INT
Graduate student Jacob Zeno (out of eligibility)
2025 stats: 2-5, 27 yards
Arrivals
True freshman Helaman Casuga
2025 stats: 210-307 (68.4%), 3,487 yards, 37 TD, 9 INT at Draper (Utah) Corner Canyon; 4-star recruit
Key questions
- Will Reed be able to shake off the struggles at the end of last season and take another step forward?
- Who will be the backup?
- Can Casuga compete for playing time immediately?
On paper, Reed’s 2025 season looks like an unqualified success. He was the first quarterback to throw for more than 3,000 yards in a season since Kellen Mond in 2019, he was responsible for a combined 31 touchdowns, threw for more than 400 yards twice and looked like a far more mature passer than he did a season ago.
Then the Texas game and the College Football Playoff against Miami happened. He completed 45 of 71 passes for a respectable 65%, but only threw for a combined 417 yards, didn’t throw a touchdown pass and was intercepted four times, including the game-ending interception in the Miami end zone. Reed looked like he’d regressed back into bad habits from 2024 and the doubters began to raise their voices again. The only way to silence them permanently would be to take another major step forward and remain at a consistently high level all season, a process that should have already started.
With the departure of O’Neill, the backup quarterback job is wide open. Hart is likely the favorite for the job, as he outplayed O’Neill last year as one of the youngest players in all of college football. The coaching staff must have a lot of confidence in Hart and Morcos, as they declined to pick up an experienced backup in the transfer portal.
Even though he’s the new kid on the block, Casuga showed he could light up elite competition at the high school level. He’s got a powerful arm and can make any throw you can think of, and he runs pretty well too. If he can adjust to college football speed in general and the SEC’s in particular, he could have a shot at the backup job — but that’s a lot to ask. Barring a lot of things going wrong or Casuga being remarkably well-adjusted to this level of competition, he’ll be redshirted this year (which is almost surely the plan).
