COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — Texas A&M quarterback Marcel Reed is well aware that many see him as much more valuable as a runner than as a passer.
He spent the offseason working to change that.
“I know y’all have also heard it just like I’ve heard it: I’m not a passer,” he said. “But I feel like I’ve had tremendous growth in my passing this offseason. We’ve had some great receivers come in … I think I just feel a lot more confident back there. Finding ways to protect myself, knowing the offense a little bit better and just being confident as a quarterback.”
Reed started last season as Conner Weigman’s backup before earning the job in October. He threw for 1,864 yards with 15 touchdowns and six interceptions and ran for 543 yards and another seven scores as the Aggies went 8-4.
Weigman transferred to Houston this offseason and Reed went to work on improving to help No. 19 Texas A&M take another step this year in the second season under coach Mike Elko. Reed attended the Manning Passing Academy this summer, learning from Hall of Famer Peyton Manning and his brother and NFL veteran Eli Manning.
“You learn a lot of different things about ways to be a quarterback, just how you approach the game,” Reed said. “Peyton talked a lot about how he studied.”
Reed believes his offseason work will pay dividends this season.
“I feel like there’s another gear, another level I can take it to this year,” Reed said.
In camp, Elko has already seen improvement in his quarterback.
“There’s times where we’re getting through progressions better than we did with him at any point last year,” Elko said. “So those were the steps that we felt like he needed to take. Because a lot of times what you see as a bad throw, we see as the eyes not moving fast enough for the body or the eyes not in rhythm together and so poor mechanics because of that which sometimes leads to bad throws.”
Returning to protect Reed this season are veteran guard Ar’maj Reed-Adams and left tackle Trey Zuhn III.
Reed-Adams was named a first-team AP All-America Monday. He spent four seasons at Kansas before transferring to A&M last season and starting every game at right guard. Zuhn earned SEC third team honors last season and leads the team with 37 starts entering his fourth year as a starter.
Their work last season helped the Aggies finish as one of three teams in the Southeastern Conference to have 2,500 yards both passing and rushing.
Running back Rueben Owens returns after missing all but two games last season because of a foot injury. He sustained the injury in training camp and played in the regular season finale and Texas A&M’s bowl game despite not being 100%.
Elko believes Owens can be a boost to their running game after he ran for 385 yards and three touchdowns in limited work as a freshman in 2023.
“He understands how much he loves this game and he loves getting to do it, and his urgency to do is it at a really, really high level,” Elko said. “Every rep has probably stepped up, one, because (he’s) a year older, but probably because that’s what happens sometimes when it gets taken away from you like it did.”
The Aggies have a couple of veteran players returning to lead the defense in defensive back Will Lee III and linebacker Taurean York.
Lee earned SEC second team honors last season after ranking fifth in the conference with 10 passes broken up and 42 tackles. He also had two interceptions, including one that he returned 93 yards for a touchdown against Texas.
York, who was named to the second team on the preseason All-America team, led the Aggies with 82 tackles last season and ranked second with 9 ½ tackles for losses.
The Aggies open the season Aug. 30 with a visit from UTSA. A big early test comes Sept. 13 with a visit to No. 6 Notre Dame, which won 23-13 at Kyle Field to open last season. The Aggies open SEC play Sept. 27 against Auburn, the first of three consecutive home games. There's a tough stretch later in the season with a trip to No. 9 LSU on Oct. 25 and a visit from 13th-ranked South Carolina Nov. 15. The Aggies visit top-ranked archrival Texas on Nov. 28.
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FILE - Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko is seen during the second half of an NCAA college football game against Mississippi State, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, in Starkville, Miss. (AP Photo/Randy J. Williams,File)
FILE - Texas A&M's Marcel Reed (10) runs with the ball during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Auburn, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Auburn, Ala. (AP Photo/Stew Milne,File)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Wildlife crews are no longer actively searching for two juvenile gray wolves who were part of a pack that killed dozens of cows and calves last summer in Northern California’s Sierra Valley, an official said Tuesday.
The two wolves were members of the Beyem Seyo pack that in 2025 killed or injured at least 92 calves and cows in a seven-month period, according to a report released last week by two researchers with the University of California, Davis.
Wolves in the state are protected under California law and the federal Endangered Species Act. Under former President Joe Biden, officials said they planned a first-ever national recovery plan for wolves, but President Donald Trump’s administration ended that initiative in November.
In October, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced it had euthanized four gray wolves — three adults and a juvenile — from the Beyem Seyo pack after “an unprecedented level of livestock attacks across the Sierra Valley” by a single wolf pack since the canids returned to the state. It also said it planned to capture and relocate the remaining two wolves to wildlife facilities to prevent their behavior from spreading to other wolves in California.
Gray wolves primarily prey on wild animals like deer and elk, not livestock, but the pack became used to killing cows and calves, the department said.
“These wolves had become habituated to preying on cattle, a feeding pattern that persisted and was being taught to their offspring which would leave to form their own packs and could teach them the same cattle-preying behavior,” the department said at the time.
But following weeks of searching for the remaining two wolves, officials have “reduced efforts to capture” them, Katie Talbot, CDFW Deputy Director of Public Affairs, said in a statement.
“Despite best efforts from CDFW’s expert wolf biologists and law enforcement officers, we have not been able to find or get close enough to these young wolves to safely capture them,” Talbot said.
“We remain hopeful our continued remote monitoring will allow for sightings that will lead to safe capture of these juveniles,” she added.
Talbot said that CDFW crews will be working this week on capturing wolves and collaring them throughout the state, including in the Sierra Valley.
Wildlife officials tried for months to prevent the pack from attacking farm animals by using drones, nonlethal bean bags, installing flags or rope to deter them and having officers in the field 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but their efforts failed.
“The efforts that the (CDFW) made were tremendous and heroic but it was too late,” said Amaroq Weiss, senior wolf advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity.
She said that cattle ranchers in the area should have been taking proactive prevention measures for years, including increased human presence around the cattle, keeping the livestock bunched up instead of letting them loose on large grazing pastures, and calving at the same time of year that deer and elk are birthing so wolves have a source of wild prey.
“Ranchers in California have been on notice that wolves were coming since late December 2011, when we got our first wolf. They have been on notice they would establish packs since 2015,” when the first pack was confirmed in Siskiyou County, Weiss said.
Gray wolves were eradicated in California early in the last century because of their perceived threat to livestock, with the last known native wolf killed in 1924 in Lassen County. Since their reintroduction in Idaho and at Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s, they’ve proliferated throughout the West. The recovering population has meant increasing conflict with ranchers.
“It was a horrible summer here for everybody and the emotional strain was probably worse than the financial strain for most people. They did the right thing. We couldn’t go on living the way we were living,” said Rick Roberti, a cattle rancher in Plumas County and president of the California Cattlemen’s Association, who lost several animals.
Economist Tina Saitone and researcher Tracy Schohr said in UC Davis’ quarterly agricultural economics update released Friday that the Beyem Seyo pack killed more livestock than the entire wolf population of Montana killed in 2024 and the killings of farm animals by the wolves in Wyoming in 2023.
In Montana, the state’s 1,100 wolves killed 54 domestic animals in 2024, and Wyoming’s 352 wolves killed 49 livestock in 2023, the scientists said.
In California, about 70 gray wolves were responsible for 175 livestock kills between January and October of last year, with the Beyem Seyo pack responsible for half the killings, according to CDFW data.
Roberti said the attacks on livestock in Plumas and Sierra counties left many ranchers angry. He said he would like to see certain areas in the state declared “special zones” where people are allowed to hunt wolves that attack livestock.
“We’re pretty much in unison about thinking that it would help if we started taking out the ones that are just killing cattle and are too habituated to man or they’re not afraid of us,” he said.
The predators are a long way from recovery, Weiss said, adding that killing them is not a long-term solution.
“The scientific literature is pretty conclusory that killing wolves to resolve conflicts with livestock is not a solution. It can actually be counterproductive. It can result in there being more conflicts with livestock,” she said.
FILE - This remote camera image provided by the U.S. Forest Service shows a female gray wolf and two of the three pups born in 2017 in the wilds of Lassen National Forest in northern California on June 29, 2017. (U.S. Forest Service via AP, File)
