{"id":245310,"date":"2026-04-11T17:39:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T17:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/245310\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T17:39:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T17:39:09","slug":"observations-from-final-open-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/245310\/","title":{"rendered":"Observations from final open practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

COLLEGE STATION \u2014\u00a0\u00a0Notes and observations from Thursday’s final open practice for Texas A&M spring football:<\/p>\n

It’s taken a few weeks of spring ball for him to pop, but former Tulsa linebacker\u00a0Ray Coney<\/a> stood out.<\/p>\n

The senior linebacker was all over the field, making plays, commanding the defense and disrupting the offense’s flow. On the first snap of the team period, Coney sank into his zone and defended wide receiver Isaiah <\/a>Horton<\/a>\u00a0almost\u00a0perfectly. As Horton made the catch and took two steps, Coney punched the ball loose, resulting in a drive-ending fumble.<\/p>\n

Earlier in camp, defensive coordinator Lyle Hemphill<\/a> spoke about Coney’s progress as he gets acclimated to the\u00a0Aggies’\u00a0scheme and the learning curve that comes with it. Ten practices into the spring, it seems the former first-team All-American Conference linebacker has found his stride.<\/p>\n

After waiting behind\u00a0Tyreek Chappell<\/a>\u00a0last season, Jordan Shaw<\/a> has entered the spring with a chance to claim the starting nickel spot in the\u00a0Aggies secondary. And he’s looked strong.<\/p>\n

The former Washington Husky has been going toe-to-toe with wide receiver Mario Craver<\/a> for weeks, and Thursday, Shaw got the best of his A&M compadre.<\/p>\n

On more than one occasion during team period and in seven-on-seven, Shaw deftly mirrored the shifty Craver. Onlookers recorded at least three pass breakups\u00a0Thursday, as well as a drive-ending interception during a team period session.<\/p>\n

The comfort of being in his second season with the defense is evident. He’s been vocal and smooth all spring, with Thursday serving as an exclamation point for the work done thus far.<\/p>\n

Marcel Reed has been consistent\u00a0in every session available to reporters, and Thursday was no different.<\/p>\n

In the red zone, Reed was efficient, scoring multiple touchdowns to a variety of wide receivers. During team periods, he was talkative, supportive and strong in his decision-making. In the seven-on-seven sessions, he was nearly flawless, finding the open man and throwing with good ball placement and touch for chain-moving plays.<\/p>\n

After struggling to end the 2025 season, he’s been noticeably sharper and cleaner in his mechanics.<\/p>\n

What he does on Saturdays in the fall will ultimately matter most, but the early success is encouraging for\u00a0Aggieland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COLLEGE STATION \u2014\u00a0\u00a0Notes and observations from Thursday’s final open practice for Texas A&M spring football: It’s taken a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[261,262,266,82204,27,259,6992,29,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-245310","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-college-football","9":"tag-college-football-playoff","10":"tag-sec-football","11":"tag-spring-football","12":"tag-texas","13":"tag-texas-am-aggies-football","14":"tag-texas-am-football","15":"tag-texas-headlines","16":"tag-texas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}