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Trevor Knight isn’t a long term solution, but he’s necessary in the short term at Texas A&M

Texas A&M needed a QB. Trevor Knight needed a place where he could start. A perfect match?

By Tom Stephenson
NCAA Football: Oklahoma at Oklahoma State Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

As a redshirt freshman at Oklahoma in 2013, Trevor Knight had a fine debut, completing 59 percent of his passes (albeit for just 6.1 yards per attempt) with 9 touchdowns to only 5 interceptions.

As a sophomore, though, Knight’s completion rate declined to 56.6 percent and he threw for 14 touchdowns, but also tossed 12 interceptions. And then Knight lost his starting job to Baker Mayfield, who transferred in from Texas Tech and walked on the team (and finished fourth in Heisman voting, but who’s keeping score?)

In short — Knight wasn’t getting his starting job back at Oklahoma. Meanwhile, Texas A&M — after Kyle Allen and Kyler Murray both transferred out of the program, and Jake Hubenak looked iffy in a start against Louisville in the Music City Bowl — badly needed a quarterback. Not a long-term solution, but a stopgap until they can develop a new one.

That’s where Knight comes in.

But let’s not be mistaken: Knight’s career at Oklahoma was not terribly impressive. His completion percentage declined all three years, as did his touchdown-to-interception ratio. We probably shouldn’t expect too much from Knight in 2016. But the way that Texas A&M’s last couple of years have gone, they would take Knight simply finishing the year as the starting quarterback.

It’s important, because after Knight, there’s Hubenak, there’s senior former walk-on Conner McQueen, and there’s true freshman Nick Starkel. We would guess that Starkel is being groomed to be the starter but isn’t going to be ready this year.

So what should we be expecting from Knight? A competent yet somewhat frustrating quarterback; he’ll get the ball to the Aggies’ playmakers in Christian Kirk and Speedy Noil (among others), but if the past is any indication he’ll throw a few passes that wind up in defenders’ hands. At this point we would probably guess that Knight is who he is.

Circumstances, not talent, make him an important player for Texas A&M this year.

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