The Texas A&M Player With the Biggest Opportunity Created by an Offseason Departure

The offseason period in college football is quite the time of treachery.

Players declare for the NFL draft, or they might get injured, or they might even leave the program altogether and enter the transfer portal.

Coaches have to work around it all, filling in the holes left by the departing players, but it also gives the incoming and veteran players alike the chance to make their name heard before they also reach the higher level of play one day.

For the Texas A&M Aggies, who had a heap of departures over the course of the offseason, there is one player in particular who has the biggest chance to take advantage of one of those departures.

And that one player is Rueben Owens II.

Opportunity of a Lifetime?

Texas A&M Aggies running back Rueben Owens II (4) celebrates after rushing for a touchdown in the fourth quarter against the Arkansas Razorbacks at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The 2023 season saw Owens take a backseat role to the tandem of Le'Veon Moss and Amari Daniels, and he didn't even see the field for most of the 2024 season after a lower-body injury forced him to miss most of the season. He started a handful of games in 2025 after Moss was injured.

Now that Daniels is in the NFL and Moss' short tenure in the pros saw him retire just days after signing with the Miami Dolphins, the RB1 spot is now solely in Owens' possession.

Jamarion Morrow will be right behind him, and there is a chance that they could run the same tandem with the two of them that they did with Moss and Daniels, but with Owens' experience and the potential he showed in 2025, it would be mind-boggling to see Elko and the rest of the coaches put another name in the "RB1" slot of the offensive depth chart.

During his freshman season in 2023, the El Campo native toted the rock 101 times for 385 yards and three touchdowns, 66 yards during his injury-shortened 2024, and showed out with a team-leading 639 yards and five touchdowns, including a 102-yard performance against the Missouri Tigers that featured a 57-yard scoring run by the back.

Owens has even been critical of himself as the season inches closer and closer, wanting to limit his stumbling that he thinks prevented him from putting even more points on the board.

"When I break out this year, I need to stop stumbling. Like, that has to stop,” Owens said. “And I feel like this summer I worked on that. You know, worked on a lot of balance stuff because that's not good.”

Texas A&M hasn't seen a 1,000-yard rusher since De'Von Achane in 2022, and Rueben Owens could very well be on the way to breaking that slump for the Aggies.

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