With added weight, A&M is ready to see if Scourton was worth the wait

For Nic Scourton, it was just a matter of weight and see.

We’ll find out if Scourton was worth the wait.

The early returns indicate he absolutely is.

“Nic Scourton is having a really good spring,” Texas A&M coach Mike Elko said last week. “I think he’s going to have a big impact on our team.”

The Aggies certainly hope so.

Last season, A&M posted 42 sacks, which was the eighth-highest total in the nation.

But more than half of those sacks were recorded by players no longer on the team.

Scourton, a transfer from Purdue, certainly has the ability to replace a significant amount of lost production.

Last year, Scourton led the Big Ten with 10 sacks. That’s impressive on its own, but it’s even more impressive because only one other Boilermaker had more than 2.5 sacks.

No doubt, every Purdue opponent designed its pass protection to account for Scourton.

There seemingly is no question Scourton can boost A&M’s pass rush.

The question is, why did A&M have to wait for him?

He attended Bryan High School for crying out loud.

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Scourton was a second-team All-Big Ten pick last fall despite leading the league in sacks.

But the reality in the Southeastern Conference is size does matter.

When he was 18 years old, Scourton did not have SEC size, and it was not assured he could grow enough to be effective.

Elko was A&M’s defensive coordinator then. He remembers liking everything about Scourton as a recruit…except his numbers on the scale.

Three years and 80 pounds later, Scourton certainly belongs.

“Obviously, he was mad at me because we didn’t offer him coming out of high school,” Elko said. “I said if you had told me you were going to look like this three years later, it would have been a lot easier for me.

“He was an extremely athletic kid, and coach (Ross) Rogers spoke very highly of him. Just from a size standpoint, it was a hard projection.”

Elko estimated Scourton was about 200 pounds when they first met.

By his senior year, Scourton was up to 220 pounds.

He eventually put 250 pounds on his 6-foot-3 frame.

But Elko left A&M to be head coach at Duke. It was also the 2022 recruiting class. A&M’s class was ranked No. 1 in the country. It was infested with five-star defensive linemen who were bigger than Scourton.

Of course, Purdue has a history of success with players that A&M didn’t recruit. Does the name Drew Brees ring a bell?

Mark Hagen, a former Texas A&M assistant coach who’s now at Louisville, was at Purdue that year. He ran point on Scourton’s recruitment.

“I personally thought he was under recruited,” Hagen said. “I think we were the only Power Five school to go in on him.

“He really made a name for himself throughout his senior season. He played really good football. He went to the Army All-American game and it seemed like every day he was one of the guys turning a bunch of heads.

“We went into Texas and stole one. He was a diamond in the rough.”

It didn’t take long for that diamond to shine in West Lafayette.

“From day one watching him on the practice field you knew he was a guy that was going to play,” Hagen said. “We knew he was just scratching the surface. I knew year two for him was going to be a big season. Obviously, he had a great season.”

Purdue’s loss is A&M’s gain.

“To his credit he’s a completely different human right now,” Elko said. “What he’s done to his body, the work he’s put in in the weight room, how he’s developed, what he looks like. He’s a grown man out there playing football right now.

“He’s got tremendous strength, tremendous power. All of those athletic traits you really liked from him in high school now exist in a kid that weighs 280 pounds.”

He’ll be demonstrating those traits in A&M’s spring game on Saturday.

More importantly, he’ll be showing them throughout the fall.

We can’t wait.