The 2024 college football season presents an entirely new landscape. Texas is in the SEC. SMU is back in a power conference as ACC members. The College Football Playoff now includes 12 teams and an automatic bid for the best G5 team in the land. For most, the start of the season is in Week 1 on August 30, though SMU starts in Week 0 and TCU plays its first game on Aug. 29. 

To celebrate us making it through another off-season, we’re counting down the 50 most important players in Texas as we inch closer to kickoffs. This list isn’t necessarily about which players are the best in terms of NFL draft stock. It ranks players in order of importance to their team's success. 

NO. 3: TEXAS A&M EDGE Nic Scourton

The History: Scourton is the latest example in a larger trend of Texas high school football athletes transferring back to the Lone Star State after initially leaving. Scourton was a four-star out of Bryan High School who led the Big Ten last season with 10 sacks at Purdue. He was the crown jewel of Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko's first transfer portal class. 

The Skillset: Scourton was a hyper athletic high school recruit who has grown to 6-foot-4, 285 pounds over two collegiate seasons. He played standing up on the edge of Purdue's defense, but expect Scourton to stick his hand in the dirt for the Aggies. There, he can win with multiple pass rush moves, as evidenced by his 21.3% pass-rush win rate last season, which ranked ninth among edge defenders. 

The Impact: Scourton's seven tackles and 3.5 tackles for loss in the Texas A&M spring game provided a preview of his game-wrecking ability. He's earned AP Second Team All-American and Second Team All-SEC nods ahead of 2024, and ESPN's Field Yates projected him as the ninth overall selection in the 2025 NFL Draft in his way-too-early mock draft. Texas A&M finished seventh in the nation with 3.23 sacks per game, but linebacker Edgerrin Cooper provided a blitz factor that the Aggies don't have a surefire replacement for. Expect a more dynamic rush presence from the line of scrimmage with Scourton.