Does Texas A&M Have a Kicker Problem?

Texas A&M completed the largest comeback in program history after storming back from 27 points down to miraculously pull off a 31–30 victory.

But before the celebration, the Aggies dug themselves into that deep hole, and it wasn’t just turnovers and flat-out bad football. One of the biggest reasons Mike Elko’s squad fell behind was the rough afternoon from its starting kicker, Randy Bond.

Bond, a graduate student, missed a 45-yard field goal that would have cut the deficit to 10–6. To make matters worse, he later pushed a freebie 24-yard field goal that kept South Carolina ahead by 17 points. That attempt came immediately after a Dalton Brooks interception that breathed life back into the Aggies. In one kick, that momentum evaporated.

Bond has been notorious for struggling in the 40 to 49 yard field goal window. Across his four years as a starter, he is 18 for 31 from that distance, a 58 percent clip. Before today, he was 4 for 6 in that range. Make that 4 for 7 after today.

To put that into perspective, a 58-percent probability is technically “likely,” but it is barely better than a coin toss. Here are a few things more likely to happen than Bond hitting from the 40-49 yard range.

The inconsistency has been there throughout his career. In 2023, he went 26 for 36, including six misses from that infamous 40 to 49 yard range.

He followed that with an impressive bounce-back year in 2024, making 20 of 24 attempts. He went 7 for 9 from the 40 to 49 range, which suggested he may have finally erased that weakness.

But in 2025, the issue has resurfaced, and this time it has spread beyond the long-range kicks. Bond has attempted 15 field goals and has made only 10 of them, a 66.7 percent mark.

At the beginning of the season, Elko announced that Georgia transfer Jared Zirkel would be the starter. Elko even said Zirkel had been “phenomenal” throughout the offseason and won the kicking job “by a wide margin.”

After Zirkel suffered an injury, Bond reclaimed the starting duties.

Whether it was a confidence hit after losing the job or just a continuation of an old flaw, the struggles have been apparent since his first start of the season against Notre Dame. Bond missed a 52-yard field goal that would have extended the halftime lead to 7. The trend continued against Auburn, where he missed two kicks on back-to-back drives, then another 40-yard attempt against Florida, and now two costly misses against South Carolina that made an already difficult comeback even harder.

But hey, on the bright side, if he hadn’t missed those two, the Aggies wouldn’t have pulled off the biggest comeback in school history.