Best Texas A&M football players: Modern-era Mount Rushmore

Myles Garrett might be the most controversial inclusion on this Texas A&M modern-era Mount Rushmore for a number of reasons. For one, he never submitted an overly dominant single season in terms of his pass-rushing production as his career-high for sacks in a year was 11.5, which is impressive, but not among the 10 best single-season totals in school history. Throw in the fact he was limited to 10 games as a junior and some hold that against him.

The other factor that people will hold against Garrett is the fact that the Aggies weren’t particularly great when he was with the program. The best Texas A&M team that the defensive end was a part of finished just 8-5 on the season. That, however, was not the fault of Garrett. In fact, you could argue the limited supporting cast around him was also a cause for his lack of otherworldly production.

But to say that Garrett was unproductive would be doing him a disservice. Garrett came to the Aggies as the top-rated recruit in the history of the program and met expectations immediately as he registered 11 sacks as a freshman. He followed that up with 11.5 sacks and 19.5 tackles for loss as a sophomore and finished his career with 8.5 sacks and 15 tackles for loss as a junior.

Playing only three years and being limited by the team around him and late-career injuries, Garrett is still sixth all-time in career sacks for the Aggies with 32.5 and was a one-time Consensus All-American selection. Eventually, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft, anyone arguing Garrett doesn’t belong in the top four simply wasn’t watching him perform.