Jimbo out at A&M ?

Why? Unless he's indicating privately he's gone, there are a lot of reasons.

1. He seems to love playing for this team and these coaches, and seems incredibly loyal to Harbaugh. If team falls short of goals this year, I can easily see him pulling Blake, especially knowing his return is probably the difference in a Top 5 team vs. a Top 20-ish team. 

2. He'll be a pre-season Heisman favorite (if not "the") and his NIL opportunity will only go up

3. The defense will be excellent next year again. I think a chance to be as good, but without the  same depth, barring portal adds at edge and interior DL

4. RB room will be down but still very good--and it's not like Corum and Edwards have set the world on fire this year. Unless Edwards does something special over next few weeks, not sure he has the draft stock he anticipated he'd have, and a decent chance of returning even though he doesn't want to. Even if he exits, I think the RB room will be fine to good with Mullings, Hall, Marshall, Cabana, and who knows, maybe even Kaapana is an early revelation.

5. Receivers? Maybe slightly down. CJ is fine, but I think Morris is a 1:1 replacement there, and eventually a greater than a 1:1 replacement.  Third-year Loveland better than 2nd year Loveland. 2nd year Morgan better than 1st-year Morgan, who is already a weapon. Wilson is big loss but I think they can find someone one in the portal to get another experienced receiver, if not as dynamic. Plus I think they'll find something in Moore, Clemons, English to replace a current Morris type contribution. Losing Barner hurts but with Marshall, Klein, Toninelli ... they have options and could easily land another older portal TE with impact. 

5. OL I think will be fine. Tackles have been decent this year, not great. I think decent next year is likely the floor floor. Guard play will probably be a downgrade, sure, especially relative to Zinter. But I think on several teams at Power 5 level, guys like El-Hadi and Andersen are starters, and Herring and Gentry could push to start next fall. Center will be fine if Crippen and Andersen are the options. And let's not forget, two years in a row they went out and grabbed impact OLs in the portal. Why couldn't they do it again to shore up any of the positions?    

6.  With the above, and with plenty of opportunity on the schedule (SOS), I think even with 2 losses, they have a good shot to make the playoff in new format. Actually better odds than this year, given the 12-team format. This year they have to be perfect, next year they don't.  

7. I don't know where JJ's draft stock is right now. I suspect he'll be a Round 1 pick, but where in Round 1?  If he plays lights out against OSU, and they make playoff and he plays lights out in a couple more games, he's probably a Top 10 pick. But he has Williams, Maye, Nix, Penix probably all ahead of him right now just at his position. Maybe mid to late round 1 is good enough for him.  But if he's not a projected early Day 1 pick, he could set himself up to be a top 10 pick next year, and maybe even the top overall pick.