What hurt more than losing Williams and Sternberger was losing their center, McCoy. He is on track to be all-pro! Losing him really really hurt the Aggies OL.

They have a good back in Spiller but the problem is he is a true Freshman. They big two they planned on rely upon were Corbin and Vernon Jackson. The loss of those two to season ending injuries has hurt their running game tremendously. Especially Jackson. That one went down to a NSD nail biter between A&M and Bama. Kid is a stud and it is such a tragedy his career is now over on account of a neck injury in camp.

Fair enough. So Saban's predecessor left him with a lot of studs obviously. But here is one: it took Dabo four years to get to double digit wins. His third season at Clemson he was sub .500. My point stands. It often takes awhile. I know it is a cliche, but Rome Rome was not built in a day. In the 2021 season if A&M is not taking a serious move to elite SEC status, then talk to me. But he is only i year two of a multi-year rebuild. The worst part for him is that when Sumlin knew his days were numbered, his recruiting classes really took a nose dive. That was Sumlin's parting gift to A&M. It is easy to gain quick success when you have stacked classes. A&M has 41 five and four stars and Bama 68. Saban's success is directly tied to having more depth with quality players. Its more linked that that than anything else. Almost all coaches would be tremendously successful if they had Bama's roster. Given that once can only add abut 25 kids a year, this obviously takes time. It is not as if he can trade for great players the way a NFL coach can. That's why a NFL turnaround can happen really fast but it often takes years to do that at the college level.

I was surprised they did as well as they did last year since those were all Sumlin’s players. However, this is clearly a multi-year project. And their quarterback is too error prone and is constantly hurting their momentum. He is an anomaly. He is often a Hudini when he gets in trouble but he is very error prone.

Seems like the OP is trying to advance an anti-Jimbo Fisher narrative. I get it. He is loyal to a competing program. He should ask himself: would his hero Saban have done better with a roster full of Kevin Sumlin recruits? Not a single upperclassman was recruited by Fisher. Only one offensive lineman was recruited (a true freshman) and the QB was a Sumlin recruit. For goodness sake OP - it took Dabo four years to get Clemson to the 10 win mark and that was in a conference far weaker than the SEC. Aggies need to show patience. Given the nature of college football where everything turns on the quality of the program’s recruiting classes it can take years to build a winner. Look at Saban. He never had that good of team during his years at Michigan State and after that it took him some years to build a winner at LSU.

Texas conducted its affairs as if it were the flagship school of the state and A&M was an afterthought and were treated as such. Ags finally said enough is enough. Good for A&M. As Texas’ oldest public university and a school with a top 8 endowment it is not second fiddle to any Texas school. Indeed, UT is not the flagship school of the state of Texas. Rather, they are the flagship school of the UT system, just as A&M is the flagship school of the Texas A&M system — a system with more than 120,000 students. UT’s arrogance and self professed belief that they are the only school that really counts has made a mess out of the Big 12. It’s like having a neighbor who is supremely arrogant, meddling, haughty and rude. No one likes being in that person’s neighbor.

Two points: 1) Mond is improving by leaps and bounds; 2) the offensive line did not play up to part. A much bigger and athletic group than their opponents, they should have dominated more than they did. That said, there is no doubt A&M knew going in they were going to win big. They knew that because the talent disparity between the two programs is massive. When it’s like that, it may be hard for the offensive linemen to mentally get up for the prospect of playing up to their ability and totally destroying the guys sitting on the other side of the line of scrimmage.

Two points. First, he’s no doubt happy to be out of Oxford give the extreme penchant OM coaches and booster have had for cheating in recent years. Two, A&M already made its two most important hires in Jimbo Fisher and Buzz Williams. That means the job has become much less important than would otherwise be the case and if it doesn’t work out the man can be very easily replaced.

It's the curse of the #5 team in the final CFP. Being the odd man out turns out to be the kiss of death in the contest to follow. They are 1-4 in bowl games.

It was ranked below UGA for the obvious reason that the rankers view Georgia as the better team, but that they did not come to New Orleans to play. This is born out by some statistical evidence. The #5 team in the final CFP poll is 1-4 in bowl games. It is almost as if the #5 ranking is the kiss of death. I guess to get that close and then miss is just incredibly disappointed to these 18-20 year olds, and they allow that disappointment to impact their performance on the field. We all know that is true.

Well Silva thought enough of their application for membership to call an emergency meeting of the other SEC presidents. It was to make Texas to the SEC footprint and all the eyeballs that brings. It was also recognizing that A&M has quality athletic programs. No so much in football in recent years but in many other sports they've been among the nation's best. It was also a recognition that with the right coach, given A&M's location, resources and fan base they could be an elite fSEC football program. I mean, how many other programs could raise $740 million cash in a year to do a stadium remodel and facilities upgrades? By adding A&M, they added a school that clearly has the SEC's deepest pockets. It was also to add another AAU school to boost the SEC's academic reputation -- the other SEC presidents sure liked that.

No it triggered all the Trump haters.

You must not watch late nite TV or SNL. The so-called comedians on those shoes come off as dumb as a box of rocks.

gators should be #7. Then Texas and then UGA at #9.

Don't care. Georgia embarrassed itself and the entire SEC. Texas is a team that could not even beat Maryland. They are good but not that good. Quite clearly if the Georgia team that showed up in Atlanta and took Bama to the wire had showed up in the Sugar Bowl, Texas would have lost by 30+. That was not the team that showed up. From the get-go the dawgs seemed disinterested and unfocused. That is how a top four team loses to the 15th best team. All the talent in the world means very little if the folks with that talent are unmotivated, unfocused and undisciplined. Texas did not win that game as much as Georgia inexplicably gave it away.

I saw this coming a mile away. The Dawgs contest against tu was the ultimately trap game. Why do I say that? Consider that going into the game the #5 ranked team in the final CFP poll is 1-3 in bowl games. Now they are 1-4. These are not NFLers. The emotion of disappointment is really a powerful thing when talking about 18-20 year olds. Georgia the whole game acted disinterested and undisciplined. There is a reason for that.

lovingdagame, in this instance that was no home field advantage. The refs would have called it the same whether A&M was the home or the away team. I say that because the replay definitively shows that indeed his knee was down.

How can you tell. Not only has he only beaten three FBS teams with winning records but have you seen those Big 12 defenses? They are absolutely putrid. To boot all season long his team defeated no one of note. The highest ranked team they played all year sat at lowly # 14.

The truth is we have no idea how good a quarterback Murray is. I say that because he had not played against a team with a defense above the level of mediocre all season.

That was the most exciting game in college football history. You have to tip your hat to the Ags for never quitting and always believing in themselves. Have to tip your hat to LSU. They had every chance to win even taking those questionable calls out of the picture. They couldn’t and that’s on them. Plus those calls are reviewed by a three person panel in Birmingham. More proof the calls were correct.

A&M donors could and would come up the amount needed for his buyout in less than a week. A&M is a school whose big donors, of which there are many, have incredibly deep pockets.

Of course Mullen will taste success sooner. The East is just flat out easier than the West. Add to the mix, A&M has to play Clemson the next two seasons. The Aggies probably have the toughest scheduled in the country the next two seasons.

Oh, and I said unAmerican because that is the way America is set up. There is no set in stone hierarchy in college football. It is a meritocracy. If you were to put A&M's program in the hands of a person with vision, guts, knowedge and work ethic there is no ceiling. That is the way America works. It is a meritocracy and not a system of overlords. Of course, fans of the schools on top now would like you to believe it is that kind of system because it makes them feel better, but it isn't. That is not how America works, and it is certainly not how college football works.

The OP is unimaginative and frankly unAmerican. He is both because he acts as if there is some spirit that floats over the stadiums of the traditional elites. I remember well when FSU won only four games in three years in the 70's. I remember when the U was a joke in terms of football. What happened? Pretty simple, really. FSU got Bobby Bowden and the U got Howard Schnellerberger. Psssst....OP. Open your eyes: its the coach! A&M just has not had the right coach. A guy who is really good with the x's and o's and development. Every other possible ingredient is there and, in fact, they are in a far more advantageous than most of its SEC brethren. My hunch is that if A&M had Gary Patterson as their coach the last 10 years they would have already have won a couple of titles. Yes, it would have made that much a difference.

Came across this article. Hate to bump it forward but just feel the need to comment. Where the OP has it wrong is he makes it sound as if only SEC West teams have to go through Saban and the Crimson Tide. Actually, with the advent of the playoffs, everyone must in all likelihood deal with the crew from Tuscaloosa. Might as well then get up close and personal with them. A&M has the resources to go toe to toe with them if it had the right coach who is both a top recruiter and insists on excellence from his players. For that reason, if I'm Chip Kelly I would welcome the opportunity to coach at TAMU if they agreed to give me the resources needed to build a winner.

I agre TxnG8r. The reality is they seriously overpaid him. Not Sumlin's fault because a person should try to get as high as possible pay as he can. It was A&Ms fault for not being better evaluators of coaching talent before offering him that big contract. It should have been obvious that the success he had early on in his career at A&M was due to being gifted an amazing quarterback, receiver and offensive line. It should have really been apparent when you consider all of the major gains made in 2012 by the quarterback coming out of busted plays.

Putting Bama at the top with that extremely boring design is ridiculous. Here are my top 3, in order: Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia. FSU has the best helmet in the country IMHO.

There is a certain irony in the OP saying that aTm reminds him of the initials for an automatic teller machine. Makes sense. The place is like a money machine! Lol! Consider that not only does TAMU have the largest endowment in the SEC by a mile, but payscale.com shows that on average its grads make the second most salary than the grads of any other school in the State of Texas except Rice. A&M spends more on average on its students than any other public university in the State of Texas (that includes UT- austin -- while the horns' system endowment is larger, then again, the UT system has a slew of system universities with 25K+ with whom it must share as well as a four medical schools and major cancer research center in Houston with whom it must share, thus bringing UT-austin's average expenditures per student way down). Moreover, TAMU grads on average make more than any other university in the Southeastern Conference. Finally, A&M has more Fortune 100 CEOs than any other university except Michigan (it is tied with Michigan in that ranking). So yes, it rains money for a lot of Aggie grads.

Agreed PDADawg. Both are great towns. However, I frankly liked Austin more about 20 years ago because the place has grown so much and I prefer having more elbow room. Metro Austin is pushing more than 1.7 mil and still growing like crazy.

And I wish SDS had an edit function for comments. I misspoke. A&M is not the oldest school in Texas. I believe that distinction belongs to Baylor. However, it is the oldest public university in the state.