Hahaha. The likelihood of Arkansas leaving the SEC to come back under UTex's control (remember why they left the SWC in the first place?) is even more preposterous than the idea of ND giving up independence for the Big 12.
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2011-2012 College Football Thread
- Thread starter dmr727
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Hahaha. The likelihood of Arkansas leaving the SEC to come back under UTex's control (remember why they left the SWC in the first place?) is even more preposterous than the idea of ND giving up independence for the Big 12.
We will welcome them into the SEC as part of the family
Like a red headed step-child, and beat them accordingly
LOL! I think they'll be a good pickup for the SEC - it'll give the conference some inroads to recruiting in Texas, as well as some additional TV exposure in Dallas and especially Houston (lots of Ags there). It'll be interesting to see if they can be consistently competitive, though.
I just hope it serves as a nail in the coffin for the Big 12.
While it will undoubtedly be a tougher go of things game-in, game-out in the SEC than it has been in the Big 12, anyone who wants to define Texas A&M football by the last eight years is being narrow minded.
Like I said earlier in this thread, we've been down for about a decade (way, way down), but that doesn't erase the history, passion and—most importantly—loads of cash the alumni/fan base is willing to dump into the program.
Our recruiting and coaching have taken major leaps forward in the last couple of years (esp. on the defensive side of the ball) to the point where we're one of the most talented teams in the nation now. We're not ranked in the preseason Top 10 of pretty much every poll for nothing, and hopefully this last year in the Little 10 will be a springboard to great things in the SEC starting in 2012.
In other sports (since we'll be moving in everything): A&M was 8th in the Director's Cup last year (first in the B12; second behind only Florida in the SEC), and had every sport save girl's tennis finished ranked, including three national championships.
Like I said earlier in this thread, we've been down for about a decade (way, way down), but that doesn't erase the history, passion and—most importantly—loads of cash the alumni/fan base is willing to dump into the program.
Our recruiting and coaching have taken major leaps forward in the last couple of years (esp. on the defensive side of the ball) to the point where we're one of the most talented teams in the nation now. We're not ranked in the preseason Top 10 of pretty much every poll for nothing, and hopefully this last year in the Little 10 will be a springboard to great things in the SEC starting in 2012.
In other sports (since we'll be moving in everything): A&M was 8th in the Director's Cup last year (first in the B12; second behind only Florida in the SEC), and had every sport save girl's tennis finished ranked, including three national championships.
A&M and the SEC could be announcing their marriage this week. There's been a lot of scuttlebutt on A&M message boards that the announcement might be on Wednesday, or even before if something happened to accelerate the process. After the Big 12 teleconference today, it's looking more and more likely.
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Let's be honest, football is the only sport that matters.
It goes back to when R.C. Slocum was fired. Was that ever a stupid move. Since Slocum was fired: 1 Top 25 final ranking (last year), Zero B12 championship game appearances,and Zero bowl wins. Surprisingly, they actually have a decent record vs. the Bovines during that span. Yes, I realize they were declining before that, but the program went off a cliff after he was fired. Speaking of rivals, are you sure you want to be in the SEC? According to Wikipedia, A&M has a 36% winning percentage vs. old rival Arkansas.
(And 32% vs rival Texas. Ouch!) I actually agree with you on fan support. I've always thought A&M was close to SEC fan levels. That stadium is packed regardless of how bad the team is. It actually reminds me of South Carolina in a lot of ways.
Edit: wanted to add this instead of adding another post: Check out this story of a Division II school in Virginia that decided to play a football game during a hurricane, with the expected results.
Let's be honest, football is the only sport that matters.
Yep. Hiring the wrong coach can set you back for years. That's what happened when RC was fired (I understood the thinking at the time but never agreed with it) and Franchione was hired. Since the 2003 season (Franchione's first) began, we've pretty much been terrible outside a couple of good years (2006, 2010) and a couple of mediocre ones (2004, 2007). Last year and the talent we have returning this year gives us hope that those days are gone.
Despite the fact that we've sucked for most of the last decade, we are historically a Top 20-25 program in terms of wins, conference championships, etc. Our history is most comparable in the SEC to Auburn, not withstanding a tainted 2010 "championship".
Speaking of rivals, are you sure you want to be in the SEC? According to Wikipedia, A&M has a 36% winning percentage vs. old rival Arkansas.
Arkansas (rivalry dates to 1903) has certainly had our number over the years, but we didn't get to play them in the 90s when we were great and they were pretty bad, so who knows what that record would look like had the series kept going? Ditto with LSU (rivalry dates to 1899), who we actually dominated in the late 80s/early 90s—winning the last five in a row before they canceled the series.
What most people don't know is that A&M was a tiny, all-male, all-military school for the first 80 years of its existence. We had some great teams in the early decades of the 20th Century, but from the start of WWII (when the A&M campus was pretty much a ghost town with all the kids over in the war) until the school changed in the early 70s, we got hammered by everyone.
But since the military aspect ceased to be compulsory, women began to be admitted and the student population was expanded (by about 700% over the course of 40 years—from roughly 7k to almost 50k), A&M athletics has been a bit different (as you can well imagine). I think our modern history compares with just about anyone's we've played (save OU, whose success has been staggering).
Since 1975
Winning Percentage
OU: .744
UT: .706
Aub: .678
A&M: .646
LSU: .634
Ark: .623
MSU: .426
Conference Championships
OU: 17
UT: 9
A&M: 8
Aub: 6
LSU: 5
Ark: 4
MSU: 0
Head-to-Head (A&M wins listed first)
vs. UT: 19-17
vs. LSU: 7-5
vs. Aub: 1-0 (1986 Cotton Bowl)
vs. OU: 6-11
vs. Ark: 6-13
vs. MSU: 0-1 (2000 Indy Bowl)
So if you want to judge Aggie football only by what's happened since 2002, it's easy to say we won't compete in the SEC. If you want to look at our entire history, then you can't ignore all the championships anymore than you can ignore the lack of success against our biggest rivals. If, however, you want to look at our history since we became a bonafide university (as opposed to a tiny military college), then it's a bit harder to make the case that we'll never be any good.
Link to winning % comparisons
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Believe me, I know all about bad coaches. The last couple of years of Jackie Sherrill plus the Croom era resulted in a decade of hell for us.
Yeah, sure, bring up those winning percentages. I know we compete with Vandy for the worst winning percentage in the SEC. Anyway, I notice you didn't show the numbers for Alabama.
Also, I wouldn't compare my school to Auburn, since they are number 3 all time in NCAA probation. Then again, A&M is tied with them in that category, so maybe it is appropriate. Auburn is notorious for their little brother syndrome and has a serious inferiority complex when it comes to Alabama.
Anyway, when did A&M change? We were similar, a land-grant military school, but we started admitting women in the early 1900s. (military service was required for males until the 1950s or so)
Only comparing us to them in winning percentage, conference titles, etc. Not adding Alabama was an oversight, but they compare favorably with OU, not with A&M. Everyone knows Bama is one of the truly elite football programs.
A&M was still the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas until 1960 (or so). We had a new president come in (an alum named James Earl Rudderlook him up for some amazing WWII stories about the invasion of Normandy) who changed everything. He changed the culture and pushed for the TX gov't to change the school to a university (and actually changed the "A&M" to be symbolic of the school's history, rather than officially standing for "Agricultural and Mechanical"). Men were required to be in the Corps (ROTC program) until 1965, which hurt recruiting just a bit, as you can imagine.
Women were first allowed into the school in the mid-60s, but only if they were related to a faculty member. It wasn't until '70 or '71 that any female could be a student, and not until a few years after that girls were allowed to be in to Corps.
The student body population pretty much exploded after that, going from around 7,500 in the late 60s to almost 50,000 now. Kyle Field has changed a bit since the 60s, too...
Attachments
Amen to that!
Well, it looks like Texas A&M has made the divorce final. They notified the Big 12 that they intend to leave next June. That article brings up a good point about the costs of this move. Nebraska shelled out $9 mil to get out last year, so they will probably end up paying more. That's an expensive divorce!
I'm expecting the buy-out to be in the neighborhood of $12M. But realize that we won't actually be paying anything. The Big 12 will withhold whatever amount is agreed-upon from our conference revenue at the end of the school year.
The football program can expect to make more money this year than it has ever made before, as season tickets have already sold out and the scattered remnants are going fast.
Also, rumors keep flying about Kyle Field being renovated (possibly a complete overhaul) thanks to a HUGE (think Boone Pickensian) donation from a very loaded, very old booster. The rumor says that the east and west grandstands (the main parts of the stadium, along the sidelines) will be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up. For one season, the team will play "home" games at venues across the state, including Reliant Stadium in Houston, Cowboys Stadium in Arlington and the Alamodome in San Antonio. No idea if it will actually happen, but it's a rumor I've heard more than once.
I think Boise takes UGA, but as a newly-minted (possibly even officially-minted by tomorrow!) SEC member, I will be obligated to root for the Dawgs.
I'm not so sure about your take on the LSU game. If they hadn't lost all those players to suspension, I'd agree that they should win rather easily. With Jarrett Lee at QB, though, I have to lean a bit towards the Ducks winning. But Geaux Tigers!
I've gotta admit, I've never been a follower of this kind of loyalty to a conference. I root for other Big 12 teams if it's a situation that leads to a better SOS score for Texas - but beyond that, my allegiance is to Texas and Texas alone. F the rest of the Big 12.
That's why all the Aggie love for the SEC is a little amusing to me. I was in DFW the other day and my fueler had an SEC hat on with an A&M badge lanyard. Now I completely understand why that Ags are excited about the SEC - it's a great, great move for their school. But it's almost like their SEC identity has become at least as important as their A&M one. And to me that's nuts.
USC USC USC USC
On our way to a Number 1 finish. We aren't eligible for a bowl game, but bring on the competition. USC will prevail.
On our way to a Number 1 finish. We aren't eligible for a bowl game, but bring on the competition. USC will prevail.
Yeah, I have never understood this conference love. I really don't understand all these people chanting "SEC!". Maybe it's just because I'm a fan of a school that realistically won't be helped by stuff like SOS. Personally, I don't really care about the rest of the conference, and actively root against some teams. I am a fan of Mississippi State, not the SEC as a whole. And there are some schools in the conference (aside from Ole Miss, which is a given) I would love to see lose every sporting event they participate in. LSU, for example, mostly because their fans are the worst in the conference. The only other fans I have ever seen that are close to them are West Virginia fans, although the Texas fans that I encountered after we beat them in Sherrill's first year were pretty rude as well. I think Auburn is now on that list due to all the crap from the Cam Newton situation last year.
Look, I like the prestige of the conference, and I do like shutting up other conferences. But I really don't get all this conference pride.
I will admit I don't really get it, either. I've always rooted against every other Big 12 team (and every other SWC team before that) but all my SEC friends keep telling me everyone in the SEC roots for SEC teams in non-con and bowls.
I think Aggies are excited about going to the SEC because we've been trying to get there for 20 years. It should have been us (and UT) instead of Arkansas and South Carolina back in the late 80s/early 90s, but Texas politicians stepped in and stopped it. Then it should have been us in the mid 90s, but Texas politicians stepped in and stopped it (and forced Baylor, Texas Tech, Iowa State, etc. on us). So it's more a "FINALLY!" than anything else.
From your time in Austin, you surely know as well as anyone that nothing eclipses an Aggie's love for all things Texas A&M. The situation you described above is more about being excited than about a changing of the way we feel about our alma mater.
The question is how will the big 12 break up go.
OU and OSU are required by law to stay together. I am going to assume TTU and UT will easily be pick up by one of the big conference. It looks pretty safe that a super conferences are going to start forming.
I see OU, OSU, UT, and TTU all being pretty safe in terms of the break up. Someone will pick up those guys.
As for ones that really have to worry that would be Baylor and Kansas State that have a good chances of being left out in the cold completely.
OU and OSU are required by law to stay together. I am going to assume TTU and UT will easily be pick up by one of the big conference. It looks pretty safe that a super conferences are going to start forming.
I see OU, OSU, UT, and TTU all being pretty safe in terms of the break up. Someone will pick up those guys.
As for ones that really have to worry that would be Baylor and Kansas State that have a good chances of being left out in the cold completely.
It definitely will be interesting to watch things unfold, but I don't see the Big 12 going away quite yet (unlike last year when it was dead and buried). ESPN and UT have a vested interest in keeping the Big 12 together in some form until the LHN is well-formed enough to be viable on its own. Unless OU gets a sudden rod up their butts and bolts for greener pastures, the league can replace A&M and move forward more or less the same.
I don't believe that OU is legally bound to OSU, but I do think the political pressure is there to keep them together unless true alignment Armageddon comes to pass and there simply isn't a place at the table for the Cowboys (and I don't expect that to happen).
The worst thing that can happen to Tech is actually what I think might happen, and that's OU and OSU heading west without UT. In that scenario, the Pac-12 might look to grab Boise St and (possibly) Kansas instead of Tech. Missouri might get that invite to the Big 10 they've been coveting forever, or they might be team 15 or 16 (or hell, even 14) to the SEC.
Texas might then elect to go independent (such a scenario is already written into their contract with ESPN) rather than dumping the LHN and joining the Pac schools. That would leave Tech, Baylor, Kansas St, etc. out in the cold, which would be a shame (for Tech) considering how far they have come since the formation of the Big 12.