I just skimmed the article, and think it's getting at something I've always known - for the last 50 years, it's not about the sips, and even we sometimes fall into the thinking it "possibly is." I get that the article seems balanced, but I simply couldn't read it because I couldn't make it past its flawed premise --- "what did we do with it" (the 12 year head start in the SEC).
There really wasn't any "it" to do "with." So while the article is trying to maybe say the same thing as I am about to say, even it "fell into the trap."
Texas A&M has been its own agent effectively since 1975. Yes, we have to recruit against the sips (note, I didn't say "had to," because frankly, even with us in separate conferences, we still had competition). But guess what, even after we joined the SEC we then had to recruit against LSU, Bama, etc. And often won.
We all need to stop thinking the sips coming into the SEC really changes much. Yes, it was a competitive advantage recruiting-wise to say we were the only Texas SEC school, but that's about where it stops. And we will be fine, BTW. Why?
1975: The first year one can really say Texas A&M was a "normal" University, graduating more non-regs than corps and when the first fully-co-ed classes began graduating. To say we could compete with any school in Texas on a regular basis prior to that is like believing the military academies should be able to as well. If Navy or Army play Baylor, TCU, or TT every year in recent decades, not sure they would have winning records. This is straight up facts.
Even before the move to the SEC: Texas A&M vs Texas head to head in football - dead even between 1975 and 2012. Due to the aforementioned, it's actually a miracle and a testament that the all-time series going back to 1894 isn't even more lopsided than 76-37-5. When I was in school in the early 90s, we had gone on a 6 game win streak vs the sips, then in 1990, in a game that was widely commented on throughout sports media as a major or "shocking" upset, the sips pulled out a game against us in Austin by a single point. They then dubbed their season as the "Shock the Nation" tour, only to "shock the nation" as to how badly a team can lose a bowl to finish the season. We then went on another win-streak against them, 4 games.
Now the SEC: The fear that them joining the SEC matters in terms of our competitiveness simply doesn't stack up against the fact we were competitive before, even with lacking some advantages we have today. When we were stuck in the SWC with them, one could say they actually held more competitive advantage against us, as A&M's rise was still fairly new (1975 forward). Yet, we were dead even. In the Big 12, the sips had to compete for recruits, fans, etc., with a bigger pool of schools. And look at their record in the Big 12 (not really that good when you hold out they did have one magical year and win the national title). OU dominated them, and losing to Baylor or TCU was not an uncommon occurrence. It's been proven that all schools in the SEC will now be competing on a more even foot - I think the old "branding" the sips had in this regard actually died in 1975, but so many people simply forget it. NIL also changes things (not a fan of it per se, but the fact is, both the sips and Texas A&M are likely to hold an advantage over most SEC schools here).
The article's basic premise is flawed. There was no "it" to do with when we joined the SEC, since the "it" implies we hadn't already caught up to the sips even before we left. Even if we capitalized on the conference recruiting advantage we had, as we all know, simply, teams in College Football always rise and fall regardless of these advantages. There's nothing to say had we won an SEC title or more in the 12 years, that we wouldn't have also stumbled, just like there's nothing to say our NIL advantages over many in the SEC won't cause us to finally bring it across the finish line.
Final note, in the wake of the Bonfire tragedy, recall, even the sips' student body president had an awakening and wrote an article admitting they finally understood that none of our culture and tradition really was even bothered with them. It only looked that way on the surface. They admitted then that Texas A&M was eminently more qualified to handle such a tragedy because of our sense of tradition, family, sense of school above our cliques, etc.
We don't need the sips, as the last 12 years proved, they don't need us. Us being in difference conferences simply made life easier since we didn't have to expend any energy trying to ignore their childish, arrogant and outdated ramblings about how they are "big brother". Now we just have to put up with it again somehow, but we don't have to buy into it anymore.
To me, our game with them now is just another SEC school on the schedule. This year, I am honestly looking more forward to ND as I think they will be a tougher opponent, though I get the fact getting them early in the season may be to our advantage, whereas teams generally improve as the season wears on. I am looking just as forward to the LSU game as I am the game with the sips. If Bama were coming to Kyle this year, I'd be looking more forward to that game than the game with the sips.
There really wasn't any "it" to do "with." So while the article is trying to maybe say the same thing as I am about to say, even it "fell into the trap."
Texas A&M has been its own agent effectively since 1975. Yes, we have to recruit against the sips (note, I didn't say "had to," because frankly, even with us in separate conferences, we still had competition). But guess what, even after we joined the SEC we then had to recruit against LSU, Bama, etc. And often won.
We all need to stop thinking the sips coming into the SEC really changes much. Yes, it was a competitive advantage recruiting-wise to say we were the only Texas SEC school, but that's about where it stops. And we will be fine, BTW. Why?
1975: The first year one can really say Texas A&M was a "normal" University, graduating more non-regs than corps and when the first fully-co-ed classes began graduating. To say we could compete with any school in Texas on a regular basis prior to that is like believing the military academies should be able to as well. If Navy or Army play Baylor, TCU, or TT every year in recent decades, not sure they would have winning records. This is straight up facts.
Even before the move to the SEC: Texas A&M vs Texas head to head in football - dead even between 1975 and 2012. Due to the aforementioned, it's actually a miracle and a testament that the all-time series going back to 1894 isn't even more lopsided than 76-37-5. When I was in school in the early 90s, we had gone on a 6 game win streak vs the sips, then in 1990, in a game that was widely commented on throughout sports media as a major or "shocking" upset, the sips pulled out a game against us in Austin by a single point. They then dubbed their season as the "Shock the Nation" tour, only to "shock the nation" as to how badly a team can lose a bowl to finish the season. We then went on another win-streak against them, 4 games.
Now the SEC: The fear that them joining the SEC matters in terms of our competitiveness simply doesn't stack up against the fact we were competitive before, even with lacking some advantages we have today. When we were stuck in the SWC with them, one could say they actually held more competitive advantage against us, as A&M's rise was still fairly new (1975 forward). Yet, we were dead even. In the Big 12, the sips had to compete for recruits, fans, etc., with a bigger pool of schools. And look at their record in the Big 12 (not really that good when you hold out they did have one magical year and win the national title). OU dominated them, and losing to Baylor or TCU was not an uncommon occurrence. It's been proven that all schools in the SEC will now be competing on a more even foot - I think the old "branding" the sips had in this regard actually died in 1975, but so many people simply forget it. NIL also changes things (not a fan of it per se, but the fact is, both the sips and Texas A&M are likely to hold an advantage over most SEC schools here).
The article's basic premise is flawed. There was no "it" to do with when we joined the SEC, since the "it" implies we hadn't already caught up to the sips even before we left. Even if we capitalized on the conference recruiting advantage we had, as we all know, simply, teams in College Football always rise and fall regardless of these advantages. There's nothing to say had we won an SEC title or more in the 12 years, that we wouldn't have also stumbled, just like there's nothing to say our NIL advantages over many in the SEC won't cause us to finally bring it across the finish line.
Final note, in the wake of the Bonfire tragedy, recall, even the sips' student body president had an awakening and wrote an article admitting they finally understood that none of our culture and tradition really was even bothered with them. It only looked that way on the surface. They admitted then that Texas A&M was eminently more qualified to handle such a tragedy because of our sense of tradition, family, sense of school above our cliques, etc.
We don't need the sips, as the last 12 years proved, they don't need us. Us being in difference conferences simply made life easier since we didn't have to expend any energy trying to ignore their childish, arrogant and outdated ramblings about how they are "big brother". Now we just have to put up with it again somehow, but we don't have to buy into it anymore.
To me, our game with them now is just another SEC school on the schedule. This year, I am honestly looking more forward to ND as I think they will be a tougher opponent, though I get the fact getting them early in the season may be to our advantage, whereas teams generally improve as the season wears on. I am looking just as forward to the LSU game as I am the game with the sips. If Bama were coming to Kyle this year, I'd be looking more forward to that game than the game with the sips.
