AGinHI said:

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The success of Texas, and all the gloating by the trolls with multiple alters, has no bearing on my enjoyment, or lack thereof, of Aggie football.

They are a school I deliberately chose not to attend within a city I chose not to live in.

What is disappointing to me with regards to their success is the ramifications on recruiting, which I thought NIL would address. When Texas does well we do not and vice versa.

It was my hope that we could also have successful seasons to rival Texas and the resulting great rivalry games, much like the three big Florida schools; however, the dynamics are just different for us.

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Well we both had top 10 classes this year, so I'm not really sure how you've concluded the recruiting landscape is the same as it was 15 years ago.

AggieDruggist89 said:

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It's not going 8-5. Sure, not a fan of Elko hire. But a different topic.

Hate to say it.

It's the success of tu in their first year in the SEC. The playing field we've been in for 12 damn years of lukewarm mediocrity. How we thought we were better because we were in the SEC while tu played in a dumpster fire little league conference B12. tu showed up and they really showed up. Hate hearing their SEC chant.

This is what sucks for me.

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Okay…so why focus on them other than to power up changing our university?

It socks that they're not a permanent game on our schedule. It's typical if how weak our administration is to let them dictate our schedule as soon as they enter the conference.

SociallyConditionedAg said:

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It socks that they're not a permanent game on our schedule. It's typical if how weak our administration is to let them dictate our schedule as soon as they enter the conference.

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This is factually inaccurate. We forced conference to get us game 1 at home. The lesser thans are pushing for 8 game conference schedule. If/when it changes (i say 2026) we will have them, LSU, and Arky as permanent rivals.

I'm no fan of UT, but I am a fan of Sark. He is very good at running their dynamic offense. He's knew they would have to recruit a lot better once they joined the SEC, and he was able to achieve that quickly. All this has been accomplished - after his personal problems with alcohol,in which he, lost his job. Nick Saban has mentioned numerous times, that as his attention to detail with Alabama's offense was crucial in their growth on offense. Texas took a chance on him and it is paying off -huge. Texas A&M had a decade of living in the SEC, without the Longhorns, including a Heisman winner. It's nobody's fault but their own, that they're still coming up short. It'll be blamed on the national media, the officials, Sankey, liberalism, scheduling, etc. But until the Aggies make better decisions and hire the right people - they'll still be tying to "catch up" to the school in Austin, same as before.

GigEmReggie said:

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It was always stupid to trash the Big 12 considering we were the exact same mediocre program there as we are here. The way some of y'all talk about it you'd think we ran the thing like OU did.

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We couldn't even reach the perennial 8-4 mark in the big12.

Baby steps.

GigEmReggie said:

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It was always stupid to trash the Big 12 considering we were the exact same mediocre program there as we are here. The way some of y'all talk about it you'd think we ran the thing like OU did.

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That's exactly it. A&M's Big XII conference record was actually slightly worse than in the SEC so far, and absolute beat-downs were far more common there, that's why it's so stupid to say that stuff.

AggieDruggist89 said:

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It's not going 8-5. Sure, not a fan of Elko hire. But a different topic.

Hate to say it.

It's the success of tu in their first year in the SEC. The playing field we've been in for 12 damn years of lukewarm mediocrity. How we thought we were better because we were in the SEC while tu played in a dumpster fire little league conference B12. tu showed up and they really showed up. Hate hearing their SEC chant.

This is what sucks for me.

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Don't deny what you are saying.

But we should focus on ourselves. not looking out the window at Texas. How can we get better? What should be our strategies? We can learn from Texas and all other schools.

Since it appears your world revolves around the sips. Here's a couple things to help you out.

Their first year in the SEC is not any better than our first year. They beat an ACC champ in their playoff game at home. We destroyed OU the Big 12 champ in our bowl game. We beat the eventual NC team on the road. Their best win was against us with a first year coach. We probably win it all in 2012 if there were a 12 team playoff.

Second, watch the Aggie basketball team this Saturday to get some of your sip frustrations remedied.

Hamburger Dan said:

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But until the Aggies make better decisions and hire the right people - they'll still be tying to "catch up" to the school in Austin, same as before.

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Hiring is not the issue. Anyone would have taken a chance on sumlin and jimbo. Giving them huge extensions because we have an insecurity complex set us back a decade.

GigEmReggie said:

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AGinHI said:

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The success of Texas, and all the gloating by the trolls with multiple alters, has no bearing on my enjoyment, or lack thereof, of Aggie football.

They are a school I deliberately chose not to attend within a city I chose not to live in.

What is disappointing to me with regards to their success is the ramifications on recruiting, which I thought NIL would address. When Texas does well we do not and vice versa.

It was my hope that we could also have successful seasons to rival Texas and the resulting great rivalry games, much like the three big Florida schools; however, the dynamics are just different for us.

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Well we both had top 10 classes this year, so I'm not really sure how you've concluded the recruiting landscape is the same as it was 15 years ago.

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I've not come to that conclusion. I'm speaking generally about the past and only time will tell going forward, with an acknowledgment of the significant shift in recruiting due to conference realignment, NIL, and transfer portal. The key is "generally" as there are years when we both did well recruiting (I believe more so since we joined the SEC in 2012). And this year may be one of those years.

Over the past 25+ years I have just come to wonder how in the state of Florida all three of their big schools could be competing for the national championship* while here in Texas our two big schools are never seen together in the top 25?



*This significantly changed around 2006 when Miami joined the ACC conference. I put some detail here in an early December thread.

I'm astonished. Another TexAgs thread about tu. The obsession never ends.

The past means little to today's landscape.

Between the portal, both programs able to do much better with national recruiting, etc., both can land top 5 classes any given year together and build top 5 rosters.

There's no doubt that losing a recruit like Kaliq Locket or Jonah Williams hurts, but it isn't the end all be all. What they do should matter little to us in terms of building a top 5 roster. No more so than Ohio State, Oregon, Alabama, Georgia, LSU, all do. What we do is what matters.

Luckily recruits aren't as unreasonable as fans are and judge things differently. They will give us much more time than our message board fans do to win some games. We are still getting a nice bump overall and could land a top 4-5 2026 class, unless we just tank and go 5-7 on the field next year.

Saban went 7-6 in '07 at Bama. I know the Zoo will probably go crazy with comparisons with Elko and Saban, but I'm not trying to compare the two. I considered this year a wash from the start. Next year will be a crap or get off the pot for Elko & Co.

AGinHI said:

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GigEmReggie said:

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AGinHI said:

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The success of Texas, and all the gloating by the trolls with multiple alters, has no bearing on my enjoyment, or lack thereof, of Aggie football.

They are a school I deliberately chose not to attend within a city I chose not to live in.

What is disappointing to me with regards to their success is the ramifications on recruiting, which I thought NIL would address. When Texas does well we do not and vice versa.

It was my hope that we could also have successful seasons to rival Texas and the resulting great rivalry games, much like the three big Florida schools; however, the dynamics are just different for us.

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Well we both had top 10 classes this year, so I'm not really sure how you've concluded the recruiting landscape is the same as it was 15 years ago.

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I've not come to that conclusion. I'm speaking generally about the past and only time will tell going forward, with an acknowledgment of the significant shift in recruiting due to conference realignment, NIL, and transfer portal. The key is "generally" as there are years when we both did well recruiting (I believe more so since we joined the SEC in 2012). And this year may be one of those years.

Over the past 25+ years I have just come to wonder how in the state of Florida all three of their big schools could be competing for the national championship* while here in Texas our two big schools are never seen together in the top 25?



*This significantly changed around 2006 when Miami joined the ACC conference. I put some detail here in an early December thread.

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I never understood why Aggie fans don't have more hatred towards OU. They're not in Texas, but they might as well be, they've always taken the majority of their talent from Texas, elite talent that would have likely chosen A&M as the alternative to Texas. If it wasn't for Texas talent OU would be nothing more than Kansas historically. THAT'S where most of A&M's missing success has gone over time, north. Texas and A&M both could have been powers at the same time in the past if it wasn't for OU. But the Aggie attitude seems to be "We like OU because they give Texas so much trouble." Aggies should hate those goobers.

firethewagonup said:

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Saban went 7-6 in '07 at Bama. I know the Zoo will probably go crazy with comparisons with Elko and Saban, but I'm not trying to compare the two. I considered this year a wash from the start. Next year will be a crap or get off the pot for Elko & Co.

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Agreed. Year one is always a bonus. Sure, there's the occasional Cignetti, Kevin Sumlin, or Sonny Dykes (most of whom regress in year 2, like Dykes, Coker, Chizik, Sumlin, etc), but in general, year one has ZERO CORRELATION to long term success. Either good or bad.

In fact, there are only 2 coaches in the entire country who won 10 games in year one and sustained that in year 2. Ryan Day and Dan Lanning. Both won the same amount of games as their predecessor did the previous season. Basically, no 7/8 program like us has hit the ground running in year one and sustained it. We shall see if a guy like Curt Cignetti matches his year one in year two again. I would strongly bet against it.

Year one is very much a wash. Now, what almost all current great head coaches have in common is that they greatly improved in year 2. They had a noticeably improved team. If Elko doesn't have a noticeably improved team in year 2, that will be a massive concern. Right now, the concern is defensively, there just seems to be some pieces missing to expect big improvement. We may regress some on paper. Offensively, we should be much better on paper.

They had the good fortune of

1) coming in at arguably the weakest year of SEC FB in a generation

2) in that same year gifted the easiest possible schedule

3) through sheer luck got to play almost every team on that weak schedule in a weak year without their starting QB

You can only play the teams on your schedule but sometimes the stars (and Sankey) just align for you

The schedule narrative has been proven time and time again to be flat out false. Just a message board narrative with no real data to support it other than a perceived narrative pre-season. It's about the 6-7th toughest out of 13 sec seasons we have played. Literally a middle of the pack schedule. Neither extremely hard, nor extremely easy. Just very much an average sec schedule overall.

It was 9th in the country this year according to FEI and close to upper middle of the pack for the sec, too.

6 of their SEC opponents were in the bottom 7. It was easy. They had a 2 game SEC schedule and went 1-1.

FEI - LOL

FEI does not take into account that the Gators they played were on their 3rd string crap QB at the time. It does not take into account the time they play them. FYI, they played one night road game all season.

You want to suck off the sips. Go ahead. But stating their schedule was not weak is not the route to take.

LB12Diamond said:

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Their first year in the SEC is not any better than our first year. We probably win it all in 2012 if there were a 12 team playoff.

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This is the most quintessential Aggie post I have read in a long time.

The "if only" game is peak Zoo.

Two things.

(1) Stop letting UT living rent free in your head non-stop.

(2) This is not Nick Saban's SEC of the last decade. Does that matter? Not really. But it still true.

We played in a very competitive Big 12 at the time. It was argued to be the toughest conference with the SEC from 2000-2011. OU went to the National Championship game I believe 3-4 times and tu went 2 times during that time. When we left with Mizzou, Nebraska, and Colorado the sips generally became mediocre to sucking (5-7 seasons, losing to Kansas and Maryland twice). Sips would have been getting crushed in the SEC during this time just like us. If we had stayed in the Big 12 we would probably have at least two conference titles. It is what it is.

The SEC now is not the same SEC that we played in prior to this year. No divisions. Bama kicked everyone's butt nearly the entire time and the couple years they didn't, LSU stepped in with Joe Burrow and Jayden Daniels. Auburn just had extreme luck in 2013. After 2012, we really had about two years where there was maybe an opening for us in the SEC West to win the division. We didn't take advantage, which is typical Aggie football.

We have definitely pissed away a couple years where we could have won the SEC West. Up until last year, the sips were generally not good after 2009. The sips just had really great timing to peak this year and not have to compete against Saban and Bama at their peak like we did. Here's to hoping for a descent defense and Marcel Reed to have a Heisman year in 2025.

Woof. I thought he was talking about our schedule. I have heard so much about how easy we had it. I was referring to ours. And yeah, I'll use FEI at least as a good starting point. But I digress.

SI had ours at 6th. Texas at 36. FEI had ours at 9th.

My fault

AggieDruggist89 said:

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It's not going 8-5. Sure, not a fan of Elko hire. But a different topic.

Hate to say it.

It's the success of tu in their first year in the SEC. The playing field we've been in for 12 damn years of lukewarm mediocrity. How we thought we were better because we were in the SEC while tu played in a dumpster fire little league conference B12. tu showed up and they really showed up. Hate hearing their SEC chant.

This is what sucks for me.

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2012, our first year with a freshman QB, we probably win the whole thing with a playoff. The only notable difference is that tu made it to the SECCG and lost. Our first SEC game? Florida in what ended up being our first game of the year due to weather. Their first SEC game? Miss State in week 5. Give us Florida week 5 and we make the SECCG easily.

We also would have been the 5 seed in 2020. We've had a couple years, but the system was not in place for us to take advantage

I just don't care about sip having success like I used to before NIL. I hate them deeply, but they did what was necessary and within the new rules (or lack thereof), and now they are reaping the benefits. Their success used to bother me a lot more because of all the favorable treatment they got from the NCAA and sports media propping them up and looking the other way when they violated recruiting rules.

But now we're basically down to paying players, so the playing field is as even as it's ever been. They did a great job leveraging their mega donors and the Austin business community to make sure they're acquiring and retaining championship-level talent. Their coaches also coached competently enough in key situations to get them into the playoffs, including keeping us from scoring a single offensive point.

We didn't do any of those things. We got what we deserved this year, and they got what they deserved. Yeah, their schedule was easy, but they beat Arkansas and MSU more handily than we did, and they smoked us, so we don't get to use that argument. In fact, we ended up contributing to the easiness of their schedule.

The good news is the opportunity is there for us to buy the talent we need to compete with them. Do I have any confidence that we will? No. But if we got our **** together, we could. I'm not bitter at them.

"game 1 at home. The lesser thans are pushing for 8 game conference schedule. If/when it changes (i say 2026) we will have them, LSU, and Arky as permanent rivals."

Do you subscribe to an insider newsletter? We have been told for some time that we had MSU rather than Arky as a permanent. Would much prefer Arky due to the long history, no offense to MSU.

And you not showing all the quote tells me I hit the mark!

What ifs where we could have also changed something are pathetic what ifs. What ifs on areas that are playoff format differences are worth noting and not what ifs that are to laugh at. We would have been in the playoff and had a team that could beat anyone. If the playoff format was the same as 2012 now,Texas would be playing in a NY6 with their only good win Vs the Ags. Thats just a fact. Not a what if.