Will the FTAB make any road trips to the new SEC opponents?

If they go to Auburn, they can stay at my house...

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Will the FTAB make any road trips to the new SEC opponents?

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I'd bet Arkansas (442 miles) and LSU (360 miles) will be trips that are made yearly (Ark in 2012, LSU 2013), and probably one trip to an SEC East opponent.

I'm not sure why people are so worried about the distances to the SEC school.

Did the band ever make a trip to Nebraska, KSU, KU, ISU, CU or Tech for that matter. Auburn is closer than CU or NU, and Baton Rouge is closer than Lubbock.

I think the band always went to Lubbock, but I don't think they ever went to a Big12 North school.

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I don't think they ever went to a Big12 North school.

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I know the band went to KState, Iowa State, & Missouri. I assume they went to Nebraska at some point.

In my day, we drove (Aggie Band paid for buses except for tu, there we had to get there on our own) to every school in driving distance (tceh being the furthest, at over 8 hours), then flew to one further game per year.

I doubt the band has the money to fly to more than one a year - special events we flew to (like the inauguration) took special fundraising efforts.

In my four years, the away games we flew to were Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, and Notre Dame if I recall correctly.

EDIT: Actually, I don't recall - Colorado may have been in there instead of Kansas ...

[This message has been edited by Ark03 (edited 12/29/2011 10:19a).]

Back in the SWC days we went to all the conference games by POV except for tech or arkie. For those we took buses.

We were also responsible for our own lodging and meals except for the tech and arkie games.

Back in the SWC days, we used to take buses to Tech, Arkansas and our home&home series with LSU. From memory, Tech was 10 hours, Arkansas was 15 hours and LSU was 8 hours each way.

We also took buses to the non-conference game with OK State. When we used to go to Arkansas, we would spend the night in Ft. Smith on the way back after the game. Coming back from Stillwater, we spent the night in Oklahoma City.

Bus trips from Lubbock and Baton Rouge were a straight shot home. We would usually stop for food in Abilene and Lake Charles respectively.

When A&M played Tulsa in 1991, the band didn't go to the game and curiously enough, the Aggies got outscored by one point. Other games that we missed were UW in Seattle and Hawaii. Other than those games, we went to all of them. I realize school is allegedly so much harder now and the Band makes much better grades but, I would like to see the Band make as many games as possible.

One other monster bus trip was the 16 hours each way to El Paso for the Sun Bowl in 1989.

I found a good site that lists A&M historical scores which helped me re-create from memory my list of where we went and how we got there.

I know that over the years, the Aggie Band traveled to all the schools in the Big XII but, it was kind of one school a year or something in the Big XII North. I got to see them in Colorado in 2005 at the absolute worst performance by a Texas A&M team that I've ever seen.

I'll be back later with an SEC distance analysis.

Like others stated for all of our other in state games, we were required to get there by POV and frankly, I think we learned a lot by having to do that. I very much dislike the bus trip they take to Waco these days. We used to take cars to:
Houston (U of H), Houston (Rice), Austin, Fort Worth, Dallas (SMU), Dallas (Cotton Bowl), Waco. It all worked out. Sure enjoyed those out of town Midnight Yell practices too.

[This message has been edited by HollywoodBQ (edited 12/30/2011 6:24p).]

Looks like Mizzou fans are ahead of us on the analysis.

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2011/11/06/map-distance-mu-sec-big-12-schools/

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Like others stated for all of our other in state games, we were required to get there by POV and frankly, I think we learned a lot by having to do that.

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After bonfire, I think the student activities department got very conservative and evaluated the risk in everything. I don't know for sure, but I can see them having a problem with this.

At the end of every school year all of the outfits went on a river trip. Student Activities tried to shut that down, but we did it anyway. A couple of years ago a couple of BQ cadets were killed in a car accident driving home from the river trip. I wonder if that is a thing of the past now.

That being said, we were expected to show up to Austin on our own.

When I was in we flew to KSU, Pitt, and Missouri. My class and I roadtripped to Nebraska in fall of '03. Austin was always get your own way there. Also my fish year we went to the Independance Bowl in Shreveport and then turned around and flew to DC for President Bush's innauguration parade.

[This message has been edited by JABQ04 (edited 12/31/2011 1:34a).]

So let's look at the 2012 schedule first.
SEC Schedule for 2012

TEXAS A&M
Sept. 8: FLORIDA
Sept. 29: vs. Arkansas
Oct. 6: at Ole Miss
Oct. 20: LSU
Oct. 27: at Auburn
Nov. 3: at Mississippi State
Nov. 10: at Alabama
Nov. 24: MISSOURI

We've got Arkansas at a "Neutral Field" in Texas so The FTAB should definitely make that one.

• Week 6 @ Ole Miss - by Week 6, the BQs will be itching for a Road Trip and this will be a great introduction to The SEC.
• Week 9 @ Auburn - personally, I think we should make Auburn every time because they're probably the school in the SEC that is most similar to A&M. Plus, my roommate at Fort Knox was from Auburn so I'm biased.
• Week 10 @ Mississippi State - now here's where it gets tricky, 2nd of three consecutive road trip weekends.
• Week 11 @ Alabama - and the 3rd of three consecutive road games. Who the heck scheduled this? We'll need to fix this in future years.

Except for LSU, in 2012, all the SEC West Games are on the Road. We've got 2 SEC East Games at Home. Now does that mean in 2013 we'll have 2 SEC East Games on the Road? Who knows.
Does that mean that in 2013, we'll only have 1 SEC West Road Game at LSU?

Now for a breakdown of the driving distances from College Station according to Google.

University of Mississippi - Oxford, Mississippi - Google puts it at 615 miles. In a 7+ Bus Convoy at 42.5 mph, we're talking 14 1/2 hours each way. Doable but a real hassle.

Auburn University - Auburn, Alabama - Google puts it at 755 miles. This would be mostly Interstate but sticking with my 42.5 mph, we're talking almost 18 hours each way. That's fine if you're staying a week. Not fine for a weekend.

Mississippi State University - Starkville, Mississippi - Google puts it at 571 miles. So at 42.5 mph, we're looking at 13 1/2 hours. Doable IF, it's NOT the 2nd consecutive weekend away.

University of Alabama - Tuscaloosa, Alabama - Google puts it at 629 miles. Which would take almost 15 hours. Again, doable once a month. Not Doable for the 3rd consecutive weekend away from campus.

Future SEC West Road Games

Won't need to worry about with the Neutral Site in Arlington (and quite a savings off that old 15 hour bus ride and a night at the Ramada Inn in Fort Smith, AR).
University of Arkansas - Fayetteville, Arkansas

A great revival of the old 8 hour bus ride to/from LSU so we know this one is do-able.
Louisiana State University - Baton Rouge, Louisiana

So, in conclusion, I don't see any reason why The FTAB can't make all of the SEC West Games provided that we fix the schedule so that we don't have more than 1 x 15 hour bus trip per month.

Who's going to pay for your busses?

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Week 9 @ Auburn - personally, I think we should make Auburn every time because they're probably the school in the SEC that is most similar to A&M. Plus, my roommate at Fort Knox was from Auburn so I'm biased

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I was excited about meeting the Auburn guys when we played them in the 1986 Cotton Bowl but I found them to be not so friendly. The following year when we played Ohio State their band was much more friendly and anxious to talk about our band and history.

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Who's going to pay for your busses?

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Paying for busses isn't the problem. Paying for Chartered Aircraft... Now that's a different story. You can probably pull off about one of those per year. In my era, it was:
1988 Kickoff Classic - NJ
1989 GHW Bush Inaugural - VA
1990 Holiday Bowl - CA

At the moment, it looks like the biggest obstacle to getting the FTAB on the road in 2012 is the fact that we've got 3 consecutive road games deep into Mississippi and Alabama. If we could spread those road games out across 3 months, we'd be OK.

I travel between Australia and the USA for one week, every other month. 14+ hours in coach (my company is too cheap to pay for Business Class and I'm too cheap to burn my miles by upgrading). Throw in a 19 hour time difference between SYD and SFO right now and it can really work on you. I can handle that trip once a month. I wouldn't want to do it for 3 consecutive weeks.

So, I think the current BQs could handle a monthly 14 hour bus trip. I don't think anyone would want to do that three weeks in a row.

The other problem that we haven't mentioned yet is getting seats in the SEC stadiums. You'd be looking at 350-400 seats that would probably sell for $80/game otherwise. That's a pretty big chunk block section that I think we'd struggle to get. From memory, back when we used to play LSU, I think their stadium seated about 80,000 people or so and I think they'd only give up about 3,000 tickets or so to A&M fans.

Because I'm bored while waiting for my New Year's Eve fireworks video to upload, here's a quick analysis of bus trips to the SEC East. Even Mizzou and Vandy are out of range in my opinion for being realistic for a weekend bus trip unless class wasn't in session like on Thanksgiving but... who wants to spend their Thanksgiving on a bus to/from Missouri.

Also, while I'm thinking about the logistics, when we used to make that monster 15 hour trip to Fayetteville, Arkansas, we would leave at 10 pm on Friday night for an afternoon kickoff.

University of Florida Gainesville, Florida
924 mi. @ 42.5 mph is almost 22 hours

University of Georgia Athens, Georgia
896 mi. @ 42.5 mph is 21 hours

University of Kentucky Lexington, Kentucky
983 mi. @ 42.5 mph is 23 hours

University of South Carolina Columbia, South Carolina
1035 mi. @ 42.5 mph is 24 1/2 hours

University of Tennessee Knoxville, Tennessee
936 mi. @ 42.5 mph is 22 hours

Vanderbilt University Nashville, Tennessee
774 mi. @ 42.5 mph is 18 hours

University of Missouri Columbia, Missouri
752 mi. @ 42.5 mph is 17 1/2 hours

It may get interesting for arkansas; the venue may not stay neutral since it is a conference game. It's still TBA on the 'official' schedule page (along with three unfilled weeks, too).

It was my understanding that the Band travel arrangements were based on the logistics of where was the best place to land a 727/737, and also bus to the venue. So, the airport has to be able to land a large enough plane, and also park it.

At least, that is my understanding of it.

Just because I'm bored
Here is where Boeing has all their airplane specs.
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/airports/plan_manuals.html

And the specs on Easterwood.
http://www.gcmap.com/airport/CLL
The longest runway is 7000 feet so I won't be landing my Aggie Band A380 there