Verne Lundquist on calling Tide/Aggies 4.0, A&M's fit in the SEC

Key quotes from Verne Lundquist interview

"Well we really look forward to this game each year and did until about seven o’clock last year when the game was over. You know, the first two were terrific. The first one in Tuscaloosa was one of the signature games of that whole college season and then the game in 2013 here was fun. Last year a little less fun, but this one, it’s just got so much promise and the unknown is maybe the greatest quality that is surrounding this game. I just have no idea what to expect."

"I think the easiest thing to say is different this season is John Chavis’ presence. You know his coaching, he’s coaching some guys with some gifts and particularly the two defensive ends. I mean, I’m not telling Aggie fans anything they don’t know by heart by now. You know and Myles Garrett and Daeshon lead, they are two of the best in the country and that’s where it starts for me. I’ve known John since his second year at Tennessee, so he’s not going to like this, but we’ve grown old together. So, I’ve known him quite well. I knew him all of his years at LSU and of course now in his new life at Texas A&M. He’s widely respected for a reason and that is he knows what he’s doing and I get the sense that his presence has been significant in the development of the Aggies in 2015.

But I still think that the A&M defense is an unknown quality and to a lesser extent so is Alabama. I will tell you this, when Alabama lost at home to Ole Miss and signs of the end of the world as we know it began to appear in various columns and on various websites, I was one of those who thought, ‘Wait a minute that is Nick Saban who is still there.’ As we now know the old Mark Twain line, 'reports of my demise have been exaggerated.' I mean, I just believe that as long as he is there, and I don’t know how long he will be there, they are going to be a quality program. Don’t ever, in my view, count Alabama out with Saban rowing the boat.

"If you go back and look, Alabama has had some great players on that defense, especially the down lineman and the linebackers. I don’t know if it’s the best that he’s had, but I know it’s a quality group and I think Georgia would attest to that. You remember when Johnny Manziel won the Heisman, for all intents and purposes, at Tuscaloosa, that same team was reeling that Alabama team in that game. They didn’t know quite what hit them and yet look what happened, they came back and there they go again. But what I love, just for us at CBS I mean, is to have this emerge as a seriously competitive battle in the SEC West. It’s marquee for us, the Aggies draw. I have said this before, and this is not anything that is going to thrill the folks in Austin, but Texas A&M is a perfect fit for the SEC and I think everybody in the conference and indeed around the country understands that. So, to have them come in the way they have come in and to have already established this series with Alabama as being a highlight of the year is terrific for CBS, I promise you that."

“I think there is more pressure on Alabama in this one. I get the idea that Alabama doesn’t quite know what to expect. You know, this Aggie team was 5-0 a year ago and we know what happened. They imploded with those three straight loses. Here they are 5-0 again, but it’s a different team it seems to me, but I don’t know that Alabama has any idea what they are going to encounter tomorrow afternoon. And I think, Gary Danielson and I, we kind of feel the same way. This is, it’s puzzling to me to try parse this one. I got into town yesterday afternoon and I’ve been asked, ‘What do you think, what do you think?’ Well I don’t know what to think."

"That’s why they play the game. It’s why we all love it, because of the element of the unknown. I mean there are certain things you can predict in great clarity, but this is not one of them. It’s kind of a mystery. I haven’t been to the stadium yet, I’ll be over there at noon. I cannot wait to see it. We had dinner last night, I need to get my annual Texas Lutheran University plug in, there were ten of us including the president and his wife who are dear friends of ours and three members of the Board of Regents, two of whom played in our NAIA National Championship team under Jim Wacker forty years ago in 1975. They are all dear friends and what we all have in common is our loyalty to our alma mater, Texas Lutheran, but one of the fellas came over here and got his engineering degree at Texas A&M. Anyway he dropped by the table last night and I got the slideshow of the evolution of the stadium. Holy cow. I’m really anxious to see what 485 million dollars can really bring you and it’s pretty impressive. They never called me to be one of those 5 million dollar donors."

"Let me take you way back to when I was growing into adulthood. I think folks who know a little bit about my life and my career understand that I grew up in Austin and they can talk all they want about Alabama/Auburn and talk all they want about Georgia/Florida. But for me there were two rivalries that mattered in the southwest. There was Texas/Texas A&M and there was Texas/Oklahoma. I was reminiscing last night. My first year in sports television, I was the anchor at KVTC in Austin and I had a friend who had a pilot’s license and on Thanksgiving weekend in 1963 he and I flew over here in kind of bad weather, I don’t think I’d do it again, to watch the Texas/Texas A&M game. This was when Texas was going for the national championship, so they were undefeated at the time.

But, I watched this game between the Aggies and Texas when I was in junior high and high school. You know, if there’s anything just in the world, somehow tempers will calm and somehow egos will subside. It may not be in my lifetime, but Texas A&M and Texas belong in an alliance. So, I was really sad when the game ended and I do understand the reasons for that split. But that helped me, I think, set the plate understanding the reality of A&M's desire to get rid of that relationship and the resentment toward the Longhorn Network. I get all that. As a basic foundation of my understanding of where Texas A&M stood, I thought they just couldn’t coexist where they were and when the opportunity came issued by the school presidents of the SEC, my immediate thought was that A&M was a perfect fit. I think Texas A&M is already a full part of the SEC and admired as such because of what they bring to the conference academically and athletically. The alumni base, you know I’m not gilding the lily here, Texas A&M has one of the great alumni bases in all of university and college life in America. All of that underpins what they bring in their new relationship with the SEC. "