A&M VP Jason Cook on black unis, 'Bama week, Johnny Football

Notes from Jason Cook interview

* Dr. Loftin kept reminding him throughout the week to wear Texas A&M maroon to last Saturday’s game against Mississippi State. If you ask the Mississippi State fans that sat in front of him in the stands, there is no question which team he was pulling for.

* It doesn’t getting any bigger than this weekend’s contest, and this is exactly what the SEC is all about. There will be 100,000 fans in attendance and a shot at a national title is on the line for the Tide, so from a national visibility perspective, this is the top of the mountain. The entire country is looking at this game and most people will be rooting for Texas A&M.

* A&M has been very warmly welcomed into the conference by the fans of Ole Miss, Auburn and Mississippi State so far this year, but don’t expect that same kind of welcome from Alabama fans this weekend.

* He stayed in Mississippi a couple of extra days after the game was over, and the Mississippi State campus was very somber on Monday.

* Not only is the pressure for a shot at a national championship on Alabama this weekend, but the pressure for the SEC to continue their national championship streak is on them as well. Playing in the national championship as opposed to a different BCS game is a 20 million dollar swing for the conference, so the outcome of this game is very important in that regard as well.

* After the Mississippi State game, he had the opportunity to speak at the Jackson Touchdown Club and was able to teach the attendees a few yells including ‘BTHO Bama’. He talked to them a lot about who Texas A&M is, and it’s interesting to note how many people still don’t fully grasp how large of a school A&M is. People still don’t know about A&M’s traditions, so he will take nearly every chance he gets to educate others about what it means to be an Aggie.

* His team has to work hard to get people interested enough in A&M to really give the school a good look, but what better way to get the word out about A&M than a three hour commercial of the school on a Saturday afternoon.

* When A&M made the SEC move, it laid the foundation for bettering the A&M brand. He couldn’t control how the season would play out or the transition to Kevin Sumlin, but everything has come together to be huge for the university, and that has all been based off the move to the SEC.

* Jackie Sherrill is a little bit more of a politician than he is and did his best to appease both sides last Saturday. It was strange for him to be back on the Mississippi State campus, and while he loves the school, he lives for Texas A&M.

* They had a full unveiling of the black uniforms planned, but the missing component in that plan was ESPN. He was driving through Mississippi on Friday seeing family before the game, and he had to pull over on the road to talk to multiple high-ups at ESPN in order to get them to talk about the unveiling. A&M did not want to commemorate a football game that they lost, and Mississippi State had no idea the counter-punch was coming. Their objective was to come in at the last minute and steal the headlines away from the Bulldogs, and he thinks they were able to do so. Matt Watson was the unsung hero of the black uniforms and kept the uniforms at his house in order to keep the surprise from the players.

* A&M is not going to be Oregon or Oklahoma State, but they wanted to show that they aren’t afraid to push the envelope on the brand. They wanted to show the fans and recruits that A&M is not a university that is stuck in the mud, and rather, is a progressive and dynamic university.

* The black jersey tops with the number 12 are available for pre-order right now and will hopefully be in by next week. They are also taking pre-orders for the maroon number two jersey. Back at the beginning of the year, they gave Adidas the numbers 12 and one to print, as they do every year, along with the numbers 33, 25 and 10. The production timeline takes time, and Adidas has worked with them to get the number two jerseys available as soon as possible.

* In the last quarter, A&M’s co-branded SEC merchandise has doubled in sales. T-shirt sales are up 17% and in the last three months, A&M has sold over 3.5 million dollars worth of t-shirts alone. Men’s fashion is up 37% while women’s fashion is up 25%.

* He will be doing a live twitter chat tomorrow through SaturdayRitual.com. They have given him an opportunity to talk about A&M’s traditions, the SEC, how the school uses social media and much more.

* Adidas will push the envelope with different styles of uniforms and apparel on the team side of things in order to see what type of demand there will be on the retail side. A&M is trying to bridge the gap between the team and retail sides by shortening the time it takes to get things from the team side to the general public.

* The media landscape is completely different for pushing Heisman candidates than it once was. A&M is part of the national discussion each and every week just by being in the SEC. Johnny Manziel came to A&M prepackaged, nickname and all, so there isn’t much, if any, development needed of Manziel. Right now, the hubbub surrounding Manziel is being grown organically and they are letting him build himself on the field of play.

* He thinks that there is somewhat of a ‘perfect storm’ occurring for A&M right now. Everyone talks about A&M being a sleeping giant, but he believes that the giant is finally awake.

* He is in the business of branding Texas A&M. The ‘A&M’ part of that is so powerful, and because of that, ‘A&M’ is the focus of the marketing team on a national level as opposed to ‘Texas Aggies’. However, they do realize that Texas Aggies is important to A&M’s heritage and there is a program in the local marketplace geared towards that.