How about some bold Aggie predictions this year, you guys are going to win the National Championship this year right? AM is not even in the top 3 of teams in Texas and they think next year is going to be handed to them, I can't wait to see you guys lose your ***, it is going to be funny watching the meltdown...........I see at least 4 losses in your future for 2013, at least.
RC, aggy didn't leave because they were scared of the Big XII. aggy left because yall were tired of living in Texas' shadow, period. That's the truth, whether yall will admit it or not is another issue. PropJoe, great gif!
Louisville 33, Florida 23 -- FL 20, A&M 17 -- A&M 29, Alabama 24 Clemson 25, LSU 24 -- LSU 24, A&M 19 So.... using Aristotelian Logic... Louisville of Big East is better than Florida, A&M and Alabama Clemson of ACC is better than LSU and A&M
Guys, aTm is going to have a good record next year. Accept it. Why? Two reasons. First, they are a good team with a great coach and a great QB. Second, they play one of the easiest schedules on the planet. They will have two tough games -- Bama and LSU. After that, they have 4 cupcakes that are gimmie wins (Rice, SMU, Sam Houston, New Mex), and 5 conference games against schools that had losing records against BCS opponents, the best of which was Ole Miss, which went 3-6 vs. BCS schools during the season and lost to us by 30 at home. They only play two teams from the SEC East, and they luck out with two of the worst: Vandy and Mizzou. That is 8 obvious wins right there (4 cupcakes and the 4 SEC schools that combined to go 8-24 vs. BCS schools), Pocket those 8 wins. After that, they will be be a 7+ point favorites against Vandy and Ole Miss at home (which combined to go 8-10 vs. BCS schools), so that is now 10 wins. In short, all they have to do is split with LSU and Bama (which they did already last year) and they will have 11 wins. Of course, the media will hail the heck out of them (SEC! SEC! SEC!) but the smart people will know that they only played in 4 "losable" games against teams that had a pulse, and two of those (Ole Miss and Vandy) are perrenial door mats that didn't even go .500 against BCS schools last year. P.S. For the record, as a long time SEC skeptic, I predicted aTm would go 8-4 in thier first year in the SEC. I was off by 2 games because (a) I had no idea manziel was a Heisman caliber player, and (b) I did not forsee Auburn going 0-8 and Arky going 2-6 in conference.
A&M is going to be very good next year. I think they have a very legit shot at winning it all. It's a shame their schedule is so embarrassingly easy because I think they're good enough to beat top flight teams. After Manziel leaves it's over, though. As long as he's there - they are going to be very good. I have no problem with that. I have a problem with their ******* fans who continuously bash Texas and who continue to blame Texas for forcing them out. Why not just admit that you left to separate yourselves and create a new identity??
However................ we love to talk football but not aggy football. What interrupts the discussion is that aggy, sitting on the wire, lurking for the opportunity to interject themselves into the conversations, act like small-time vultures and swoop in to offer their ill-informed opinions about the majesty of aggy football (note: there has never been any) and why they did NOT run away, in spite of the fact that they did. Reminds us of Shakespeare .... "Methinks thou dost protest too much". THAT is aggy in a nutshell. No matter what you actually see, you don't see it. Pooooor aggy.
For what its worth, unless and until we get out of the crap configuration of the Big 12-4+2 that we are currently in, I'd be in favor of putting aTm back on the schedule. Yes, I was fine with "punishing" them by taking them off the schedule, but after a year in the watered down Big 12, I am rethinking that posture. Why? Because our home schedule sucks and there are few games to look forward to in Austin. It is one snoozer after another. Ole Miss is the only decent game on the schedule this year. The next best games after that are KSU and OSU, and neither one of those is going to be the choice for Gameday. We got stuck on the short bus with KU, Baylor, TCU, KSU, etc, while the cool kids in the SEC, B1G and Pac 12 are playing more big games in prime time on national TV than we are. Say what you want about aTm and thier fans, but that was a rivalry game with some serious bad blood that both fan bases got amped up for (yes, we all know that the Ags got more amped up and that OU is an even bigger rival. aTm was still the biggest game played in Austin). College game days in Austin now are, frankly, pretty boring. While there are plenty of good teams in the Big 12 these days, with the exception of OU, they are ALL historically awful teams for the most part over the past 50 years, and none of them are on any Top 25 list of all time programs in college football. Baylor, OSU, TCU, WVU, KSU and TTech are historically irrelevant in college football (indeed, most of them are near the bottom of the list of the the all-time worst programs ever in terms of winning %). None of those schools get the national blood going or will be likely to host Gameday, and our own fans seem to open a huge can of "can't give a damn" every time we play them. It is actually the worst of both worlds, because some of those teams are now good enough to beat us some year, but their names carry so little weight that we get no credit when we beat them, and its not a very big deal when we do. The conference games I have been to recently have been very quiet, and stands are not even full anymore. At least with aTm people will be fired up. And since we beat them 2/3 of the time we play them, it will be fub to run their noses in it, talk smack around the office, have scoreboard over the SEC, and take a little air out of their celebratory mood these past several months. I'd much prefer we go back to 8 confernce games, add aTm, and still play another marquee OOC game like USC or ND every year. I am sure many people disagree and will flame away. The fact of the matter is you can't invent or manufacture rivalries -- they take decades (or centuries) to develop. aTm is happy for the moment because they won the Heisman and had a lot of sucess in their first year, but when Manziel leaves they will look up and realize that, unless they start toughening up their OOC schedule, their home schedule will also suck. Indeed, this year the only toughb home game they have is Bama -- after that it is 4 OOC cupcakes and 3 SEC schools that had losing records vs. BCS teams last year, none of whom they have any history with or hatred toward (nor do any of those schools are a whit about aTm). .
Viper -- aTm is more historically relevant than those schools. Some of them had losing records every year for decades and are some if the losingest teams in College Football history. aTm is in the Top 25 all time programs -- closer to 25 than 1 to be sure, but they are in there. They also get 90000 passionate fans at their games. Most of the rest of those schools are lucky to get 50, and often less than that. Most importantly, they have been a heated rival of ours for 100 years. People get up for those games and are fired up for a year when we win. Conversely, we have only played WVU, KSU, etc a few times, and no one cares when we beat any of those schools. They simply don't matter to UT fans. College football should be about big games, bitter rivalries and excitement. It shouldn't be boring or anticlimactic. Right now our league is boring and we have too few big games on the schedule. Nine months is a long time to wait for a schedule that has OU (recently a humiliation) and 11 schools that Kirk Herbstreet has never been to.
While our home schedule this season is pretty weak, we still have a possible top five match up early in the season against the defending national champion. That alone is huge and can pretty much carry the rest of the home schedule seem okay. The other thing is, it doesn't appear the Texas home schedule will ever get much better. Last year we had UF, LSU, and Ark. at home. While I know that Arkansas didn't play so well, they are usually an above average team. UT ticket buyers don't appear to have much relief from the crappy home schedules in the future due to a Big XII that doesn't get much respect by anyone like the SEC or Pac-16 do.
One other point.... when will A&M be scheduling a competitive non-conference game? Home or away? Is there one in the near future? This year, for example, I don't see a Pac 12, Big Ten or ACC team... or even a Big 12 team... on their schedule anywhere. Texas this year has BYU, Indpt, and Ole Miss,SEC. Then from 2014 thru 2023, NC games with BYU, UCLA, Notre Dame, Cal, Maryland, USC, Arkansas, Ohio State .... For A&M, I now see on one of their sites,,, these for upcoming seasons... 2015, USC 2016, USC 2018 & 19...maybe Oregon That's it.
I imagine that we will begin scheduling better competition but its still a little bit of a transition. We had improved our schedule while in the Big XII by scheduling Arkansas but the move to the SEC changed that. Also, it's not as if we absolutely have to improve our OOC schedule due to playing in a very strong division. Our fans get a solid home schedule. That being said, fans will ignore the weak home schedule as long as you are winning and possibly playing for a conference championship.
