He's actually pretty well informed.
His attitude just so perfectly illustrates at least 4 different mindset that are typical of A&M fans, and collectively you could even say they define what the world is like through Maroon-tinted welding goggles.
1. "Everyone's Out To Get Us" - A&M thinks they are unfairly the unfavorite of pretty much the entire college football world, and is constantly on the lookout for conspiracies where there are none. This also manifests as seeing hidden motives where there are none, and loaded statements in things that were actually innocuous. Thus when I said "your punter is the next Dickson", I just meant "We had such a great punter, and now you have one", but he heard something more like "Hey great punt but Dickson came first and was better and your guy will always be second" and so felt compelled to respond and defend himself against an attack that did not exist.
2. Envy & Inferiority Complex - A&M is an odd places. They are one of the biggest schools and richest programs in the nation, and if you just rated by that stuff and stadium size, fanbase rabidness, and traditions, you would think they were on the level of Michigan, USC, Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Miami, rather than actually being more on the level of Michigan State, UCLA, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Ole Miss, or Georgia Tech. The thing is, most of those latter schools accept that they are in the mid-tier P5 category as historical programs, but A&M has a unique envy based on thinking they are in the top-tier despite knowing deep down that they don't belong there. Thus, when you have a UT guy who just won a national award and is getting surprisingly high nationwide recognition for this given his position, A&M has a guy at that same position who has one really good game and immediately defaults to envy mode. So rather than him rejoice in his guy's good game and agreeing with me, it's time for him to compare the guys because he is dedicated to the idea that A&M is just as good as everyone else.
3. Inability to see greatness. Sure, everybody has unreasonable fans, but most fanbases can generally admit when they've just been outplayed. Most OU fans will say we deserved to win last week because our team outplayed them. And some USC fans still whine about Vince's knee, and most probably think they'd win more than 50% if the game was played over and over again, but they also generally give VY and Texas due credit and can begrudgingly admit we earned the win on that day, and even respect how good we are. Why? Because USC was a great team also, and greatness recognizes greatness. Reminds me of Kobe - I hated him in a lot of ways, but unlike most high-volume scorers he worked hard to be great on the defensive end too - and consequently he respected Doug Christie, Bruce Bowen (dirty arsehole though he was) or the Detroit Pistons because he knew great defense when he saw it. A&M is not great, and does not recognize greatness when it sees it. They can't admit Dickson was an all-time punter. They still think with a little different luck Reggie McNeal could have been Vince. They still think of Colt as McCry. Mack Brown wasn't as good as Franchione. They can't see that these guys were great, because they honestly do not know what greatness is or isn't.
4. Excuses and cherry-picked stats. Maybe this is related to the first, but it's different, although I'll use the 2005 Rose Bowl as an example again. When USC and Texas fans argued before the game about who was better, they usually used reasonable claims to argue this - because normal people and non-loony fanbases have (mostly) an agreed-upon idea of what stats to argue about. Remember the McConaughey vs Ferrell deal from before the game? "Vince has so-many yards of total offense" "Reggie Bush has so-many all purpose yards" "Texas scores more points per game", "USC leads the nation in red-zone TDs" "Texas also gains more yards per game" "Did I mention we have 2 Heisman trophies?" Etc etc. No Texas or USC fan would have responded with something like "But our longest rush TD this year was 92 yards, and you guys don't have a single rushing TD of even 80 yards all season". Yet to an A&M fan "our punter just hit a single punt of 85 yards and your guy never hit one that long" passes as an instant end-of-argument winner. The only stats that matter are the ones that favor them, anything else isn't worth discussing. They'll pick that one thing out of a hundred that works for them, hammer it to death, and if you point out it's meaningless, it's just proof that you are making excuses like a typical spoiled sip.
TL/DR: the problem isn't "informed", the problem is "aggy".
Click to expand...
