I'd say another thing that has been tiring is the fact that coaches with even a semblance of success here (Schloss and even Buzz too for examples) have walked on their own to different schools, and we didn't do **** about it. Bear Bryant had some success here at A&M, but then we couldn't hang onto him.

I know Schloss was basically gone because he wants to be with his boyfriend CDC in Austin, but my point still stands. I know some were tired of Buzz and I agree Bucky will have a higher ceiling as a coach here IMO, but again my point still stands. I still think he was a good coach here.

This is not a personal issue with coaches. Something is seriously wrong with our leadership at the top that causes good coaches to get the **** out of here ASAP. We better get it figured out soon, or it'll be more of the same ole same ole.

AggieNattie said:

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I'd say another thing that has been tiring is the fact that coaches with even a semblance of success here (Schloss and even Buzz too for examples) have walked on their own to different schools, and we didn't do **** about it. Bear Bryant had some success here at A&M, but then we couldn't hang onto him.

I know Schloss was basically gone because he wants to be with his boyfriend CDC in Austin, but my point still stands. I know some were tired of Buzz and I agree Bucky will have a higher ceiling as a coach here IMO, but again my point still stands. I still think he was a good coach here.

This is not a personal issue with coaches. Something is seriously wrong with our leadership at the top that causes good coaches to get the **** out of here ASAP. We better get it figured out soon, or it'll be more of the same ole same ole.

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Well, when other schools came after Jimbo we gave him a massive contract to keep him, and we know how that turned out…

TX_Aggie37 said:

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DGrimesAg92 said:

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App State.....

Texas A&M should NEVER lose to App State.

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Neither should Michigan. If we end up winning a natty in the next 20 years like they did then you're not allowed to be happy.

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17 and counting

Auburn 24' broke me

I theorize that anyone who's on here in July is not really apathetic.

Usually, it comes in waves. Last year, after the LSU win, hope got the better of me. It had been years since I was hopeful.

I'm back to my old self. I'll have it on if I'm home, but otherwise, meh.

Bear Bryant is a bad example imo. Left an all male all military school that refused to racially integrate for his co-ed Alma mater who did integrate earlier than we did.

You covered Schloss.

Buzz was reasonably successful but he was trying to secure generational wealth for his family with another 5-6 yr deal and we weren't biting and rightfully so imo so he went elsewhere. He was good but not that good and reportedly a pita to work with as well.

Not just single game, but following flat on our A $ $ following a 7-1 start, when it counted the most.

2017 UCLA

I don't know the official stats.

But I do know we had 16 or so crucial 3rd or 4 th and a yard situations. We got 4, maybe 5. Get 8 we win 2 more football games, get 12 and we win 3…

The lack of creativity, the handing the ball off with a delay in this situation is mind numbingly frustrating.
It's not that we failed, it's the play call had zero chance of succeeding.

Klien worries me, I said that before last season. He has done zero to show we all should not be concerned!!!!

RIP Hulk! GOAT of wrestling! I would have started my own thread but I'm cheap and don't pay for premium services.

Not one particular game, just the complete inability to capitalize on 2012, including the sips ability to make OU take the asskicking that should have been theirs in the 2013 Cotton Bowl, and the Game Day curse that makes us crap the bed. Literally. Every. Time.

AggieNattie said:

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I'd say another thing that has been tiring is the fact that coaches with even a semblance of success here (Schloss and even Buzz too for examples) have walked on their own to different schools, and we didn't do **** about it. Bear Bryant had some success here at A&M, but then we couldn't hang onto him.

I know Schloss was basically gone because he wants to be with his boyfriend CDC in Austin, but my point still stands. I know some were tired of Buzz and I agree Bucky will have a higher ceiling as a coach here IMO, but again my point still stands. I still think he was a good coach here.

This is not a personal issue with coaches. Something is seriously wrong with our leadership at the top that causes good coaches to get the **** out of here ASAP. We better get it figured out soon, or it'll be more of the same ole same ole.

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You are missing the problem though.

Schloss was an outlier in that he was actually an elite coach.

But Slocum, Buzz, MJ, Fisher, etc. - our tradition of hanging onto a coach because he's just good is the problem. We'd rather be 8-4 consistently but never truly be in the hunt for anything than to swing and miss on a few coaches but eventually find that one that will put us in the rarified air.

Give him a season with stability at qb , a full year in the System, and guys more hand picked for this offense and I believe you might change your mind. It's not going to be super sexy but it is going to be opposing fans screaming "why can't our defense get these scrubs off the field" Jmo.

Nothing like barely having access to any TV while deployed in Iraq Fall 2003 and seeing snipets of OU crushing A&M 77-0 (HC Franchione in charge of that crapshow) ...that will induce apathy and depression...LOL! Needless to say even losses at home (whether watching @ Kyle Field or on TV anywhere stateside) cannot compare to that time. After the hype of the Franchione hire, then hype/ over pay/ underwhelming performance of Fisher...I'll give Elko his 3-5 years to run the FB program and see what he can accomplish.

For me, as I got older, I became more objective in the assessment of the team.
In football, it's more about managing expectations relative to the team we ACTUALLY have once you take off the maroon glasses and don't let hope and fandom cloud your judgment.

I've been saying it for years, and Elko's starting to say it out loud a lot now….but we haven't had anywhere near the caliber of talent needed to win big.

Drop the recruiting rankings….thats just more hope. Truth lies on the other end, meaning NFL draft production.
Maybe we recruited the wrong kid with bad evaluation, maybe we didn't develop them well….doesnt matter, bottom line we didn't produce the NFL talent.
The championship contenders put in double digits, year after year, while we tend to hover around 3 or 4.

Until we change THAT, we're still gonna continue to hover below the 10 win threshold.

And doing it once doesn't really mean you've arrived. Because when you're doing it year after year with consistency, that means you don't just have them thru your upperclassmen, it means you've got some NFL caliber studs mixed about thru your underclassmen too.

Let's get to THAT. Weve never had that, like EVER.
Then let's see how it translates to the win/loss record.

I won't say I'm apathetic. I will be watching each and every game. I have elected to not spend any money to actually come to Kyle Field this season, however (unless some tickets others in my family have become available due to their potential travel plans for mid-season, then I'll buy their tickets and attend a game or two, however many it would be).

I remain ticked off about last season's collapse. Most particularly the Auburn game. I can somewhat excuse the South Carolina and tu games, but what I cannot fathom is going down 21-0 in the first quarter to a team that had routinely proven an inability to score all season. I don't know what that was, but it was not acceptable. Defense was bad. Offense was bad.

As a student from 85 - 89, I don't believe I had ever witnessed an A&M football team enter November all alone in first place and not win its conference. Yes, it was the SWC, but in the late 80s it was still a decent conference. They won in 85 and 87 with first place on the line against the sips. They also won in 86 despite a November loss on the road to the pig people. They had similar results against a much weaker SWC in the early 90s - heck, in those days they rarely lost games in conference regardless of where they were played. Since then, the Ags have had few opportunities to actually win a conference title, winning only in 1998 (although I don't believe they were a first place team given that we had to pull an upset against KSU in the Big 12 title game to actually win that conference). Two early losses in 2012 meant we weren't in line for a conference title without outside assistance. We beat everyone in 2020 other than Alabama, which of course didn't lose a game, so not opportunity that year.

I've been on a "prove it" or "show me" mode since last season's collapse. I am not going to assume the Ags will win any particular game, other than maybe Utah State or Samford. I'm pessimistic given that all of our big home games last season are on the road this season, and two of those locations are stadiums where we have never won (Notre Dame) or not won since the early 90s (LSU). 6-6 until they show me something better.

Probably already been said but it isnt a game or the year to year results. Seen good years and bad years since my fish year in 87. Its more the nature nof the sport ... all the changes in the recent years. College football as a whole isnt the sport i grew up with and love. I will watch some games but the passion isnt there anymore.

schmellba99 said:

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Detmersdislocatedshoulder said:

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if it were only one game BAS would not be a thing. it's decades worth of one games here and there that add up. i still watch all the games and will never quit.

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This. This is the answer.

• Almost all bowl games under Slocum
• Our abysmal record against ranked teams under Slocum
• Dennis Franchione - his entire tenure
• Mike Sherman's inevitable last half of the season collapse and all of his losses to Arkansas
• Sumlin's death spiral (again shows our inability to maintain success)
• Fisher's inability to maintain success
• The fact that the last time we won a national championship was 1939
• The fact that the last time we won a conference championship was 1998
• The fact that the last time we had a double digit winning season was 2012
• The fact that every single time we get to the fork in the road where we choose the path to being a national power and breathing the same air as the handful of teams that are and being the typical 8-4 mediocre program that loves to talk about success but is actually afraid of it, we choose the path to 8-4
• Arkansas State
• Louisiana Tech
• Iowa State
• 77-0
• Our tradition of getting prison raped by teams like Miami and Notre Dame in nationally televised games
• UCLA, both in the Cotton Bowl when we pissed away a win and the infamous pimp stick game where, again, we pissed away a win
• etc, etc, etc.

I used to live and die by Aggie football, but about 6-7 years ago I started being less enthusiastic about it and decided I wasn't going to let our inevitable collapse ruin my weekends. Started changing the channel when we were playing like garbage. Decided deer hunting was way more enjoyable. Now I'm pretty much a passive fan - love it when we win, shrug my shoulders when we don't. Have no expectations that we'll be in the title hunt in my lifetime - and if we ever are, that's just an awesome surprise bonus that I'll enjoy in the moment as much as the next fan.

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This right here. Couldn't have said it any better.

If they were truly apathetic about Aggie football they would not be on Texags all the time.

There are lots of posts here that resonate with me personally.

1. The gut punch losses do add up over the years.
2, The leadership being at least tacitly ok with mediocrity is not a baseless charge.
3. Squandering the window we had after the SEC move to only land where we are one decade later is really dispiriting too.
4. NIL, the super conferences and ESPN (Bet) all are factors in bleaching away everything many of us loved about college football. Its more and more becoming not just pro-ball. But professional sports whose purpose is to drive a sports book owned by the media giant that also reports on the sport and presents the games! (As a college ball is more about driving gambling revenue A&M risks being slotted even further back by the network that owns the sport. I can see us getting slotted in a new scheduling scheme into what amounts to a mini-Southwest Conference. Something akin to the AFC South of college football.

All that said, I still enjoy watching football, and will be by the channel.

As for the board being 10-20 doom and gloomers, I wouldn't sweat that too much.

This board will be like a desert bloom after a rain at some point every season.



Then the rain will have passed, and it will look like the desert again.

Quote:

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• Louisiana Tech

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Huh?

Or did you mean Southwest Lousiana, who we lost to in game 2 of 1996 and they then featured that win on their media guide for 1997?

Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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Quote:

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• Louisiana Tech

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Huh?

Or did you mean Southwest Lousiana, who we lost to in game 2 of 1996 and they then featured that win on their media guide for 1997?

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Probably.
But people forget, we barely squeaked by LaTech in JFFs heisman season. Probably should have beat us.
Defense had very little depth, and was completely out of gas.

It wasn't a specific game, but countless things that robbed us of "what might have been". After awhile, it's hard to get as excited for the new season...


1. Injury to Haynes vs. Colorado
2. The players that transferred -- Kyler, Kyle, Walter
3. Jimbo not getting rid of the OL coach who seemed inept
4. Injury to Max
5. t-sips are welcomed to sec
6. Injury to Connor
7. We start 7-1, then LeVeon gets hurt
8. and a lot more....

I was at that game. It definitely eroded, but it wasn't the beginning…. For me it was Tulsa and Tech in the 90s…

32 year season ticket holder... Not so much a game, but...

1. Millions spent on facilities with poor ROI
2. Millions spent on coaches with poor ROI
3. Millions of NIL spent with (a) Poor ROI, and (b) Players who are here just for the money
4. The massive hassle just to get to a game, get to the stadium, and get into the stadium.
5. The commercialization of game day
6. The scripting of down time during the game
7. No Blue and Gray Melody

ATL Aggie said:

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I am not apathetic on Aggie football, but I am losing interest in college sports. Unrestricted free agency is ruining it for me. There is no point to following or cheering for individual players and recruiting or anymore since the roster is a revolving door. But, I think the athletes need to be fairly compensated for the value the bring.

I will still watch. I will still excited when we win and heartbroken when we lose. But it isnt as fun as it used to be. And I am worried that a great success, like winning the NC, wont be as exuberating as it would have been before this mess. The purity has been taken away, but I still bleed maroon and love the Ags.

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"But, I think the athletes need to be fairly compensated for the value the bring"

I guess $120,000 in free education, free healthcare, free room & board and free tutoring wasn't good enough.
That's why I've lost interest.

The players better win. They're paid professionals. I don't want to hear any excuses. I live in Houston. It's the same 'transaction' I have w/ the Astros or Texans. Win or Lose I don't care. I have more important things to do.

I'm not apathetic overall yet, but I am certainly apathetic towards recruiting right now, which influences posts this time of year. There is obviously not a game that influenced that, but having the nUmBeR OnE rEcRuItInG cLaSs Of AlL tImE completely fall apart into a 5-7 season and then leave in droves each year, combined with not being able to hold onto a QB for more than 2 years in a row is probably what did it for me. I'm still excited for the season and all of that, but I probably can't name a third of the starters or more than one or two members of our current recruiting class without looking them up.

schmellba99 said:

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Detmersdislocatedshoulder said:

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if it were only one game BAS would not be a thing. it's decades worth of one games here and there that add up. i still watch all the games and will never quit.

---

This. This is the answer.

• Almost all bowl games under Slocum
• Our abysmal record against ranked teams under Slocum
• Dennis Franchione - his entire tenure
• Mike Sherman's inevitable last half of the season collapse and all of his losses to Arkansas
• Sumlin's death spiral (again shows our inability to maintain success)
• Fisher's inability to maintain success
• The fact that the last time we won a national championship was 1939
• The fact that the last time we won a conference championship was 1998
• The fact that the last time we had a double digit winning season was 2012
• The fact that every single time we get to the fork in the road where we choose the path to being a national power and breathing the same air as the handful of teams that are and being the typical 8-4 mediocre program that loves to talk about success but is actually afraid of it, we choose the path to 8-4
• Arkansas State
• Louisiana Tech
• Iowa State
• 77-0
• Our tradition of getting prison raped by teams like Miami and Notre Dame in nationally televised games
• UCLA, both in the Cotton Bowl when we pissed away a win and the infamous pimp stick game where, again, we pissed away a win
• etc, etc, etc.

I used to live and die by Aggie football, but about 6-7 years ago I started being less enthusiastic about it and decided I wasn't going to let our inevitable collapse ruin my weekends. Started changing the channel when we were playing like garbage. Decided deer hunting was way more enjoyable. Now I'm pretty much a passive fan - love it when we win, shrug my shoulders when we don't. Have no expectations that we'll be in the title hunt in my lifetime - and if we ever are, that's just an awesome surprise bonus that I'll enjoy in the moment as much as the next fan.

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nailed it!
/Did we just become best friends?!?/meme

Justice Beaver said:

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Auburn last year was the nail in the coffin. Beat a clown shoes 5-7 team to secure a spot in the SECCG? Nah, here comes a 21-0 deficit in the 1Q, and a blown lead at the end of regulation to force a 4 OT loss.
After that I knew we'd get worked by the sips and likely lose the bowl.

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halfastros81 said:

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Give him a season with stability at qb , a full year in the System, and guys more hand picked for this offense and I believe you might change your mind. It's not going to be super sexy but it is going to be opposing fans screaming "why can't our defense get these scrubs off the field" Jmo.

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I'll believe it when I see it. I'm done with "let [insert coach] get his guys in place".

Just win.

I knew Jimbo was a bad coach when we lost to Ole Miss and LSU in '21. Both in the exact same way. Not feeding the hot hand (Achane) when it was the only thing that got you out of the hole you dug. This aside from the obviously too complex offense and stubbornness.

I still like Elko. But to me it was very **** to:
- hire Bateman and Spencer
- lose to Auburn
- miss tackles even on Sellers bc he knew beforehand that Sellers is a TE build
- saying his secondary doesn't know how to play zone like you're the coach why don't they know that late in the season and if you know they dont know that then why are you asking them to play zone
- not getting a top end DT and SDE in the portal
- Ratcliffe saying the scheme is an NFL defensive scheme which is fine when you've had players like Leal, Clemons, etc. in your system but in this era I wonder if his scheme will be too complex for portal players.

Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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Quote:

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• Louisiana Tech

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Huh?

Or did you mean Southwest Lousiana, who we lost to in game 2 of 1996 and they then featured that win on their media guide for 1997?

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I couldn't remember which directional Louisiana school it was offhand.

But yes, Southwest Louisiana. And La Tech when we barely beat them in 2013. And Tulsa back in the early 90's. Throw in barely beating Army 15 or so years ago. And a host of other games that we should have, simply by virtue of the disparity in talent, won handily - but either didn't or barely won and essentially killed ourselves in terms of how the voters viewed us in the polls.

Go back before that, and even before I was born, the Arkansas loss in '75 (I think) that cost us the national championship or the '92 Notre Dame loss in the Cotton Bowl that cost us at least a legit shot at a partial championship or even a #2 ranking.

It's all the same story - in one method or another, we trip on our own dick every time we get to a point where if we could just get out of our own way and win we would in all likelyhood change the entire direction of our athletic program.

Baseball - couldn't close the deal 2 years ago. Softball last year - #1 team and objectively the best and most talented team in the country and we never made it out of our own freaking regional. Then we watched tu win the championship. Football - every year since 1939 has been lackluster.

At some point you just wake up and realize that we are what we are and the odds of us changing are pretty slim. So you change your viewpoint on things and don't let a loss on a weekend really get to you much, you find much more enjoyable things to do and readily admit that you have become more or less a bandwagon fan. And that's perfectly fine - doesn't make you a 2%er or any other nonsense, it just means you've moved on to better things.

Nm