Second Negative

The Backyard Brawl

The regular readers that stop by for my political ravings, bible lessons, or fascinating childhood stories may want to just skip this post altogether. On a side note, how about using the contact form to let me know what content/features you enjoy the most at SecondNegative.com? The site receives a decent amount of traffic from a wide variety of locations (hey there H-E-B), but that doesn’t really tell me much about the readers. What keeps you coming back? Drop me a line sometime and let’s talk.

I wanted to talk briefly about college football, and my beloved Texas A&M Aggies. I don’t post about football very often on this site, but it’s safe to say that the half of my brain that isn’t thinking about politics is thinking about football. I’m not really thinking about much else, and that explains a helluva lot. I included that “helluva” so that you guys from far away places like China and Vermont can have a little piece of the Texas experience.

The Texas A&M football team had a great comeback year in 2004. Next month they will carry a 7-4 season record into a Holiday Bowl berth in sunny San Diego, California. You might be thinking, “7-4 isn’t all that great”, but you have to consider it in context. During Coach Franchione’s first year in 2003, the Aggies slumped to a 4-8 record that was their worst in twenty years. There were plenty of lowlights along the way, including a complete meltdown against the Okra-homa Sooners. They battled back this year under Coach Fran and had significant victories over Big 12 foes, including a great road win in Stillwater. They also narrowly lost to the #2 ranked Sooners by a touchdown. Most analysts agree that the Big 12 South is the toughest division in college football, and the Aggies more than held their own. Based on the number of returning starters, A&M should be ranked in all of the pre-season polls next fall, with a legitimate shot at taking the Big 12 title for the first time since 1998.

The Aggies lost to Texas last Friday during the annual grudge match that’s been all grudge and no match for about a decade. The Texas A&M-Texas rivalry is the 3rd most played in college football at 111 years, but it doesn’t always receive the same attention as rivalries like Michigan-Ohio State and Texas-Oklahoma. The main reason is that both teams are rarely good at the same time, whereas other major rivalries often involve national rankings and conference championships. Starting this year and going back to 1995, Texas has won 8 out of the past 10 games against the Aggies. Conversely, from 1984-1994, Texas A&M won 10 out of 11 games against the Longhorns. The modern Aggie-Longhorn rivalry is built on winning streaks. It might be more exciting if things were a little more up and down on an annual basis (like say, Alabama-Auburn).

The past couple of A&M-UT meetings have resulted in lopsided final scores, but this year things were much closer. Texas won the game because of experience and better overall talent. It also didn’t hurt that they were playing at home. The talent gap between the two largest universities in Texas had been widening each year since the late 1990’s, before Coach Fran arrived in Aggieland in 2003. Judging from the recruiting wars that have taken place since then, it seems to have evened out, if not reversed in favor of the Aggies. Texas A&M currently has the fifth ranked recruiting class in the country according to the Rivals recruiting service. Although A&M never fell out of the top 25 in recruiting, the talent drop-off was often significant. At least one journalist believes that the tide will finally turn in the next few years, when the talent gap between the two schools is closed.

I’ll mention a few things about the game last week in case anyone else happened to watch it. How many times does ABC have to come back from commercial after a play has been run to realize that it’s a problem? If I wanted to listen to an announcer tell me what just happened, I’d turn off the television and listen to the radio. And enough with talking to other coaches on the phone (and enough with the photos). I’m not interested in hearing what other coaches have to say about the BCS, or the fairness of the rankings, during the most important football game of the year. How about paying attention to the game Bob Griese? If I wanted to hear meaningless platitudes, I’d catch the latest Bush press conference.

Gig’EM!

UPDATE: 12/05/2004
Because of California’s relatively poor showing against Southern Mississippi on Saturday night, Texas moved ahead of them in the BCS rankings and received a bid to the Rose Bowl. What does this mean for the Aggies? Well, instead of playing in the Holiday Bowl, the Ags bump up a slot and replace Texas in the Cotton Bowl against Tennessee. So, it’s good news…in a way. I might have preferred the Holiday Bowl to having something good happen for Texas. Maybe.