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The rise of Texas A&M and fall of UT after realignment

J.R. Ewing said:
UT will right the ship with Strong. Black athletes in Texas would much, much, much rather go to Austin than College Station.
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FlaBuff said:
I'd not bury Strong too quickly. He is a builder. There are a lot of egos among the Texas HS coaches who were used to regular stroking by Mack Brown. Strong isn't that guy. His guys would run thru walls for him at UF and UL.
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Charlie Strong gets results but his military style isn't for everyone. I believe his approach will toughen up the entitled doughboys who buy in and though the good ole boy static he may face in dealing with coaches and boosters is a hindrance, he knows football and I'm envious we didn't can Hawkins in 2009 and get Strong on board to right our program.

Texas holds big scoreboard over A&M in their long history but since the late SWC days the tipping of scales in either's favor has been cyclical. Texas started recruiting lights out under Mack Brown from the start and they were showing big results on the field in the late 90s just as A&M was sliding back into regular season mediocrity. What we're seeing now is similar to A&M's meteoric rise in the early 90s. They are appealing because they have the swagger. Programs like CU and A&M strongly emulated the Miami swagger following the Canes' showtime style under Jimmy Johnson. Somehow players from the two top Texas programs, despite the similarities of having a large affluent and white (and very uptight traditionalist) Texan fanbase, acted very differently on the field. I think Sumlin is much more the coach that would be fine with his players expressing flamboyance after a big hit or a juke of a defender. Mack Brown or Charlie Strong, not so much. And now the Aggies can sell (ain't no swag like) SEC swag on top of it to their players.

Maybe FlaBuff has noticed it from his time as a CU player. There is a particular type of ingrained cultural swagger that comes with a football player from Houston or Beaumont. Since this area falls within the Aggie footprint more than any other, the right coach can keep these personalities just controlled enough to stay focused in a football game but they will also appear to be having more fun than a player at a program where the coach is lauded for "recruiting the right type of kids" might be. And yes, that language is coded with all kinds of sociological, racial implications.
 
A&M rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Sumlin pulling strings to reinstate Manzeil after being suspended for his role in a racially motivated brawl was strike one. A&M hiring the same attorneys used by Auburn to cover the autograph scandal is strike two. The decision to sit JFF for the first half of the Rice game was a travesty. Manzeil's ability to attend A&M through on-line only classes is a joke.

The $450M stadium renovation is going to come with lots of politics and further opportunity for aggie to oversteer their headlights.

A&M will screw things up soon enough. No way they can keep up the momentum. A few six win seasons and a few more scandals will catch up with them soon enough.
 
Aik, I guaran-damn-tee you we immitated nobody, especially Miami. Our team culture was nothing like that of UMs. I'm sorry we never played them when I was there. They celebrated 3 yd gains like a Super Bowl victory. Mac believed in celebrating, but only when celebrating was merited. You never saw Mike Pritchard act the fool after a short gain, and EB didn't throw the Omega sign unless he accomplished something. Hagan, hell, he'd look to jump into the arms of the nearest OL.

And even with Texas having a down year they still had the same number of regular season wins as ATM. Aggies came from behind to beat the ACC runner-up and the horns got worked by the PAC-12 fashion plate. I'd have taken a disappointing season like that gladly the last few years.
 
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Skidmark said:
A&M rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Sumlin pulling strings to reinstate Manzeil after being suspended for his role in a racially motivated brawl was strike one. A&M hiring the same attorneys used by Auburn to cover the autograph scandal is strike two. The decision to sit JFF for the first half of the Rice game was a travesty. Manzeil's ability to attend A&M through on-line only classes is a joke.

The $450M stadium renovation is going to come with lots of politics and further opportunity for aggie to oversteer their headlights.

A&M will screw things up soon enough. No way they can keep up the momentum. A few six win seasons and a few more scandals will catch up with them soon enough.
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Inevitable. Aggie will be Aggie.
 
I don't know how long it will last but like Sacky I'm going to savor the moment. UT needs a good humbling. They could have been a nice addition to the PAC 12 if they weren't so arrogant. As it stands it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.
 
Strong won't get 5 years to "build," he'll get 2-3 years to produce or else. UT boosters just don't have the patience at this point. There is a fairly decent chance of an Embree-like exit.
 
MtnBuff said:
Skiddy,

Two things. One is that the NC year had a lot more to do with a guy named Vince Young than it did with anything special that Mack did.

Secondly, once Mack got that title it seems like he went into cruise control. He handled the PR part of the job, which is as mentioned earlier is probably a bigger part of the job at Texas than it is at any other school. The coaching got turned over to his assistants.

They also got lazy recruiting. Invite a bunch of top flight juniors to camp with them, offer the ones who had the best junior years, and fill their class early. The problem with this approach is that they got a lot of highly rated kids, in part rated highly because they were committed to UT, many of who were early developers but who didn't continue to develop while at the same time missing out on a lot of better kids who didn't jump out until their senior seasons and then went elsewhere.

You also make a pretty good point about Manzel and the circus he brought with him. He was in the spotlight so often he opened a lot of recruiting doors to them. Will that continue once he's gone. Also how many games does aTm lose last year without Johnny Football taking snaps. In the world of the SEC there is a huge difference between a 1-2 loss team and a 3-4 loss team.

This isn't the first time that aTm has had a couple of big winning teams and it won't be the first time they drop off following.
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BINGO! Mack paid more attention to "stars" than to the kids that held them and hired a parade of over-paid, hotdogs/flash-in-the-pans, as assistants (See most all of his OC's, DC's and Mad Dog Madden, the Whorn boards---including many astute insiders--- expressed continuing dislike of many and for good reason! Madden in particular, was constantly criticized for the lack of strength of UT linemen) who failed to develop these top recruits. Or the recruits had simply peaked by the time they got to Austin. Why do you think UT did not have a single draft choice this past 2014 NFL draft? This, despite years of Top 10 recruiting classes!
 
aTm is on a roll, but as others have observed, they are Aggie. You can put Aggie in the SEC, but he's still Aggie. They will find a way to screw the pooch. UT is hopefully headed for a nice John Mackovic era run. The Big 12-2+2-2=10 is about to do a Big East......
 
sackman said:
We all saw this coming. **** Texas. I hope they die in a fire. Their hubris has decimated their own program. Couldn't happen to a nicer set of guys. This happened to them once before, when Arkansas bolted the SWC and it collapsed. Texas was thrown a life jacket by the Big 12. We need to make sure nobody throws them a life jacket now. Especially not the PAC 12.
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Absolutely. ATM has shown that ESPN doesn't need UTerus to thrive in Texas. Let them wallow in their self made barnyard mess.
 
leftybuff said:
aTm is on a roll, but as others have observed, they are Aggie. You can put Aggie in the SEC, but he's still Aggie. They will find a way to screw the pooch. UT is hopefully headed for a nice John Mackovic era run. The Big 12-2+2-2=10 is about to do a Big East......
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Are you referring to this pooch? 'Cause if so, they've been screwing this pooch for, like, 50 years.

th
 
I think you guys are underestimating the value to aTm of being in the SEC vs. UT in a neutered Big 12. It is a fundamental structural power shift for aTm. Now, if UT's resources finally help get that train moving in the right direction and starts winning back to back to back neutered Big 12 titles while aTm continues to deliver 3rd and 4th place finishes in the SEC and a .625 conf winning percentage, it could shift right back. The question is really whether or not aTm can capitalize on this shift and regularly compete for the SEC West title, which is no small task (Alabama, Auburn, LSU, etc).

Setting the Aggies aside, how nice would it be to see a continuing run of OU, Baylor, and either TT or TCU beat up on UT? That would be awesome!
 
i think the article in the OP is more an aggregate of after the fact assumptions and glad-handing....than a real "argument" assembled as such. we'll see how good Sumlin is with his own (admittedly highly ranked) guys. ATM has ALWAYS good classes. he inherited Art Briles Houston team and never called the plays at OU with Bradford which he always mentioned as "the OC". the

in the last days of the SWC, ATM was the cool kid on the Texas block for a time (whatever that means!)....all the kids from the posh Houston and Dallas suburbs started going there instead of UT. which means booster moneys and such down the road.

i give ATM credit for making the move to the SEC, but Mizzou has also been very competitive in the almighty SEC.

as far as a coach that is only as good as his assistants....that seems like Mack Brown to me. Muschamp, Chizik......and that Manny guy or Bull Reese or Brian Harsin. easy to say it was all VY in 05 but that team was loaded with killers on D. bunch of NFL guys on that D.
 
Mick Ronson said:
i think the article in the OP is more an aggregate of after the fact assumptions and glad-handing....than a real "argument" assembled as such. we'll see how good Sumlin is with his own (admittedly highly ranked) guys. ATM has ALWAYS good classes. he inherited Art Briles Houston team and never called the plays at OU with Bradford which he always mentioned as "the OC". the

in the last days of the SWC, ATM was the cool kid on the Texas block for a time (whatever that means!)....all the kids from the posh Houston and Dallas suburbs started going there instead of UT. which means booster moneys and such down the road.

i give ATM credit for making the move to the SEC, but Mizzou has also been very competitive in the almighty SEC.

as far as a coach that is only as good as his assistants....that seems like Mack Brown to me. Muschamp, Chizik......and that Manny guy or Bull Reese or Brian Harsin. easy to say it was all VY in 05 but that team was loaded with killers on D. bunch of NFL guys on that D.
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No question that the team was loaded with talent all over, both on offense and defense. Point is that a number of Texas teams were as well and didn't win it all. VY was the difference maker, not Mack. VY was the leader, he was also the guy who made the huge, timely plays. On a team loaded with talent he was the transcendental talent. Didn't translate into the NFL but at the college level he was special. Mack was not a special coach.
 
i'm not going to argue Mack is a special coach but he's a lot realer to the HOF than Danny Ford as a one time MNC winner at Clemson. he'll get in because he's Mack Brown. Sure. i know realer is not a word but more real.

Texas was crap in the 90's. they've been bad before. we'll see about Strong.....but, they were bad before because of Great State of Texas cronyism...hiring McWilliams and Mackovic was crazyness. all of a sudden Freddy Akers didn't look so bad.

to me, Limas Sweed won the 05 MNC with an unreal catch at Ohio State....and Tressel kicking too many FG's. Buckeyes had 05 Texas beat. TE drops a ball in the EZ. I also think the 04 USC team was a lot better than the 05 one. in the trenches, on D. whatever.
 
The article seems to be an SEC hack(Clay Travis has been taking shots at UT for awhile) trying to take some loosely related facts and trying to make a case that realignment was a direct cause of Texas fall and A&Ms rise. The Texas football program was in decline well before any realignment. Mack Brown allow a culture to grow around the program where UT just became soft. It showed up in recruiting - he would get his classes filled early so he would not have to really work to evaluate and compete for players...it showed up in a ton of off field issues, head cases, etc.

That people are writing Charlie Strong off as a failure and lacking leadership before he coaches his first game at UT is crazy- it is funny how his record of previous success gets him no points with some. Comparisons to Dan Hawkins are laughable or pathetic.

UT has the resources (money, facilities and support) and will be a force sooner rather than later. A&M is doing well but their success does not preclude UT from doing well.
 
It's great to see Texas being humbled. really great. but this article seems like a sec shill. I don't see that the SEC move made mack brown a washed up jabba the hut, or delivered manziel to A&M (he wasn't offered by any SEC schools or UT). So now lets see how well UT and A&M do.

I also do find it humerous that Strong is apparently not good speaking, and apparently LHN requires lot of access to the Texas HC for its programming (but who knows what's even on that network since no one gets it).
 
GoBeers said:
It's great to see Texas being humbled. really great. but this article seems like a sec shill. I don't see that the SEC move made mack brown a washed up jabba the hut, or delivered manziel to A&M (he wasn't offered by any SEC schools or UT). So now lets see how well UT and A&M do.

I also do find it humerous that Strong is apparently not good speaking, and apparently LHN requires lot of access to the Texas HC for its programming (but who knows what's even on that network since no one gets it).
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Delicious.
 
Sumlin is going to need to win some Sec titles in order to maintain recruiting dominance over UT. That is going to be an uphill battle playing in the same division as auburn, Bama and Lsu. If they don't make the playoff after a while and big 12 teams are able to make the playoffs with any regularity, the balance will shift. I think ut has an easier path against osu, Oklahoma and Baylor.
 
I absolutely HATE the aggies. Mom and dad went to SMU and instilled aggie hate in me at an early age. My interaction with aggie fans has strengthened that resolve.
 
DBT said:
I absolutely HATE the aggies. Mom and dad went to SMU and instilled aggie hate in me at an early age. My interaction with aggie fans has strengthened that resolve.
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You're just jealous that you don't get to wear their ring every moment of your adult life.
 
Duff Man said:
Bob Stoops and Mack Brown have won one MNC title each. That is bizarre.
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That's why Strong's going to have to make miracles happen in his first couple years to hold onto his job. People are just waking up from the Dodds/Brown spell they've been under, which in hindsight, wasn't all that great compared to a few schools they wouldn't be caught dead comparing themselves with.
 
I think the important thing to consider here isn't whether UT has fallen. It's to make sure they never get back up again.

And I'll point out that I wish CU had "fallen" to the level UT is at now. We went to where UT is, and then started digging.
 
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