re: Bowl Match Up

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Good for you. How does playing Texas hurt A&M recruiting?

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It hurts if we lose.

Think of it this way: If we win we win $100, but if we lose we lose $200. Your perspective is "don't be a pussy, we will win and then we get $100!" I look at it as a bad gamble, especially when right now Texas is betting $20 to get $200 and this bet is their only way to stack their chips the next few years.

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You didn't answer my earlier question about when you graduated,

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Lol, why does it matter? You know, mid-00s Ag, but why does it matter?

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Look at the previous decade and the decade before that, when, curiously, we played Texas.

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I see a lot of nothing: no national titles, no Heismans, and no top five finishes. I see a bunch of bad bowl losses, and some conference championships in a conference that no longer exists. About the only thing out of that era that I see worth waxing nostalgic about is when we LOST in a BCS bowl.

Actually the only success I see is if we go back a decade further, in 1973 or whenever it was when Arky screwed us out of a national title. Seems like between that year and JFF's first year we were mostly irrelevant on the national scene outside of a random Snoop Dogg sighting.

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Conference affiliation and whether or not we played Texas had nothing to do with our recruiting.

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Of course it didn't, because at the time NEITHER WERE AN ADVANTAGE. With Texas we have a nasty head-head that we can't undo in your or my lifetime even if we played and won every year, and until now we were the second or third (or worse) sexiest Texas team in our own conference.

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it would be to play them as often as possible and beat their arse.

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No, no, no. No reason to let them in on our SEC exposure.

That is what you are COMPLETELY missing. You and the sips are wrong- JFF wasn't the only reason for our increase in national exposure. Just being in the SEC ensures you get covered by ESPN and are in more local papers than ANYONE in the Big 12 including Texas. The SEC is simply the strongest brand (I know, the evil word, bear with me) in college football right now and even if we would have completely sucked from day one we would still have four times the exposure in the SEC than we got in say 2008. But we haven't sucked, we have been pretty good. That means we have momentum, and no 59-0 didn't lose it all.

Meanwhile Texas is cut off from a lot of media exposure. Not being in the polls keeps them out of national conversations, but the committee's attitude towards the Big 12's top teams shows that the entire league they are in has a ceiling. The LHN has put some of their games off in nowhere land, and their AD is focused on Mexico instead of putting a fence around Texas to keep SEC mania out. Finally, Charlie had a so-so season and needs the kind of win that would get the old farts to buy into his program.

What do they have to lose if they play us? Not any recruits, we got the ones we want. Not any momentum, Charlie doesn't have any.

So they get the big reward and we get the big risk. I didn't at first but I see the light. The SEC is doing the right thing to dodge this matchup if that really is happening.

Oh and for the conversation FYI. I am so happy to talk with people that give a crap about OUR program more than how much they hate Texas.

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Well of course it does

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no it doesn't. There are currently two commits that Texas has who we offered. We have like 13. The only player we are battling Texas for right now is malik and he himself said a head to head game wouldn't matter. and that of course is an outlier. we are already perceived as the top program in the state by recruits so beating texas does nothing to enhance that. it just confirms what they already think. losing risks destroying that perception

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AKA Johnny Manziel. He's gone

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I still see us on national TV every week and remember how after one game, ESPN went crazy with "Kenny trill". Remember how ESPN came to our campus over the summer and spent a day covering our summer camp? Just being in the SEC gives us an insane amount of exposure

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If a loss to Texas is enough to completely derail Sumlin than he ain't the guy.

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Maybe, but I would rather learn that in 2016 after another top 5 class than this bowl season which is two years before we can afford to can him.

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You don't want to play them b/c you are scared

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It is not scared so much as their old argument:

"It is not worth playing _______ because if we win it is expected and if we lose it hurts us. Plus they will be playing us with the power of Jihad to validate their crappy season."


Basically the tables have turned, and I actually want to sit down and eat a meal at the table before everyone chops it into wood for the bonfire.

Plus the point made earlier in the thread is solid-it is bad if we win too! I mean, it won't get us a single recruit by itself and it might run off their coach who sucks at recruiting sooner than otherwise.

The whole thing is lose-lose! So you end up with a classic situation of

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Basically the tables have turned, and I actually want to sit down and eat a meal at the table before everyone chops it into wood for the bonfire.

Plus the point made earlier in the thread is solid-it is bad if we win too! I mean, it won't get us a single recruit by itself and it might run off their coach who sucks at recruiting sooner than otherwise.

The whole thing is lose-lose!

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This. This right here is why I'll be ok with never restarting the series.

We get matched up in the postseason? Ok, fine, whatever, let's beat their arse.

But does anyone truly believe that texas wants the series back because it's good for the rivalry or for college football? Of course not! If that were the case, they would have been more than happy to work with us and the SEC when we were bending over backwards to accommodate playing them OOC. No, this is a continuation of the way t.u. has ALWAYS viewed this rivalry--as a game to prop themselves up as often as possible at our expense. Not playing them has nothing to do with being scared of losing on the field--it has to do with being prudent in the protection of our still-fledgling modern-era cfb brand, and re-engaging in a partnership with a seedy bedfellow like t.u. just to feed our ego would be foolhardy. Think about it: as much shite as we give LSU for reneging on our series when we were curbstomping them year in and year out, does anyone really believe that the sips wouldn't be above pulling some similar monkeyshines that'd leave us high and dry schedule-wise and otherwise if they felt they were getting the short end of the stick?

That allegory is really disturbing.

Don't you have a recently-returned wife with... needs? Please, no more of this sexual misconduct with teasips talk.

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For once in our program's history we had the buffer to take a loss like that. What that means is we DON'T have the space on our dance card for a loss to Texas, just like I was convinced of earlier in the thread.

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Trust me, recruiting won't be an issue if we lose to Texas because any recruit that can overlook 0-59 will easily overlook a loss to Texas in a third tier bowl game. This may sound like a surprise to you, but there are coaches who can't coach yet are extremely great recruiters. Ed Orgeron comes to mind. Dude sucked at winning games at Ole Miss, but could recruit guys left and right. Winning and losing sometimes doesn't even matter to coaches who can flat out recruit, and that's what we have in Sumlin; a badass recruiter.

And I know comparing Alabama to Texas is like comparing a Ferrari 250 GTO to a 1998 Geo Metro. But at the end of the day, if Sumlin can overcome a 0-59 loss to Alabama in the recruiting trails, I highly doubt he will struggle immensely if he loses to Texas. Trust in Sumlin to do his job and agree to play Texas if the opportunity arises. Because if we can't trust him now, then when will we be able to?

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It disturbs me that you and I have agreed on anything twice in one day. And I assume it was your intent to disturb me, so well done.

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Oh, it still is ..............

But if we do end up playing Texas in a bowl game, I say to the naysayers the same thing Clayton Williams stupidly told rape victims; you just need to "relax and enjoy it"

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it is this bullheaded aversion to marketing and smart decisions that have made our program suck. This mentality, more than Texas or OU or anyone else, is the reason someone like a FSU has three modern national titles and we have none.

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DingdingmotherfrickinDINGDINGDINGDING

Yes you are scared. You are scared we will fall behind them w/a loss. There is no way around that. You can dress it up all you want but at the end of the day its fear. Nut up brohizzy