Question for A&M fans

The perfect storm of the move to the SEC, Johnny Football, and tu being down vaulted A&M into the national consciousness more than ever.

It is only downhill for the Whorns at this point

They can have the Metroplex and San Antonio
Houston is now a SEC city
Houston produces better players IMO

1. You probably pay more attention to A&M now then before since we're in the same conference.

2. We are getting more national coverage as mentioned in the posts above.

3. WTF is there to report about at tu? They expect another near .500 year. They're recruiting is no where near Mack Brown levels. They have no major talent on the team at the skill positions. They don't have any big name NFL prospects. They're expected to be middle of the pack in basketball again, but with the star power.

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The national media for sure is giving A&M more press than ever, but actually within the state a lot of the local media organizations try to pretend that A&M and the SEC in general doesn't exist.

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Pretty much this. The move drove a big wedge between the fan bases, and that includes peripheral followers or anyone with an allegiance to another SEC or BDF school.

I actually have degrees from both schools, but am very much an Aggie that got an MBA in Austin. At one time, I was able to support Texas as long as they were not playing A&M, but the DeLoss Dodds scorched earth strategy completely ruined that. Trying to save face by claiming that TCU is an upgrade from A&M, that our recruiting would only be helped in a small sliver of East Texas, and that playing an OOC rivalry game is just an impossible feat (never mind all the years of the OU game) was just so much hubris that stuff like the LHN was a relatively minor issue to me. (Especially now that it is viewed as an albatross.)

So, if someone who has a degree from that place can cut the ties as emphatically as I have, imagine the feeling among people with no such ambivalence. Now, juxtapose that onto a state media dominated by Texas grads (since A&M has had only a token journalism presence for most of its history), and you can see why the coverage INSIDE the state is still pretty slanted and delusional. Outside the state (like where I live now in Minnesota), the shift since the move is noticeable. Granted, I probably look for A&M stories and ignore Texas stories, but all I have to say is "A&M" when people ask where I went to school. That was not always the case, and it often required the "Texas" part.

It's kind of like why I read The Economist and BBC. I find that an outside perspective gives a better view than locals, and, in this case, A&M definitely gets more attention than we used to. Texas is still Texas, and will always get its share of ink. A&M in the SEC, though, is a game changer.

There is probably increased coverage in the Southeast because we are members of the SEC.

Houston is the fairest. They cover A&M pretty fairly and have a lot of LSU.

Unfortunately in the DFW media, it is all tu all the time. When it is not tu it is OU. Almost no SEC coverage.

The Fort Worth media understandably has some TCU coverage but it is overshadowed by tu.

San Antonio due to the proximity to Austin has more tu coverage but is better than DFW.

Austin obviously covers the Horns pretty well but occasionally does some A&M stuff. They have a reporter assigned to cover A&M but she does a poor job.

A&M shut down their journalism department years ago. They have re-opened it recently but it is very small.

DFW is the worst. They never have been strong on A&M but the media is still ticked off that we went to SEC. There is always huge coverage of the tu-OU game. Coverage for the A&M-Arkansas game at the Jerrydome is 50-50. The game is better for Arkansas than A&M.

I predict it will return to a home and home when the 10 year contract is over. It was only done to get Arkansas to approve moving their Piggie/LSU game for A&M to play LSU in the final game of the year.

Arkansas needs it more for recruiting Texas players.

Jerry will throw a lot of money at us to keep it in Arlington but IMHO is will revert back to a home and home.

So, who do we think is carpet-bombing the downvotes? Lester? texashorn? Some other "non-obsessed" tu lurker that saw "Aggie fan" in the thread title (on an SEC board) and went glassy-eyed with rage?

....the Aggies merely take their usual underachievement to a new level in another conference. So what?
"Just watch us now"....fades as the season (pick the sport) progresses.

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In the past, Texas was able to basically control A&M's exposure

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I wouldn't go that far, it wasn't some sort of planned conspiracy. It was just the natural consequence of their liberal arts focus and strong journalism school compared to A&M being a bunch of farmers and engineers.

I think a big thing many SEC people can't understand is that the Big 12 doesn't have and never had "Big 12 Media" like the SEC does. The SEC has people that focus on the entire league, and the entire league is somewhat seen as a solid audience. The Big 12 only has state based media, which due to the footprint means that Texas media is the defacto Big 12 media.

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If A&M can recruit the top players in Louisiana, East Texas and Houston then they should compete for the SEC Chsmpionship every year.

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So like... A&M is in Texas, and so is DFW, and a TON of talent comes out of DFW. We have historically pulled far more talent out of there than we ever will Louisiana. See. This is a microcosm of the Houston envy of Dallas. No DFW Aggie would ever want to eliminate Houston from A&M, but Houstonites are so jealous of Dallas, they really think we provide no value. It's insane.