Offseason Thread - Why Was Jackie Ran Off?

I thinkvthenprogram could have been much better off had he been at a&m a while longer. Just my opinion.

Also keep in mind that this was right after the death penalty at SMU. The paranoia about this was real.

Because, like many tomes before, we let the fricking longhorns manipulate our admin with threats, etc

You had to be there I guess. Jackie always said he did A&M a great favor by leaving. He was right. I don't know all the inside details-- I was just a kid-- but I do remember that "DEATH PENALTY" was a very real concern and then he left and we were still alive. It's noteworthy that he laid out for a year or two (bought a car dealership iirc) before going to Mississippi State.

He deserves a lot of credit, a lot of praise. Ags may not admit, or even realize, how much we owe him. Maybe ultimately we will. He inherited a hell of a mess (Emory Bellard -> Tom Wilson -> Dumpster Fire) and then did what he had to do to right the ship. Not at all unlike what Bear Bryant had done 30 years earlier.

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We owe him a two year bowl ban and probation. Yeah, I enjoyed the hell out of the Cotton Bowls and particularly the Tim Brown thing, but his reign was just another nail in the coffin of the SWC and the rest of the country being convinced (rightfully) that the SWC was a collection of cheaters.

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I enjoyed those Cotton Bowls, too. First time we'd been there since '68 and we went to three in a row then. If I remember correctly Sherril's first four Aggie records were 5-6, 5-5-1, 6-5, and 10-2. The first "million dollar coach" in history had the sporting world in an uproar; by '86 everyone was like, "Oh. OK. We should hire ourselves a million dollar man, too."

Yeah, he was a cheater. No doubt about it. But shite, man, we hadn't won the SWC in forever. The program was in a funk. Something had to give.

The way I remember it-- and I may be biased-- was something like this: If you won the SWC two years out of three and you were NOT Texas then a whole lot of t-sip journalists and attorneys started calling for an investigation. Rice and TCU had deemphasized football (lol look at TCU now); Tech and Cougar High were never-had-beens; everyone else was scared to death [penalty] to look at the Dallas Morning News on any given morning. The SWC was beautiful in its day. Its days were numbered. Thanks to you-know-who (a big orange machine) the SWC just ate itself.

And then so did the Big 12. And maybe someday the Pac 22.

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You're off only on calling Emory Bellard's teams a "hell of a mess". Great coach, great gentleman, good teams (#2 in '75 before the Ark. fiasco), no hint of NCAA infractions, stopped me on the way to class more than once to ask me how I was doing and meant it. He and RC were coaches I really looked up to. (Preemptive "I like the hell out of KDS, too")

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Yeah, my dad was a big fan, too. He had a framed autographed 8x10 on the wall in the den. I remember the day he came home from work and took it down. I was just a little squirt; I didn't know shite, but I knew it was a real sad day for everything under God.

Bellard was a genius. You say he was a helluva guy. I believe you. But I think history states that he never got over the Arkansas fiasco of '75. Maybe he had worked so hard to get to that season that, when it all fell apart, he couldn't muster the strength to pick back up the pieces. He did leave a program that was a shadow of its former self. And God knows that poor old Tom Wilson didn't know how to fix it. (He, too, was probably a nice guy. I can see some similarities between him and Jimmy Carter, perhaps too nice and sweet and honest for the office). Anywho~ Nothing personal against Bellard, let me assure you.