Started By
Message
re: Coaching question for A&M fans
Posted on 7/26/12 at 4:07 pm to ljhog
Posted on 7/26/12 at 4:07 pm to ljhog
Last year was just shear agony. One other stat just for fun, A&M was favored in 12 of 13 games last year. The only game we were underdogs was OU.
The toughest thing about it was Sherm is a fantastic person who absolutely "got" A&M. He loved the military tradition and even went to Iraq to meet with Aggie soldiers. He was all class and refused to negative recruit. He was the rare highly successful NFL coach that simply loved teaching kids and the college game, especially A&M. You wanted him to be successful which made it that much harder. By comparison everyone wanted to put a bullet in Fran and RC divided Aggies like few things ever have.
It's impossible to know if he keeps his job without the Texas loss. Odds are he would have gotten one more shot just because the feeling was he would be a good transitional figure. That Texas game though was the unforgivable sin. I can't even talk about it it gets me so angry. I went out and bought a new deer rifle the next day so I could just think about shooting something instead of that game. There was simply a large portion of the A&M fan base that would never have been able to look past it. Besides all of that, A&M has a lot of pent up angst from a decade of not only mediocre football but an attitude that it was somehow becoming acceptable.
Either way, it is pretty clear so far that Sumlin is what we need right now. He must win but at this point he has done everything else from recruiting to improving S&C to buying in to the SEC to being a fantastic public image of the program. We will just have to see where it leads.
The toughest thing about it was Sherm is a fantastic person who absolutely "got" A&M. He loved the military tradition and even went to Iraq to meet with Aggie soldiers. He was all class and refused to negative recruit. He was the rare highly successful NFL coach that simply loved teaching kids and the college game, especially A&M. You wanted him to be successful which made it that much harder. By comparison everyone wanted to put a bullet in Fran and RC divided Aggies like few things ever have.
It's impossible to know if he keeps his job without the Texas loss. Odds are he would have gotten one more shot just because the feeling was he would be a good transitional figure. That Texas game though was the unforgivable sin. I can't even talk about it it gets me so angry. I went out and bought a new deer rifle the next day so I could just think about shooting something instead of that game. There was simply a large portion of the A&M fan base that would never have been able to look past it. Besides all of that, A&M has a lot of pent up angst from a decade of not only mediocre football but an attitude that it was somehow becoming acceptable.
Either way, it is pretty clear so far that Sumlin is what we need right now. He must win but at this point he has done everything else from recruiting to improving S&C to buying in to the SEC to being a fantastic public image of the program. We will just have to see where it leads.
1
Posted on 7/26/12 at 4:54 pm to aggressor
quote:
it is pretty clear so far that Sumlin is what we need right now
I agree. The big difference between Sumlin and the past two is that the others already had some big mark against them at this point.
Fran straight up ditched his Alabama players in the middle of the night, which many, even at the time, thought was worrisomely skeezy. It turned out he was a major skeezehound, which is what we were afraid of.
Sherman was never warmly embraced. His hire was a major letdown head-scratcher and the fanbase was either "meh" or against him from the start. Mike Sherman is a classy guy, unlike Fran, but he was exactly what we were worried about: a major snorlax.
Neither of those two did jack for our image, neither purposefully set out to rep the brand in the media, neither "played the game", neither had charisma. RC was more charismatic than Fran or Sherm, but not in the way that attracts recruits - he was an East Texas / Louisiana good ol' boy, which is fine for the fanbase, but NOT what A&M needs more of in terms of media coverage or for recruits. Sumlin on the other hand is out there doing everything he can to get his name, our name, and our brand in the media and the minds of potential recruits. The guy is charming as can be and "cool" like we haven't had... maybe ever.
Of course, we need to see the guy freakin' coach a game and WIN, but right now he's ahead of RC, Fran, and Sherman in terms of doing the things Mack Brown has made his freakin career on, but which we never have even remotely been close to marginally doing right. We make fun of that guy for being a pitchman more than a coach, but if ever there's been a school that needs a dang pitch man, it's A&M.
This post was edited on 7/26/12 at 4:55 pm
Page 1 of 1
Popular
Back to top
Follow SECRant for SEC Football News