What was the key moment in aTm football in the last 40 years?

The reasons I picked Jackie's hiring:

Recruitment of Kevin Murray
Bringing the 12th Man back in public eye
Willingness of the Aggies to stoop to Coog High levels in recruiting
Gave the Aggies something they could identify with in his us vs world attitude
Jackie was Jackie, an arrogant arse if he was not on your sideline

They don't hire Jackie I think they don't make the move. At least not at this point


Just my opinion

Key moments:

1) The decision to agree to move the Arkansas game in 1975 from November to December for television. The Ags beat the Sips on T+1 and are #2 in the nation. The next week the Hogs paste us 31-6. National Championship dreams die in Little Rock.

2) The decision to go for broke in late 1981. First we call Bo Schembechler. He turns us down. We call Jackie Sherill. He comes on down.

3) The decision to move the SEC. Enough said.

1) Scholarship limitations are put in place. This changed the program like nothing else. (I know it was 1973, one year off, sue me)

2) Move to the SEC

3) Attempt to move to the SEC in 1991. Without this attempt, we would not have known what to do the second time (Total secrecy, work social media, etc).

4) Hiring RC Slocum. Jackie brought us back, but also got us sanctions for 1993 when we went undefeated. Slocum kept us a power for a decade and won our only B12 championship.

Yeah, I disagree too Hank. As much as I hate to admit it, WE alone didn't get ourselves in the SEC. It was the perfect mix of:

1. The LHN coming into formation, which gave us the political cover in the Texas House we needed. Without the "they got their toy, we want ours!" argument we get shut down.

2. The Governor of Texas is an Aggie, and more importantly he wants to be president. South Carolina is an important state for primaries.

3. We were INCREDIBLY uncompetitive in the 00's, which led Texas to the whole "not our rival" point of view. Because of that, they make the biggest mistake in the history of their program by not using more of their political power to stop our move. On the contrary, they kept Baylor in place to let us go because they thought we were a nuisance to be done with, not a threat to be careful with.

4. The fact that our president and UF's president sat next to each other and became buddies at AAU meetings. I am POSITIVE that the big thing that really pushed Bowtie is hearing how great the SEC was in comparison (as far as management competence) at those meetings.

5. The fact that the B1G's network (or more importantly its subscription model) shifted the priority for expansion from big brands (ala the SEC trying to get FSU back in the 90's) to big territory. I don't think the SEC screws with the digestion problem of a 14 team conference without the fear that they were going to fall FAR behind the Yankees in revenue.

Basically the moons aligned for us. All we did was have our Aggie-like determination when the opening presented itself. For example, when we posted Dan Branch's info online and then bombarded him so much that his blackberry melted. I am pretty sure he called off the hearing because he realized we would make his life a living hell if he stood in our way.

It was like hitting the lottery. And then Texas and Oklahoma willingly locking themselves in that GOR (which really gives us a chance to catch up brand-wise this decade) was like getting millions of dollars in inheritance right afterwards.

I've got to agree that it's hiring Jackie. When I was a little kid (now 42), the Aggies were bad year after year. The program was a joke. If we hadn't hired Jackie all of those years ago, we don't have the run we had from 1985-94.

I wonder what the level of fan interest would be in 2014... (i.e. college football would still have grown into a big business, and we would still have a huge alumni base to sell and market to).