re: Better late than never...

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I don't buy this, at all. Sumlin bungled the DC position for 3 years, and the OC position for 3 years. And the locker room was a mess for 3 straight years, especially at the most important position on the team.

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And yet none of that really hurt us on the recruiting trail until those QBs left. No matter the reality Sumlin did a good job of selling a mirage (until the QBs left) is all I am saying.

Look at it this way- the transfers did WAY more damage to our recruiting than 59-0 did. That shows us that 18 year old men care about style more than substance. We can't understand it being practical adult men, as we expect decisions based on concrete results.

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Then, based on reading the tea leaves, our bag got scared at the exact moment when UT and Ole Miss's stepped up.

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I think people overemphasize bagmen personally, but the point remains the bagmen don't pull back (in this narrative) if Sumlin's bubble wasn't popped by the transfers.

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I blame our football culture of not really knowing what we're doing when playing with the big dogs.

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I would argue our football culture is what it is because of our school culture. The "salesmanship" that you must have to be a major college football power is distasteful to our practical and conservative base. It's just a bunch of "weasel words" to us, so instead we are trying to basically buy a title via facilities (which won't work without the salesmanship).

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We don't know how to handle the media, we don't know how to handle contracts, we don't know how to handle TX HS coaches/AAU-type handlers

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Exactly, because of our culture. Schmoozing, hyping, marketing, glad handling, etc. are all right brain activities. Aggies are notoriously left brained, which just want to find the formula to solve our football problems and plug it in the right place. The problem is such a formula doesn't exist, the battles are won day-to-day in the court of public opinion.

Well, actually that isn't true. Around 2004 Texags had it figured out that "winning fixes everything." We just never make the connection "you need elite but dumbass 18 year old talent to win."