What kind of coach can win a national championship at Texas A&M?

Born in Pickens County, Alabama where their first courthouse was burned by Brigadier General Croxton.

Croxton is the same Union general who burned most of The University of Alabama's buildings.

LSU won their first natty what 50 years after A&M had already won 3?

Also, that last pic seems like a good one for Aggie history. Looks a little suggestive.

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LSU won their first natty what 50 years after A&M had already won 3?

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1908

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Croxton is the same Union general who burned most of The University of Alabama's buildings.

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I like the cut of his jib, if you are into cutting jibs

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If Bear couldn’t do it I don’t know if anyone can

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Not sure you know the story; but Bryant was hardly here long enough to pass that kind of judgment.

Bryant was at A&M from 1954-1957, during which time he worked miracles.

The Bear had been hired to bring respectability back to A&M. It was a tough place to recruit players, since the Aggies were the cellar team in the Southwest Conference, there were no girls and it was a military school with compulsory ROTC, including the athletes. It was often referred to as a “poor boys school” and a “cow college” and was the brunt of a lot of Aggie jokes. Also, the campus looked a little bit like a penitentiary.

When he arrived for spring training in ’54 he didn’t like what he saw. In those days there were actually two teams; freshman and varsity, each with their own scheduled games. While he could recruit new players they would not be eligible to play on the varsity squad until their sophomore year, so he was stuck with all the players from his predecessor. The Bear was not impressed and was determined to weed out the losers.

That August, to remove the team from the anxious eyes of “mamas and papas” and the news media, he loaded the team into three buses and took them to an isolated and terribly rugged training camp in Junction, Texas, for what has become legendary as the toughest football camp in football history. Only one bus with 38 players returned to campus “after ten days of hell”. Among the “Junction Boys” were Gene Stallings ’57 and Jack Pardee ‘57. At game time for the first game, they were literally worn out.

His first season went 1 – 9, the only losing season in Bryant’s career and he never again suffered another 30 point loss. Except for the first game they were all fairly close scores and the Aggies showed a lot of grit and determination.

The next year, 1955, the Aggies were the surprise team of the conference with a winning season. In the Rice game they scored three touchdowns in the last 3:28 minutes for one of the most thrilling comebacks in school history. It was the first time many had ever heard of an “on-side” kick...and it worked.

In 1956 A&M reversed the score of Bryant’s first game against Texas Tech, beat Texas for the first time in Memorial Stadium in Austin, went undefeated and won the Southwest Conference Championship for the first time since WWII.

In 1957 A&M beat out Oklahoma for the #1 ranking after remaining undefeated for 18 games. John David Crow won the Heisman Trophy.

That same year Bear announced he was “going home to Mama” to be the head coach at his alma mater, Alabama. The rest is history.

Dude, Eddie Orgeron, Larry Coker, and Gene Chizik have done it. How hard can it be?

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Dude, Eddie Orgeron, Larry Coker, and Gene Chizik have done it. How hard can it be?

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Notice none of them did it at Texas A&M though.

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Not surprisingly, you didn't look very hard:

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People tend to overlook the fact that schools like LSU, Arkansas, A&M and others had great seasons that were ignored back in the day. There was a tremendous bias against Southern teams and that lasted well into the 70s.

The main reason the Ivy League, which had been the gold standard of college football, opted to switch to the FCS (and doesn't even play in the FCS tourney) is that they realized they simply could not compete with the growing powers in the South.