Clearing up some misconceptions about A&M

There is the misconception that A&M has long had large-school resources. There is the misconception that historic rivalries were fought on the grounds of equal resources. And there is the misconception that A&M is not currently, in terms of fan base, on par with the more successful SEC schools. The following information should clear those up:

A&M's enrollment through the years (further, it was almost entirely male in 1971):


1971 14,684
1972 16,067
1973 18,410
1974 21,244
1975 24,876
1976 27,547
1977 28,833
1978 30,255
1979 31,331
1980 33,499
1981 35,146
1982 36,127
1983 36,846
1984 36,827
1985 35,675
1986 36,570
1987 39,079
1988 39,163
1989 40,492
1990 41,171

In the 25 years from 1971 - 1990, A&M was totally transformed from what was more or less a bigger version of the Virginia Military Institute into a large state school. All of this is more recent that most people realize. Until the 1980s, LSU would not even come to College Station to play us. If college football had big TV in the 70s, A&M would not have had a chance at playing in a major conference.

It takes a generation for those first graduates of the "new" A&M to fill up the alumni base, which hasn't quite happened yet (although it is close).

This explains why it is surprising to many people how it is possible that, when Nate Silver ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nate_Silver ) wrote an article analyzing the size of the fan bases for college football, he got this ( https://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/the-geography-of-college-football-fans-and-realignment-chaos/ ):



A&M is very new money, so to speak. But it is what it is. As an Aggie, I hope we are able to tap the potential that our newly acquired resources bring, and very soon (it's already overdue!) We'll see.


(Edited to add the misconceptions that I am wanting to clear up).